Group Of Principals Research Articles

The employment styles of school principals recruiting beginning teachers

In New Zealand, school principals (headteachers), sometimes with a sub-committee of the school board of trustees, interview and hire their own teachers. This research examined whether school principals exhibit different styles in recruiting beginning teachers. A small group of principals was interviewed and items reflecting their views were then developed and put on cards. The cards were sorted by people familiar with educational vocabulary to enable category setting using Kirkland and Bimmler's GOPA technique. Seventy-one principals then prioritized the items. A k-means algorithm was used to cluster principals with similar responses. Analysis of the clusters suggests that recruiting styles do exist. General compatibility emerged as being most important. This suggests that having schools appoint their own staff may lead to greater diversity between schools and greater conformity within them.

Preparing School Leaders in Post-Apartheid South Africa: A Survey of Leadership Preferences of Principals in Western Cape

Executive Summary This study examined the self-reported leadership practices of a group of principals in South Africa. All subjects completed the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), which measured five characteristics of leadership practice; challenging the process, inspiring a shared vision, others to act, modeling the way, and the heart. ANOVA procedures revealed no differences (.05 level) between two groups of school leaders based on higher institution attended. Age range was related to encouraging the heart and gender to enabling action. ********** This is a study to determine leadership preferences of school leaders in Mitchell's Plain, a disadvantaged area of Western Cape province. To better understand school leaders, their responses to the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) were evaluated based on institution of last degree, gender, union membership, race/ethnicity, age range, and whether they were principals or deputy principals (role). null hypotheses are that there are no significant differences among the leaders based on these factors. Need for Change Children in township schools are eloquent in expressing their fears of violence and hopes for the future. They demonstrate the need for change and the challenge that faces the system. Here is an example of their stories, written in their own words toward the end of the apartheid regime. When I am old I would like to have a wife and to children a boy and a girl and a gib house and to dogs and freedom My friends and I would like to meat together and tok (Moagi, 8 years old). This is representative of school children's voices in South Africa, taken from Two dogs and freedom: Children of the townships speak out, 1986 (pp. 6-55). passage portrays students' state of mind and indirectly, the state of in the townships less than a generation ago. These children indicate the need for a monumental restructuring of the before each person can feel safe, be educated, and feel like a contributing part of society. Such changes will not come quickly or easily. Nkabinde (1997) wrote to provide insights and challenges in seeking alternatives to Bantu education (p. xiv). She noted, Apartheid, which has dominated South Africa for decades and has imposed a deleterious effect on the educational system, is beginning to crumble. Nevertheless, the negative effects of apartheid and apartheid are incalculable and will persist long after the demise of the system (p. 19). Asmal and James (2001) were also critical of the school developed during apartheid. Because of the assault on civil life in the townships, little real was possible. They noted, The democratic government inherited the black school not as a place of learning, but as a place of struggle and resistance (p. 198). Why is it that the transformation of South African society is so important? To overcome its hierarchical, paternalistic, violent, racist, and inefficient history (Department of Education, 1995, Carrim and Shalem, 1999, Jansen, 1990). old institutionalized a of preferences and inequalities that created social and intellectual rifts among racial groups. white population was relatively pampered and privileged. All others were, to different degrees, officially treated as inferior beings. King (1998) explained the situation as follows. must also be recalled that South Africa entered this new policy environment with a human development situation in which the black population was on par with the Democratic Republic of Congo and the white population on par with Canada (p. 4). Significance of the Study By 1996, one third of the principals in the Western Cape were new to the job and most of these were persons of color (Gelderbloem, 1996). It is important to know the characteristics of this new generation of school leaders. …

Contracting, Gatekeepers, and Unverifiable Performance

A group of diverse principals who represent an institution contract with an agent for the production of a two-dimensional commodity. One dimension of the agent's production is verifiable, while the other is unverifiable. The principals can employ two strategic tools to motivate the agent---a minimum requirement on the verifiable dimension and a tough gatekeeper. A gatekeeper is a principal who is elected and granted authority to determine whether the full group considers the agent's production. A tough gatekeeper can be used to motivate production in the unverifiable dimension. We characterize conditions for which the principals use these two strategic tools, and we examine the economic consequences of partial verifiability.

The evolution of insurance markets under adverse selection

This paper applies a floating-point genetic algorithm to an insurance model in which the principals who underwrite insurance contracts cannot observe the risk characteristics of the agents who sign those contracts. Under perfect rationality, the equilibria of this model are analogous to those in Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976). The learning version of the model exhibits interesting transition dynamics as well as novel outcomes. When the learning model converges to the equilibrium from the model with perfect rationality, pooling contracts break down over time and the set of contracts bifurcates, with one group of principals serving high-risk agents and another group serving low-risk agents. When there are relatively few low-risk agents in the market, the economy converges to contracts that provide full insurance for high-risk agents, while low-risk agents are not served at all. When there are relatively few high-risk agents in the market, some types of pooling contracts are sustainable. These last two results are at odds with the outcomes under models of perfect rationality.

