Leadership Behavior of Secondary and Higher Secondary Institutions Principals-A Critical Indicator of Educational Climate.

Abstract

The study investigated the instructional leadership behaviors of secondary school principals, as perceived by teachers and principals, and the potential relationship between these behaviors and school climate. The method adopted for the present investigation can be described as being normative statistical in nature. Use of informative statistics has also been made to arrive at results based on empirical data. For the purpose of this study, a quantitative survey was used to gather the data and thus answer the research questions. The purpose of the survey research was to generalize from a sample of teacher and principal perceptions regarding principal instructional leadership behavior so that inferences could be made regarding the possible relationship between reported principal behaviors and student achievement. Initially, 19 secondary schools agreed to participate in the study. This cohort included 11 schools that were working in public and 8 that were working as private institute. However, the survey was voluntary for both principals and teachers, resulting in only eight public sector schools and seven private schools choosing to participate. Principal Instructional Management Scale (PIMRS) and School Organizational Climate Descriptive Questionnaire (SOCDQ) were two major instruments which used in the study. A total of 15 principals and 176 teachers responded to the survey. In order to address the two null hypotheses and associated research questions associated with this study, several ANOVA outputs were analyzed. Both null hypotheses were rejected because there were statistically significant differences found in perceptions between public and private sector cohorts, and within cohorts between principals and teachers. The analysis reveals that even-though, overall trends of the profiles are similar yet marked differences have been found on the different dimensions of organizational climate. This indicates that within the given organizational climate, there may be various levels and variations. This establishes the hypothesis that schools differ in their organizational climate even within the specified climate. In other words, every institution has its own organizational climate which gives it a distinct personality.