Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Interdisciplinary Studies

First Advisor

Red Owl

Abstract

Noticeably absent from prior research on the selection of high school principals is empirical evidence about the factors that teachers consider in recommending candidates for high school principalships. This study gave teachers a voice about factors that should be considered in selecting high school principals. A discrete choice experiment was conducted with 219 tenured (or previously tenured), public school teachers in Grades 9-12 in New York State. Teachers were asked to choose a single hypothetical candidate from 10 sets of 3, where each candidate was described by 6 candidate-specific characteristics: teaching experience, administrative experience, education level, instructional skills, managerial skills, and interpersonal skills. Case-specific variables (i.e., teacher-participant characteristics) in the analysis included teaching experience, education level, and school needs level. A single-class, alternative-specific conditional logistic regression (asclogit) found 4 statistically significant candidate-specific factors: previous administrative experience, instructional leadership, managerial experience, and interpersonal leadership ability. Teaching experience and holding a doctorate were not statistically significant factors in the asclogit model. The asclogit found 2 statistically significant case-specific factors (i.e., having an advanced certificate or doctorate, and being in a high-needs school), both of which affected teachers’ views about candidates’ instructional leadership. Latent class conditional logistic regression (lclogit) found that all 6 candidate-specific variables except holding a doctorate were statistically significant across 3 distinct latent classes and that holding a doctorate had a statistically significant negative effect only in Latent Class 3. No statistically significant case-specific factors were found by lclogit. The study concluded that greater attention needs to be given to the views of teachers in principal-selection processes.

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