Addressing the gap in creative pedagogies among teachers through instructional leadership: A meta-analysis of countries in PISA 2022

The within-school gap in teaching has long been a primary focus of policymakers, researchers, and practitioners working to ensure equitable student outcomes. However, limited empirical research has examined the factors that can address this gap. This study examined the role of instructional school leadership in explaining variation in within-school creative pedagogies, controlling for various school-level contextual and teacher-related variables. The data come from 17 countries that participated in the 2022 PISA program. The analysis followed three steps. First, variables related to school and teachers were included in the regression. Then, instructional leadership was included in the analysis to examine its association with within-school variation in teachers’ use of creative pedagogies. The regression coefficients from each country were then combined in a meta-analysis to estimate the country-level effects. Across 17 countries, instructional leadership was generally associated with lower within-school variation in teaching quality, though this relationship was statistically significant in only three countries. These results point to a modest but potentially meaningful role for instructional leadership in reducing the gap among teachers in their creativity-oriented teaching practices and, in turn, promoting greater equity in student learning.