Preservice teacher education stakeholders' perceptions of distributed pedagogical leadership in nurturing teacher leadership

Abstract The need for quality teaching and improved student learning outcomes has been an area of interest in educational leadership studies in various contexts. The emergent distributed pedagogical leadership is based on a hybrid of distributed leadership and pedagogical leadership concepts. This study aimed to explore the participants' perceptions and understanding of the enactment of the concept, its influence on pedagogical improvement and its significance in the nurturing of stakeholders as teacher leaders. The study was conducted at a preservice public teacher training college in Kenya. It employed a mixed‐methods research approach with a convergent parallel design to collect, analyse and triangulate data from 294 participants consisting of a principal, teacher–trainers and teacher–trainees. Random purposive sampling was used in identifying the participants. The findings revealed that although the distribution of pedagogical leadership responsibilities was enacted among stakeholders, it was unevenly shared. Furthermore, understaffing, low teacher–trainee enrolment and teacher–trainer workload challenges inhibited effective implementation. The study recommended that further studies be conducted at multiple teacher–trainee institutions to confirm the findings.