Higher Education Students
OBJECTIVE To assess the organizational environment of student union programming committees along with the frequency of certain leadership practices of student leaders of those committees as perceived by their constituents to determine any differences in the organizational climate.
METHODOLOGY The population included those students involved in student unions/programming boards as state universities in the Southeast. A total of 704 survey were mailed to 81 programming committees at 13 state supported universities across 7 Southeastern states. Ninety usable responses resulted (13% response rate). There were 25 men and 62 females in the sample; distribution by year in school was as follows: 27 Freshmen, 21 Sophomores, 25 Juniors, 6 Seniors and 1 Graduate Student. Nearly two-thirds had been involved less than one academic term. Grouping into general program committee types resulted in Lectures (21), Music (4), Variety (32), Miscellaneous (25), and Publicity (8). The student version of the LPI was used, along with the Student Organization Environment Scale (SOES; Winston, Street, Brown, Rounds, Wisbey & Goyen, 1995).
KEY FINDINGS There was a moderately strong correlation between leadership scores and the features of the students' environment (SOES). "Statistically significant Pearson correlations revealed that elements of effective leadership practices on the part of committee leaders as perceived by their constituent members were positive correlated with most elements of the organization environment, particularly Helpful Mechanisms, Structure, and Purposes" (p. 20). There were no significant differences in terms of how males and females perceived their leaders on the Student LPI.