Leadership Practices and Teacher Morale in Missouri Charter Schools

OBJECTIVE
This quantitative study examined correlations between leadership practices and teacher morale in
Missouri charter schools. This study sought to answer the following research questions: Is there a
significant difference in leadership practices among Missouri charter schools? Is there a
significant difference in teacher morale when comparing Missouri charter schools? Are
leadership practices and teacher morale correlated in Missouri charter schools?

METHODOLOGY
To answer these questions, 94 teachers from five Missouri charter schools completed two
surveys. The Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI 360) survey measured the leadership practices
used by the principals. The Purdue Teacher Opinionaire (PTO) Saka (2018) survey measured
teachers’ morale.

KEY FINDINGS
Then, using the data collected, ANOVA and Pearson Correlation tests were run to compare the
means and look for correlations between the two surveys. There are three key findings of the
present research. First, the data showed no consensus on the leadership practices used by
principals and presented significant differences in usage frequencies. Second, the results
demonstrated no uniformity in teacher morale among the schools. Lastly, the main finding of this
study was a strong positive correlation between leadership practices and teacher morale. In other
words, the more principals used the leadership practices from the LPI 360 survey, the higher the
morale of their teachers was. Other researchers could do this study on a larger scale with charter
school teachers from different states or with traditional public schools.