The Influence of School Leaders’ Informal Learning on their Professional Identity in Primary, Secondary and Higher Education

Abstract

Formal and informal workplace learning activities have become more relevant during the last years (Tynjälä, 2008), especially in education because of its influence on school leader professional development. The effects of formal workplace activities on school leaders’ have frequently been researched (Bush & Jackson, 2002; Huber, 2003; Wilson & Xue, 2013). The effects of informal workplace activities on school leaders’ professional identity, however, remain underexposed (Daniëls et al., 2019; Hulsbos et al., 2016; Zhang & Brundrett, 2010). This study aims to investigate the influence of informal workplace activities on professional identity development of school leaders by interviewing school leaders from primary, secondary and higher education in the Netherlands. Results show that the most frequent used informal workplace activities are discussion, observation and reflection. School leaders value professional development and can clearly express increased skills and self-image, most frequently caused by remarks made by peers and personal reflection during conversations. This study provides insights into how informal workplace learning influences professional development of the interviewed school leaders. As such, it provides a starting point for future investigations that should focus on specific workplace activities such as cooperative learning and the influence of formal learning on informal workplace activities.