The primary purpose of the study was to identify the effective school leadership
behaviors that build trust with teachers, as perceived by teachers on selected campuses in
the North East Independent School District. A secondary purpose of the study was to
determine whether demographic variables, such as gender, experience, and level of
teaching, influence the relationship between teacher trust and effective school leadership.
Of the 3,974 teachers in the district, 457 teachers were surveyed from one high, two
middle, and four elementary schools.
Findings in the study include the following:
1. The behaviors that had mean scores reflecting ratings closest to being
critically important to building teacher trust were that the principal maintains
confidentiality (4.76), is a good listener (4.73), gathers sufficient information
before drawing a conclusion (4.61), reacts calmly in a crisis (4.59), and
communicates clear expectations (4.55). 2. The Administrator Rating Form, developed by Ferris (1994), divided all the
behaviors into three categories: (a) general professional, (b) personal
authenticity, and (c) supervision/evaluation behaviors. The supervision/
evaluation behaviors were the least important of the three groups with a mean
score of 4.14. This concludes that the general professional and authenticity
behaviors result in building more trust than the supervision/evaluation
behaviors.
3. It was determined that females show higher levels of trust in their
administrators than that of their male counterparts. The teachersâ number of
years of experience had no effect on how they responded. Within the category
of general professional behaviors of the principal, there was no significant
difference in the responses of the three teaching levels. Within the other two
categories, however, there was a significant difference in the responses of the
three teaching levels.
The following recommendations are based on the findings and conclusions:
1. The principal must maintain confidentiality and be a good listener.
2. Principals should establish a professionally personal relationship with each
teacher.
3. Principals should be aware that: (a) male teachers are less trusting than
female teachers, (b) teachersâ years of experience has no bearing on building
trust, and (c) elementary teachers are generally more trusting than secondary
teachers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/4952 |
| Date | 25 April 2007 |
| Creators | Longloy, Mary Margaret |
| Contributors | Stark, Stephen |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | 614065 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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