Strengthening Collaborative Educational Leadership for School Improvement through Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA): A Systematic Literature Review

Heri Hadi Saputra (Universitas Mataram)
Mohammad Mustari (Universitas Mataram)
Muhammad Makki (Universitas Mataram)
Abdul Kadir Jaelani (Universitas Mataram)
Dayang Raf'idah Syariff M. Fuad (Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris)
Heri Hadi Saputra
Mohammad Mustari
Muhammad Makki
Abdul Kadir Jaelani
Dayang Raf'idah Binti Syariff M. Fuad
Jumadil Awal (Universitas Mataram)

Open Access DRIVERset
Vol. 7 No. 4 (2027)

Educational reform increasingly requires leadership approaches capable of addressing complex challenges through collaboration, adaptation, and stakeholder engagement. However, the conceptual relationship between Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) and collaborative educational leadership remains insufficiently examined. This study aims to examine their conceptual relationship and identify how PDIA principles can strengthen collaborative leadership in educational reform. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) combined with conceptual synthesis was conducted on 78 studies published between 2010 and 2025, comprising 16 studies on PDIA and 62 on collaborative educational leadership. Following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, the review involved systematic searching, screening, coding, thematic analysis, cross-synthesis, and conceptual integration. The synthesis identified four integrative mechanisms connecting PDIA with collaborative educational leadership: Shared Problem Solving, Distributed Leadership Structure, Adaptive Learning and Change, and Stakeholder and Network Mobilization. These mechanisms demonstrate that adaptive reform and collaborative leadership are interconnected through collective problem diagnosis, distributed responsibility, iterative learning, experimentation, and stakeholder engagement. Based on these findings, a conceptual framework was developed positioning PDIA as an adaptive process that strengthens collaborative educational leadership in complex reform contexts. The framework extends existing educational leadership perspectives by integrating collaborative leadership structures with iterative, context-sensitive problem-solving processes. The study contributes theoretically by bridging two scholarly traditions and providing a process-oriented explanation of how collaboration and adaptation can operate together in educational reform. Practically, the framework offers a basis for strengthening collective problem-solving, organizational learning, adaptive capacity, and stakeholder mobilization for sustainable educational improvement.