Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss how principals in Taiwan lead student and teacher learning at a time of leadership and learning paradigm shifts and the imminent implementation of the curriculum guideline for 12-year basic education. Design/methodology/approach This study interviewed 32 elementary and junior high school principals purposively sampled based on reputation and recommendation from senior principals and government officials. Findings As a society which values credentialism, principals in Taiwan face challenges in executing the vision of educating student as a whole person. The authors discuss how principals are solidifying whole person education as the espoused value, how they are enforcing school-based curriculum and effective instruction, and encouraging teacher professional learning. Principals are sharing power by recruiting stakeholders’ participation in guiding school development and enacting distributed leadership, while also building relationship as social capital and soliciting support from the community to establish the conditions to improve teaching and learning. Research limitations/implications This paper highlights how principal practices are evolving in a time of changing conception of learning from academic achievement to multiple competencies and the shifting paradigm of power from participatory decision making to distributed leadership. This paper ends with a discussion on how leadership for learning (LfL) as a community engagement has emerged. Practical implications With the shifting of the concept and paradigm of learning, principals in a high power distance society like Taiwan are now facing opportunities as well as challenges to lead teachers to engaging students in inquiry and collaboration. Originality/value This paper highlights the indigenous practices of principal LfL in a high-performing East Asian education system in a time of changing notions of learning and leadership.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine how instructional leadership, a concept imported from Western scholarship, has been conceptualized in the Taiwanese context and how principal instructional leadership is realized in schools. The development trajectory of principal instructional leadership is delineated by examining empirical studies in the past two decades. Design/methodology/approach -This paper adopts an exploratory approach to review the Taiwanese empirical literature on principal instructional leadership. A total of 80 studies were systematically analyzed and common themes were identified. Findings -This paper finds that a hybrid model of the conceptualization of instructional leadership has been developed in Taiwan. Principals performed more indirect than direct leadership behaviors. A gap exists between the ideal instructional leader and the reality.Research limitations/implications -The development of a formal theory of instructional leadership is expected as various substantive theories are developed and more data are accumulated.

In the context of educational decentralisation, school leadership encompassing different sources of leadership is significant for school performance. However, few studies have investigated the pathway regarding how principals and teachers as distinct sources of learning-centred leadership exert impact on teacher learning. To this end, survey data collected from 1340 junior high school teachers in Taiwan were analysed with structural equation modelling. The results suggest that both principal leadership and teacher leadership affect teacher learning through direct pathways, and that of teachers exhibits an even greater impact. In addition, principal leadership affects teacher learning through indirect pathways mediated by teacher leadership. By further investigating the mediating effects of different practices of teacher leadership, we found that teacher-led improvement of curriculum and instruction is a critical mediator for teacher learning.

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Recent interest has been noted in the evaluation community in expanding the focus from program implementation and outcomes to program design and planning. One important step for moving in this direction is to examine existing evaluation models and to assess their relative strengths and weaknesses for planning purposes. This article presents a comparative case study of applying logic models and the action model/change model schema for planning the Learning Community Program in Taiwan. Lessons learned from these applications indicate that logic models are relatively easy to learn and effective for identifying major program components and indicators, but not sufficient for articulating the theoretical significance of the program. On the other hand, the action model/change model schema requires more time to learn and practise, but it has relative advantages for providing theoretical insights into contextual factors and causal mechanisms of the program, unlike logic models. This comparison can serve as a guide for evaluation practitioners when selecting evaluation tools to apply in planning and/or evaluating their programs. Résumé : De plus en plus les évaluateurs semblent orienter leur intérêt vers la conception et la planification de programme plutôt que sur l'implantation et les effets. Une étape importante de ce virage est d' examiner les modèles d' évaluation existants et d' évaluer leurs points forts et leurs points faibles pour l' exercice de planification. Cet article présente une étude de cas comparative de l'utilisation des modèles logiques et des modèle d' action/de changement aux fins de la planification d'un programme d' apprentissage communautaire à Taiwan. Nos résultats indiquent que les modèles© 2018 Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation / La Revue canadienne d'évaluation de programme 33.1 (Spring / printemps), 49-68 figure 1. Action Model/Change Model Schema Using Logic Models and the Action Model/Change Model Schema 57 CJPE 33.1, 49-68 variety of items. This is especially true for the activity component. It seems to me anything we do can be put in this component. In this case, the activity component could become a garbage can. I think the schema overcomes this problem by differentiating components between the action model and change model.

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