Teachers' and students' perceptions of a principal's actual and preferred roles. (c2009)

Abstract

The purpose of this case study was to investigate the preferred and the actual roles of a Muslim school principal in terms of five competencies from the point of view of the teachers and students. The five competencies are: leadership, educational, interpersonal, professional and managerial. To accomplish this, an adaptation of the Principal Performance Rating Scale designed by Weiss (1988) was used for the survey, as well as the interview questions and the observations. The participants of this study consisted of 1 principal, 19 teachers and 17 students. Quantitative as well as qualitative analyses were used to evaluate the results obtained from the surveys responses, interviews and observations. The findings indicated a high level of agreement between the teachers' perceptions of their principal's preferred and actual role in all five competencies. As for the students' perceptions of their principal's preferred and actual roles, there is also a high level of agreement in three of the five competencies: educational, interpersonal and professional. However, for the leadership and the managerial competencies the findings show a lack of agreement between the students’ perceptions of their principal’s preferred and actual roles. On the other hand, the interviews and observations reveal a strong agreement between teachers and students perceptions of the principal's role fulfillment. This study can help school stakeholders become aware that perceptions of preferred and actual roles of principal may not coincide and that principals need such information to realize teachers' and students' expectations. This is one step towards improvement of school affairs.