Higher Education Students
OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not people form different racial backgrounds have similar leadership styles.
METHODOLOGY There were 48 students At Central Michigan University who participated in this study, equally divided between the National Panhellenic Council (the governing body of the traditionally African American Greek organizations) and Panhellenic Council (the governing body of the social sororities). Four sorority chapter presidents in each group completed the Student Leadership Practices Inventory (SLPI), and each president requested that five members of her executive committee complete the SLPI Observer. Internal reliabilities for the SLPI reported in this sample ranged between .55 and .88 for the SLPI.
KEY FINDINGS The researcher concluded that the “results from this procedure were inconclusive. It was shown that there were no differences in leadership practices between the African American and Caucasian American sorority members” (p. 7), either between presidents or between the embers of their respective (racial-based) chapter organizations. The researcher noted several problems in data collection, and also felt that the campus environment may have “poisoned” the sample population due to “great Greek unrest in the campus community” and the incident of a hate crime committed on another nearly college campus.