School administrators

Florida State Law (1981) requires each school district to implement a researched-based method for identifying and selecting school administrators. In 1986 the Palm Beach County, Florida school district began a Potential Administrator Program. Legal and utilitarian concerns required that analyses of various instruments and methods of candidate assessment and selection be undertaken. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relative validity of peer raters compared with other sources in selecting participants for inclusion in a principal training program. The other sources were superordinate and self-ratings. The relationship between peer raters who were nominated and those who were not nominated by the candidates was also explored to determine the effect of using nominated raters exclusively. The sample for this study was drawn from 262 secondary school teachers in Palm Beach County who were eligible to apply for the training program. Using a Likert type scale, peer raters (n = 958) and superordinate raters (n = 42) evaluated the subjects (n = 54) on thirteen behavioral dimensions determined by research to be characteristic of high performing principals. Each candidate also completed a self-rating on the same behavioral dimensions. Finally, each candidate underwent a work sample assessment based on three of the dimensions. This assessment was divided into a communications and a content portion for evaluation purposes. Thirty candidates were chosen for the training program. An analysis of multi-trait multi-method matrices of the rating sources and behavioral traits, as well as an analysis of variance of the composite rating source means, and a stepwise multiple regression analysis predicting the work sample assessment from the three ratings sources indicated support for using peer ratings in selecting principal candidates. Peers added unique information to that provided by superordinate and self-raters relative to the targeted dimensions. Data on using raters nominated by candidates was inconclusive. Analyses were performed on: (1) a multi-trait multi-method matrix of nominated and non-nominated peer ratings and behavioral traits; 2) an analysis of correlations between these two rating sources and superordinate ratings, self-ratings, and work sample assessments. Further studies using larger samples and including elementary school candidates are recommended.

Appropriate student discipline at the high school level is a subject on which varying opinions exist. Discipline is usually viewed from the perspective of student misbehavior. This study was designed to focus on the student discipline issue through an examination of the relationship between a set of specified administrator attitudes and characteristics and disciplinary decisions. The basic research design was a simulated field study. The subjects were practicing high school assistant administrators from twenty-two high schools located in a large urban school district. Independent variables selected for the study were (1) attitudes toward appropriate discipline for defiant student behaviors, (2) perceptions of and willingness to comply with the disciplinary expectations of the principal, teachers and other administrators, (3) years of experience as high school administrators, (4) personal experience rearing high school children and (5) sex of the administrators. The measure of the dependent variable was derived from the disciplinary decisions of the subjects to five hypothetical case studies portraying defiant and/or disobedient student behaviors. Multiple regression analysis was employed to test the primary hypothesis of the study. The major finding was that those subjects who most strongly perceived that teachers expected strict disciplinary action for defiant student behaviors were the same subjects who made the most severe disciplinary decisions. A finding that approached statistical significance was that those subjects who had children of their own who had graduated from high school tended to take less stringent disciplinary action than those who had not reared children through the high school years. The findings indicated that role behavior seems to be a more promising focus for the examination of influences on disciplinary decisions. The non-significant relationship between the attitude toward discipline scale responses and the disciplinary behavior of the subjects indicated that disciplinary actions tended to be independent of the disciplinary attitudes of the subjects included in the study. Among the recommendations for further research was a recognition of the need to examine differences in beliefs and behaviors of administrators in relation to the disciplinary process that takes place prior to the final disciplinary action.