Dissertation

Collaborative leadership in public elementary schools and its impact on teacher attendance, teacher efficacy, and student achievement

Carmichael, Clay

2006

Overview

Numerous studies have purported that the most influential factor, outside of social struggles, affecting student achievement is the instructional qualities of the classroom teacher. Arguably the qualities of the teacher and student achievement are dependent upon effectiveness of the building administrator (i.e. the school principal). Two guiding questions provide the framework for the present study: the degree in which an elementary school principal collaborates related to the qualities of the teacher (specifically teacher attendance and teacher self-efficacy). Additionally, does elementary principals who have collaborative leadership correlate with higher student achievement? This multidimensional correlational study examined the relationship between elementary school principal's self-perceived collaboration and teacher attendance, self-efficacy, and student achievement. Ten elementary principals along with 224 teachers from a school district in North Florida participated in the study. The principals completed the self version of the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) developed by Kouzes and Posner (2003) with the focus of the study being the enable others to act portion. The teachers completed the Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale (OSTES) short form refined by Tschannen-Moran & Hoy (2001) to measure their own self-efficacy beliefs. The school district's substitute management database provided information regarding teacher attendance. The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test Developmental Scale Score (FCAT DSS) provided the student achievement gains for both math and reading in 3 th 4th and 5th grade. Quantitative results from the study indicated a strong direct correlation between of principal collaboration and teacher absences. Results indicate that the more collaborative an elementary principal perceives him/herself to be the higher mean absences of their assigned teachers. Results for teacher self-efficacy indicated that the higher collaboration practiced by elementary principals resulted in a weak positive relationship with a teachers' perceived level of efficacy. The statistical result for the construct student achievement indicates that there is a strong negative relationship between elementary principals' self perceptions of their collaboration and student learning gains. The study has a number of limitations which greatly limit both generalization and tangible conclusions. This study is highly dependent upon the LPI subscale, enabling others to act, to measure principal collaboration which is an elusive concept to measure. That scale, while used by many researchers in the past, may not have been the best choice for this study. The results of this study indicate that the LPI enabling others to act subscale may, in fact, measure \"enabling behaviors\" more accurately than it measures collaborative practices of principals.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Academic achievement / Attendance / Educational administration / Educational Change / Educational Facilities Improvement / Educational Research / Educational Researchers / Elementary education / Elementary schools / Instructional Leadership / Leadership / Learning Theories / School administration / Teachers
• ISBN: 0549626743, 9780549626749