Psychological Type and Leadership Practices of Women Student Leaders

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TITLE Psychological Type and Leadership Practices of Women Student Leaders
 
RESEARCHER Tracey E. Reeves
Department of Educational Leadership, Policy and Foundations
University of Florida
Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation: August 2001

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between self-perceptions of psychological types and empowering leadership practices of women student leaders.

METHODOLOGY
The sample consisted of 200 women student leaders (response rate 92%) at a major public research university (University of Florida). The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Form M (MBTI) and the Student Leadership Practices Inventory were completed, along with some demographic information. The mean age of respondents was 20.2 years, 61 percent were Caucasian, with typically one year of leadership (organizational) experience, and 70 percent were upper-division students.

KEY FINDINGS
Correlation analysis revealed that extravert was significantly positively correlated with and introvert was significantly negatively correlated with all five leadership practices. There was a significant correlation between sensing (negative)/intuition (positive) with Challenging and a significant correlation between judging (negative)/perceiving (positive) with Enabling. ANOVA showed a positive effect for extravert with all five leadership practices, a negative effect for sensing with Challenging, and a negative effect for judging with Enabling.

A logistic regression analysis demonstrated that only the leadership practice of Inspiring was related to the respondent’s organizational position; not significant for the other four leadership practices. ANOVA revealed no significant results for the five leadership practices and length of leadership experience. Logistic regression showed no significant results for gender composition of organizational membership and the five leadership practices.

“Descriptive statistics demonstrated that the means on all five Student LPI subscales for the sample and the sample population of women student leaders were similar” (p. 66).