Abstract

• The purposes of this study are (1) to study the extent of principals’ instructional leadership practices perceived by teachers according to demographic data, school level and their knowledge level, (2) to study the extent of teachers’ primary science teaching practices according to school level, (3) to study the relationship between principals’ instructional leadership practices and teachers’ primary science teaching practices, and (4) to reveal the best predictor of instructional leadership practices for primary science teaching. Descriptive method was used in this research. Two sets of questionnaires: questionnaire for principals and questionnaire for teachers were used in quantitative study. In qualitative study, interview, documentation and observation checklists were used. A proportional stratified sampling method was used to select 95 principals and 450 teachers from 10 selected townships in Yangon City Development Area. Among them, 7 principals and 21 teachers were purposively selected for qualitative study. Descriptive statistics, Item Percent Correct (IPC), independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, post-hoc test by Tukey, the Pearson product moment correlation and multiple regression, and cyclical process were used for the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. It was found that there were significant differences in principals’ instructional leadership practices according to gender, school level, and their knowledge level. a significant difference was found in teachers’ primary science teaching practices according to school level. There was an association between principals’ instructional leadership practices and teachers’ primary science teaching practices. The first predictor of instructional leadership was giving incentives, and the second one monitoring the teaching/ learning process for improving primary science teaching. Qualitative study suggests that school level, extra work loads, and number of teachers may be the main reasons affecting instructional leadership