Australian Journal of Teacher Education - Vol 39 - Issue 2 - Article 5 - Complying with School Accountability Requirements and the Impact on School Leaders

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jasmine

Research addresses rising school accountability demands across Australian federal and state jurisdictions and evaluates how compliance requirements shape school leaders’ workloads. The reviewed literature indicates that time spent on compliance can detract from leading teaching and learning, weakening engagement with the principal role and limiting aspiring careers. Eleven semi-structured interview questions generated data analyzed into three themes: resources for compliance, perceived value, and effects on school independence, educational leadership, and leaders’ personal costs.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Research question

Ethics approval

Semi-structured interview method

Australian Journal of Teacher Education | Volume 39 | Issue 2 | Article 5 | | --- | --- | 2014 Complying with School Accountability Requirements and the Impact on School Leaders Graeme Lock Edith Cowan University, [g.lock@ecu.edu.au](g.lock@ecu.edu.au) Geoff Lummis Edith Cowan Univeristy Recommended Citation Lock, G., & Lummis, G. (2014). Complying with School Accountability Requirements and the Impact on School Leaders. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39 (2). Retrieved from [http://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol39/iss2/5](http://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol39/iss2/5) This Journal Article is posted at Research Online. [http://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol39/iss2/5](http://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol39/iss2/5) Australian Journal of Teacher Education Complying with School Accountability Requirements and the Impact on School Leaders Graeme Lock Geoff Lummis Edith Cowan University Abstract: Within an era of seemingly ever-increasing school accountability to both Federal and State jurisdictions in Australia, the impact of such requirements has received little attention in the literature. This research project was designed specifically to investigate the impact of compliance requirements on school leaders’ workloads. The literature reviewed finds that detraction from the key role of leading teaching and learning due to spending so much time on compliance requirements leads to disenchantment with the role of the principal and is a leading contributor to why so few aspirants are pursuing a career as a principal. Eleven semi-structured interview questions were developed and analysis of the data revealed three broad themes: the use of resources required to meet compliance; the perceived value of the request for compliance; and, the impact of compliance on the independent nature of the school, educational leadership and personal cost. The findings not only have implications for current school leaders, but also undergraduate and postgraduate course structures, particularly in educational leadership units, as the nature of the demands revealed in this study should be considered within course content. Introduction During a workshop conducted in April 2013, principals commented that they are being subjected to increasing demands to supply data to a range of stakeholders and to meet many regulatory requirements of both Federal and State governments . Anecdotal feedback to date suggest that the role of the principal is changing due to increased demands external to the school and is placing leaders more as administrative agents of governments and taking them away the from the crucial roles of school leader and the driver of education leadership within the school. A recently completed comprehensive survey of Western Australian (WA) public school principals commissioned by the Secondary School Teachers Union of Western Australia (SSTUWA) concluded that “principals are overloaded with work, unsupported and under resourced to the point children’s education is at risk”(West Australian, May 28th 2013). Prior to the commencement of the research, a briefing session was held and attended by principals and school board members . Two of the issues discussed was concern about the amount of time and stress external compliance requests were placing on schools, particularly principals . The aim of this project was to investigate, within a sample of 12 WA schools, the impact of regulation compliance on the role of school principals . To ensure the schools, Vol 39, 2, February 2014 58 Australian Journal of Teacher Education which participated in this research remain anonymous their location and the education systems to which they belong will not be discussed. The research question was: What is the impact on principal workload of completing external compliance requirements? Table 1 provides details of the interview questions, which were developed to collect the data . Ethics approval wa

FAQs

What was the purpose of the study?

To investigate the impact of external regulation compliance requirements on school principals’ workloads within a sample of 12 Western Australian schools.

How were the data collected?

Through semi-structured interviews with principals and other selected school leaders, using stratified random sampling based on student population size.

What themes emerged from the interview data?

Three broad themes were identified: resources required for compliance, perceived value of compliance requests, and compliance’s impact on school independence, educational leadership, and personal cost (stress, lifestyle, and health).

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jasmine