Date of Award

2013

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Whitaker, Todd

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the importance and priority of practices for directors of career and technical education in the state of Indiana. An analysis was prepared to determine the rankings and correlations of importance and priorities of 50 leadership practices as well as 11 categories of practices for the career and technical education (CTE) directors. In addition, an analysis was prepared to discover the demographics factors within the director's own leadership characteristics and the director's district that played a role in the importance and priority. Factors examined included gender, age, years of experience in career and technical education administration, type of district served, number of school districts served, number of programs offered, total enrollment, and type of facility. Directors of career and technical education were examined because the director is considered the administrative leader of career and technical education districts for a unit of the state. As such, the director has the responsibility to provide the students, teachers, schools, and communities with appropriate career and technical education within the guidelines of sound educational practices, governmental mandates, and regional workforce need. The research design involved a population of 46 career and technical education directors serving 49 career and technical education districts in the state of Indiana. Director importance and priority of practice were collected using a 50-item survey. Statistical analysis of the data included descriptive statistics regarding mean, standard deviation, and frequency of the items. A Spearman product correlation, t-tests, and ANOVA were used to test the null hypotheses. Significance was identified at the .05 level. In all, 42 directors of career and technical education directors in the state of Indiana responded to the survey instrument, which asked them to rank the importance of practice and agreement to the priority of practice for 50 different practices that research has shown to be practices often associated with the position of director. Those 50 practices were configured into 11 categories. As a result of the analysis, significant findings were present in the correlations between 48 of the 50 practices as well as all 11 of the categories. Significance was also found in two sub-hypotheses for importance for the areas of type of district and type of facility. In addition, significance was found in six sub-hypotheses for priority for the areas of gender, age, years of experience in career and technical education administration, type of district, number of programs, and type of facility.

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