Air-Conditioning America: Engineers and the Controlled Environment, 1900-1960

In this groundbreaking study, Cooper shows that, from the outset, air conditioning has been the focus of conflict and controversy--well predating today's concerns about fluorocarbons and global warming. While a technical elite of designers, inventors, and corporate pioneers articulated a comprehensive vision of the new technology, their ideas were challenged by workers, consumers, government regulators, business competitors, and rival professionals. Beginning with two famous air-conditioning installations in 1904--the New York Stock exchange and the Sackett-Wilhelms Printing Company--Cooper describes the efforts of engineers to achieve artificial climate indoors. Such helped transform the new motion picture theaters of the teens and twenties into sumptuous palaces of luxury and comfort. a sign claiming Twenty-degrees colder inside! and icicles hanging from the marquee, theaters educated the public about comfort air conditioning and created a formidable set of expectations for the first residential systems to appear in the 1930s. Only when builders in the postwar era learned to redesign the suburban home around air conditioning did consumers get man-made weather at affordable prices. Until then Americans experimented with the ultimate consumer luxury, the window air conditioner, which followed them wherever they went. Consumer acceptance of artificial indoor climate was hard won, however. Just as mechanical ventilation became complex enough to successfully imitate the natural climate, a group of physicians, teachers, principals, and parents known as the air crusaders, attempted to ban all mechanical ventilation from public schools in favor of the open window. Cooper chronicles how the lure of the open air was always air conditioning's biggest rival, from roof-top school rooms to open air theaters to the front porch. Americans were slow to give up the social rituals of hot weather living--the cold drink, the cool clothes, the summer vacation--for the comforts of either the window air conditioner or the central system. America is the story of how the grand vision of a new technology was shaped by the realities of the changing world of mass production, engineering professionalism, and consumer demand. provides new insight into how engineers and technical expertise fit into these complex forces of modern life. It sounds like a technical history, and indeed it is, but along the way Cooper shows how ideology, social relations and economics affect the technology, and how it affects them. In this way, we can learn much from such books--'cultural studies' seeming so much livelier when borne up by material culture than by the unsteady scaffold of abstract theory.--Giles Foden, Times Literary Supplement Gail Cooper's study is a welcome addition to the history of technology and urban history. Its strength lies in mapping out fundamental engineering and marketing issues about a technology that has had a profound impact on the very nature of inside environments.--Martin V. Melosi, American Historical Review Air-conditioning America takes into account not just technology but also ideology, social relations, economics, and corporate strategies. includes all of the people who influenced the design and adoption of the new technology--not just engineers and business people but purchasers and users as well. Professor Cooper's insistence that we consider engineering and technological change in its broadest context not only allows her to make the stories of the invention of air conditioning and how America came to be air-conditioned lively ones. also helps her explain, more generally, some of the ways that new technologies become part of our lives.--Steven Lubar, Chair and Curator of the Division of the History of Technology, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution With careful research and wonderful prose, Cooper takes the familiar phenomenon of airconditioning and pushes readers to look at it in new ways. Examining engineers, consumers, and corporations in factories, schools, theaters and homes, Cooper presents a large cast of fascinating characters fighting over 'man-made weather.' --Susan Smulyan, Brown University

Leadership Dilemmas of Hong Kong Principals: Sources, Perceptions and Outcomes

With restructuring characterising many school systems throughout the world, and major change leaving few schools untouched, school leaders are facing major challenges. This study focuses on a group of Hong Kong principals who conceptualise some of their challenges as dilemmas. The paper draws on previous literature to highlight the importance of articulating principals' perceptions of dilemmas in their daily lives, and identifies typologies and categories of dilemmas. It notes that dilemma research to date is grounded in Western examples and cultural settings, and that dilemmas faced by principals in non-Western settings have been ignored. Analysing dilemma situations recounted by Hong Kong principals, we identify the sources, coping mechanisms and outcomes of their dilemmas and examine the relationships between these phenomena. Among our findings are that dilemmas are multifaceted and irresolvable situations, and that principals tend to rely on a narrow range of deeply embedded Chinese cultural values as coping strategies.

Principals and school restructuring: conceptualising challenges as dilemmas

This study aims, first, to chronicle the perceived dilemmas of a group of Australian principals whose worklives were preoccupied with school restructuring. Second, relying on empirical data, it develops a typology of dilemmas. This typology then forms the structure for a more detailed discussion of the nature and source of dilemmas encountered by the participating principals. Data were collected and analysed using qualitative methods, based on semi‐structured interviews with 20 Western Australian primary and secondary principals. The findings suggest two main types of dilemmas – general, values‐based personal‐professional dilemmas, called “states of mind”, and specific, practical, organisational dilemmas. It is argued that improving the knowledge base by using empirical studies and developing typologies and conceptual frameworks, is a necessary step in providing closer insights as to how school leaders perceive and manage the most intractable aspects of their worklives. This, is turn, could lead to improvements in leader preparation and training.

