Secondary Education Principals/Superintendents
OBJECTIVE To examine the relationship between principals’ leadership practices and their impact on the job satisfaction of teachers.
METHODOLOGY The representative sample consisted of 28 middle school principals (97% response rate) and 591 middle school teachers (56%) from ten counties in the southeastern part of North Carolina. Respondents completed the LPI, the Purdue Teacher Opinonnaire (Bentley & Rempel, 1980) - which produces 10 scales - and provided demographic information. The typical principal was male (71%), non-Caucasian (61%), between 46-55 years of age (46%), with a master’s degree (77%). The typical teacher was female (78%), Caucasian (61%), fairly divided between 26-35 (28%) and 36-45 years of age (28%), with a bachelor’s degree (63%).
KEY FINDINGS Middle school teachers’ overall job satisfaction was related to the principals’ leadership practice of Encouraging, but not the other four leadership practices. There were significant correlations between principals’ leadership practices and the various subscales. Using a combined scale of the five practices, principals’ leadership scores were significantly different for age, race, and gender but not for level of education or years of administrative experience. Age, gender, level of education and number of years teaching were not significantly related to teacher’s overall job satisfaction; race and satisfaction were related.