Date of Award

1981

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Curriculum, Instruction, and Media Technology

Abstract

The present study was designed to investigate the relationships among principal trust, leadership style, and perceived administrative effectiveness in Indiana secondary schools. A review of related literature and research substantiated a need for the study. The instruments used in the study to answer the research questions were Carl Edwards' Situational Preference Inventory, to identify leadership style; Will Schutz's Perceptions of Administrative Interaction Questionnaire, to identify teacher perceptions of their administrator's effectiveness in the areas of Administrative Decision Making, Communication, General Administrative Ability, and Educational Leadership; and Daniel Kegan's Beliefs scale, to measure the trust level of teachers and principals. The instruments were sent to a random sample of 200 Indiana secondary schools. Carl Edwards' Situational Preference Inventory and Daniel Kegan's Beliefs scale and Will Schutz's Perceptions of Administrative Interaction Questionnaire, were sent to five teachers in each school in the sample. A total of 148 (74%) principals and 711 (57.5%) of the teachers responded. Altogether 138 (69%) schools had at least three teachers respond. After removing incomplete and improperly answered responses and matching corresponding teacher and principal responses, there were a total of 104 complete sets of teacher scores with principal trust scores. Two statistical methods were used to analyze the data, The Pearson Product Moment Correlation and the t-test. The level of significance for this study was where the probability of error was less than or equal to .05. Conclusions. The following conclusions of the study were made after examining the findings related to the research questions and in light of the delimitations and limitations presented in Chapter 1. (1) Indiana teachers do not have high trust for their principals simply because their principals have high trust for them. (2) Indiana teachers who have high trust principals perceive their principals to be more effective administrators in the areas of Administrative Decision Making, Communication, and Educational Leadership than teachers who have low trust principals. (3) In Indiana, there is no difference between high and low trust principals in the styles of leadership they use. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of school.) UMI

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