The Leadership Practices of Middle and High School Principals

Secondary Education    Principals/Superintendents

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TITLE: The Leadership Practices of Middle and High School Principals
 
RESEARCHER: Donald W. Leech and Ray C. Fulton
Paper presented at the 56th annual meeting of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (Burlington, VT), 2002.
ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED472143

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to examine the difference in middle and high school teachers’ perceptions of the leadership practices of educational leaders.

METHODOLOGY
All 1841 teachers in 26 schools (large, urban public school district), where the principal had at least two years of longevity in the school, were asked to complete the LPI, and 242 teachers from middle schools and 646 teachers from high schools responded (35% response rate).

KEY FINDINGS
No significant differences were found on any of the five leadership practices between respondents from middle and high schools. The authors conclude that “the results of this study portray a somewhat promising view of the current status of school leadership. Over half of the responding teachers perceived both middle and high school principals as demonstrating Kouzes and Posner’s (1995) effective leadership practice ‘fairly often’ to ‘almost always’” (p. 12).