Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

Abstract

Teachers continue to report high levels of stress (Kyriacou, 2011; Metropolitan Life Insurance & Harris Interactive, 2013; Richards, 2012) and principals serve as potential stressors by providing leadership in an era of accountability. Although effective principal leadership behaviors have been identified to improve student achievement, minimal research exists on the impact of principal leadership behaviors on teacher stress levels. This quantitative study examined the impact of select principal leadership behaviors on 3,004 Indiana K-12 public school teachers' perceived stress levels. Through an electronic survey consisting of a researcher-designed principal leadership composite survey (PLCS) and the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen, 1994), stepwise multiple regression revealed that teachers who perceived their principals as more effective in essential leadership behaviors had lower levels of perceived stress. Essential principal leadership behaviors, gender, and growth-model evaluated positions were significant predictors of elementary and secondary teacher PSS scores, and age was an additional predictor for secondary teachers. Further, single sample t tests showed that Indiana K-12 public school teachers experience significantly higher levels of stress than three national PSS10 survey populations for men, women, and all age groups 25 years and over. Independent-sample t tests and one-way ANOVAs found that gender, teaching a growth-model evaluated course, developmental level, school setting, and student poverty levels all significantly impacted teacher PSS scores. This study will benefit teachers, principals, and Educational training departments by increasing awareness of the impact of leadership behaviors on teachers, and further, hopes to improve the working environment for all teachers to foster greater student achievement.

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