Role conflict between school board members and superintendents appears to exist in some Indiana school corporations. The purpose of the study was to investigate and report role perceptions of school board member duties and obligations as seen by board members and superintendents. A further purpose of the study was to identify task-related areas of disagreement regarding role responsibilities generally perceived by each respective response group.A questionnaire was designed to solicit responses from school board members and superintendents regarding perceived initial board member involvement with twenty-one educational tasks. Each task was arranged into a five step horizontal continuum, ranging from executive duties to legislative duties. Respondents were selected from a random sampling of Indiana school corporations which had been stratified according to student enrollment into three equal groups.Major findings derived from the analysis of data were:1. School board members and superintendents demonstrated significant differences in perceptions regarding board member initial involvement with respect to ten of the twenty-one educational tasks.2. In ten of the remaining eleven tasks, board members and superintendents demonstrated intragroup disagreement.3. School board members and superintendents of different sized school corporations demonstrated intergroup disagreements.Major conclusions based on findings of the study were:1. School board members fail to differentiate between the policy-making role of the school board and the administrative role of the superintendent.2. School board members and superintendents are not consistent with respect to perceptions of initial board member involvement.3. School board members and superintendents in different sized school corporations disagree concerning perceptions of initial board member assumption of responsibilities.Major recommendations based upon the findings and conclusions of the study were:1. School board members and superintendents need to cooperatively plan orientation andtraining sessions in order to understand the processes of policy planning, policy development, and policy evaluation.2. Research should be conducted to determine the effects of written policies and procedures upon the role perceptions of superintendents and board members regarding the duties and obligations of board members.3. The study should be replicated with an enlarged sample to further validate the findings that were influenced by size of school corporation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/174940 |
| Date | January 1981 |
| Creators | Barger, Michael G. |
| Contributors | Riegle, Jack D. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | 4, xiv, 201 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us-in |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds