Does educational leadership enhance instructional quality and student achievement? The case of Austrian primary school leaders

School leadership ranks as an essential factor for successful schools. The purpose of this study is therefore to investigate the effects of two central leadership practices – setting directions and managing instructional processes – on both instructional quality (mediator) and student achievement (target) in Austrian primary schools. The data for this study originate from the 2018 national educational standards test in mathematics, allowing the use of information from 3,785 teachers and 73,780 students from 2,961 schools. In line with theoretical leadership effectiveness models, the results of multi-level structural equation analysis reveal systematic relations of instructional quality with student achievement. However, no direct or indirect effects of the two leadership dimensions on student achievement are apparent when simultaneous effects of student GPA and student background variables, such as highest parental occupational status, books at home, migration background, and language spoken at home, are controlled for. We discuss these results as well as previous findings with respect to methodological issues and contextual conditions that deserve more attention in future studies.