The Leadership Practices of Chief Student Affairs Officers in Texas: A Comparative Analysis

Higher Education    Managers/Executives/Administrators

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TITLE The Leadership Practices of Chief Student Affairs Officers in Texas: A Comparative Analysis
 
RESEARCHER Samuel W. Oliver
College of Education
Texas A&M University
Doctoral Dissertation: May 2001

OBJECTIVE
To examine the leadership practices of chief student affairs officers (CSAO) in Texas.

METHODOLOGY
The population of CSAO in Texas (N=144) was sampled, with a 65.3 percent response rate (N=94). In addition to completing the LPI-Self, each CSAO distributed one copy of the LPI-Observer. Of the latter 82 were returned (57% response rate).

The typical CSAO was male (64%), Caucasian (78% with 12% Black and 11% Hispanic), with an average of 16+ years of experience. The demographic characteristics of "observers" was quite similar.

KEY FINDINGS
CSAO LPI-Self scores were consistently higher than those provided by their observers (except for Encouraging), although none of these differences were statistically different. The rank ordering of the leadership practices was the same between the two groups. Enabling received the highest mean scores from both groups, followed by Modeling, Encouraging, Challenging and Inspiring. None of the demographic variables were found to contribute significantly to scores on the five practices of leadership.