A Reflection on the Behavioral Components of School Principals in the Formation of Teachers’ Professional Learning Communities (Systematic Review)

The professional learning community represents a collective effort to improve students' learning, strengthen and stabilize the learning of all employees within the school, create knowledge through research and search, analysis, and use of data for continuous improvement. Therefore, its formation and development in the school are recognized as one of the duties of principals. These gatherings do not happen by themselves; rather, they should be managed and guided, and supported. School principals play a key role in the formation and realization of teachers' professional learning communities, and according to what they pay attention to, what they do and what they reward, and the tone they have, they set the direction and expectations for learning determined in school. Due to the effectiveness of these communities in strengthening students' learning, teachers' professional growth, improving classroom educational processes, and improving school productivity and efficiency, examining the role of principals in the formation and development of teachers' professional learning communities has theoretical importance. Therefore, the present study was conducted to identify the behaviors of school principals in the formation of teachers' professional learning communities.

This research was conducted using a qualitative method in the form of a systematic qualitative review. This method, it has been tried to create a comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of the role of school principals and their behaviors in the formation of teachers' professional learning community by analyzing the evidence provided by previous experimental studies. This research was conducted according to the steps provided by Wright et al. (2007). After developing the research protocol, studies related to the search of specified keywords were systematically identified and extracted from 9 leading international journals in educational management. After screening the identified articles according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 35 articles related to the objectives and questions of the current research were selected. The research data were collected and classified by the checklist tool and manually analyzed by the researcher. Data synthesis has been done in three levels: open coding, central coding, and selective coding. To validate the research, self-review of the researcher, review of colleagues, and control of participants through electronic correspondence with the authors of some included articles have been used.

According to the findings of the research, 31 open codes (indicators) were identified in the selected code "behavior and strategies of school principals in the formation of teachers' professional learning community". These open codes were categorized into 6 core components. The results of this research show supportiveness (with 8 indicators), integration (with 4 indicators), seeking cooperation (with 5 indicators), creating empowering networks (with 5 indicators), learning orientedness (with 5 indicators), and continuous monitoring (with 4 indicators) for the formation and development of teachers' professional learning community as behavioral components of school principals. The results of this research show that principals play a role in the formation and realization of learning communities by supporting teachers and learning communities, creating coordination, alignment, and cohesion in the school, attracting the participation and cooperation of all stakeholders in the school, creating networks inside and outside the school for professional development, the empowerment of the school teachers in a networked way, placing the students' learning and the professional growth of the teachers in the school as the center of gravity of all the activities and programs of the school as well as the continuous supervision and monitoring of the processes and their results and evaluation along with providing necessary feedback.