The role of principals in primary school teacher's knowledge development and sharing: Introducing knowledge sharing leadership variable

The aim of the current exploratory mixed methods research was to investigate principal's role in creating and improving teachers’ knowledge sharing (KSh). Firstly, in qualitative phase, educational experts were participated and interviewed. Participants were selected using purposeful sampling method.The results of content analysis and coding of interviews revealed 60 indicators and 12 dimensions including principal's beliefs in KSh, creating the need for KSh among teachers, encouraging collaboration at school, developing communication at school, determining the formal expectations to KSh for teachers, holding teacher meetings for KSh, creating informal opportunities for KSh, creating and fostering professional learning climate at school, principles as a model of KSh, identifying teachers who are eager in KSh, encouraging teachers for KSh, and encouraging teachers to document their knowledge. In the quantitative phase of this study, using the identified indicators and dimensions, a questionnaire was devised as Knowledge Sharing Leadership (KSHL) questionnaire. In this phase, 377 teachers were randomly selected from primary schools of Tehran and they completed the questionnaire. The data of this phase was analyzed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The result of CFA revealed that the measurement model of KSHL has good fit to the observed data. This study highlights the role of principals in teachers’ KSh and recommends KSHL variable and questionnaire to researchers. The results are discussed in the final section of the paper.