Higher Education Managers/Executives/Administrators
OBJECTIVE To examine the relationship between leadership practices, job satisfaction and leadership activities of trained reading recovery teachers as practitioners of reading innovation and literacy leadership in the infrastructure of the elementary school.
METHODOLOGY All teachers affiliated with the New York University Reading Recovery Project from 1989 to 1995 were surveyed (N=300, with a 77% response rate). Over 97 percent of the respondents were female, 72% were between the ages of 40 and 54 years, and 92% were caucasian. Forty-two percent had been employed full-time in education for more than 20 years, 79% held a master's degree or more, and at least 71% were certified as reading specialists. Respondents completed the LPI, the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ: Weiss, et. al., 1967), and demographic information.
KEY FINDINGS Trained Reading Recovery teachers demonstrate a significant relationship between leadership practices and job satisfaction, and have higher average scores than business groups reported in the literature. The most frequently engaged in leadership practice was Enabling, followed by Encouraging, Modeling, Challenging and Inspiring. Overall, the leadership practices were not related with various demographic information. Generally all five leadership practices were significantly correlated with intrinsic, extrinsic and general satisfaction, based on the MSQ (challenging was not significantly related with extrinsic satisfaction). For those Reading Recovery teachers (N=212) who participated in leadership activities (making presentations, delivery staff development and working with colleagues) there was a significant correlation between leadership practices and all three satisfaction subscales, while for those teachers who did not participate in leadership activities the correlation between leadership practices and satisfaction was significant only for intrinsic satisfaction. Teachers who participated in leadership activities also reported higher scores for Challenging, Enabling and Modeling than did their non-active counterparts. MSQ scores revealed greater intrinsic than extrinsic satisfaction levels.