Strategic Planning in Further Education

Since colleges were made responsible for strategic planning in 1993, managers in further education have encountered criticisms for not managing the process in a sufficiently business-like way and for being too business-driven in their approach. This article explores the experience of a group of principals who lead strategic planning, in the context of an analysis of a sample of strategic plans. It suggests planning takes place within a national strategic vacuum and that there is a diversity of types of plan and planning process. Plans based on achieving a competitive edge are in evidence, but so too are plans based on the need to build commitment in the face of severely constrained strategic choices, and driven by educational values. It is concluded that analysis and response to the planning of the sector should take better account of the diversity of purposes and practices within colleges.

"Structures Beneath the Skin": How School Leaders Use Their Power and Authority to Create Institutional Opportunities for Developing Positive Interethnic Communities

This article explores key features of the complex process school leaders employ to create positive interethnic school communities. It identifies five distinct aspects of the interventions used in that process and applies an analytical model to each to provide a schema for framing elements that are of central importance. It also addresses how school leaders think about and to what ends they use their power and authority-that is, how they define and act upon the responsibilities of their dominant role-and how they determine which of their schools' issues, conditions, or needs deserve the most immediate attention or priority. On March 5,1999, the Leading for Diversity Research Project hosted a post-data-collection meeting in San Francisco, California, for leaders from participating schools to share their preliminary findings. After the formal meeting, I joined two colleagues and two visiting principals who had participated in the study for dinner. One of the principals was from a semi-suburban middle school in southern California; the other was a veteran principal from an urban elementary school on the East Coast. We dined at a small but popular Italian restaurant in San Francisco's Noe Valley district, where we sat talking shop about the tensions and conflicts that arise when schools are home to students, families, and staff of diverse ethnic and cultural groups. Toward the end of our meal, I posed the following question to the principals: How well did your administrative training programs prepare you to deal with these kinds of issues? The elementary school principal just sighed in response, offering a sardonic half-smile as she shook her head. Consonant with what a group of principals meeting in the San Francisco Bay Area reported four years earlier, this principal affirmed the dire need for formal training on how to identify and respond to issues of interethnic conflict. The middle school principal chimed in, saying, Well, really, this is why I was interested in participating in this project. It's not that I don't have enough on my plate, you know? I wanted to be part of creating something that would serve this need `cause right now, it's not happening. The elementary principal had noted earlier that restructuring her school's schedule to allow teachers to have a common meeting time on a weekly basis had made a huge difference in bringing her diverse staff together as a team. How long had you been a principal there before you set up that common planning time? I asked. She counted silently in her head and then replied, Four years. Although it had been equally possible four years earlier, it had taken the now-veteran principal that long to learn the importance of making this change. Her comments underscored the need for more practical training in multicultural community building for new and preservice school administrators. The principals in the Leading for Diversity study are themselves a diverse group. They each vary broadly in style, in approach, and even in their fundamental ideologies; yet each one, in his or her own way, is highly committed, resourceful, and hardworking. One might even say that they are all highly passionate about their work. This is, however, a good thing because these principals, with variable levels of resources and support, have had to rely primarily on their own capabilities and on-the-job training to learn how to create positive interethnic communities. The experiences of these principals, who represent the more successful and effective end of the continuum, suggest that there are probably many others in the field who feel woefully unprepared to begin addressing the complexities of interethnic/interracial dynamics that exist in diverse school communities. A central purpose of the Leading for Diversity study is to identify the knowledge, experience, and intuitive understanding that these school leaders have effectively employed at their school sites, and to organize and present these aspects so that others-- particularly school administrators in training-can understand and apply them to their own work. …

The Maltese Primary School Principal

This paper reports some of the main findings of an observational study conducted in Malta which looks into the work patterns of a group of primary school principals in the state sector. The study attested to the multi-varied, hectic, discontinuous and essentially superficial nature of the principal's role. Their main energy was devoted to keeping the schools ticking over in the short run with little time being devoted to matters of direct relevance to the teaching and learning process. The dominant model was of a transactional, and not a reflective or transformational, leader engaged primarily in fixing things.

Hong Kong's Change of Sovereignty: School leader perceptions of the effects on educational policy and school administration

ABSTRACT This study captures the thoughts and perceptions of a group of Hong Kong principals on the transfer of sovereignty and its effects on education. The investigation addressed the following guiding research question. What, according to their perceptions, have been and will be the effects on education policy and on school-level management and curriculum, of the transfer of sovereignty? A qualitative approach was adopted, using naturalistic methods of inquiry. Nine principals of aided secondary schools were selected for interview according to procedures of purposive sampling. The findings indicate that, faced with uncertainty arising from the change of sovereignty, principals feel confident of managing and coping with situations at the school level in connection with the curriculum and management. However, they express concern and greater uncertainty about their ability to manage changes emanating in the broader sociopolitical educational environment, particularly with regard to values and norms and access and opportunity, all of which are likely to impact on their schools.

Principals’ role in policy change: mediating language through professional beliefs

Considers the language of professional development and demonstrates how principals with different professional beliefs and understandings interpret the language of education differently. This work is based on a two‐year study of eight principals in a school district undergoing a policy change in the supervision and evaluation of teachers. Because principals mediate through their professional beliefs the language of both policy change and professional development that leads to policy change, groups of principals within a single district may interpret and implement policy change differently. Shows that principals do not necessarily have a common understanding of the language of education. Without a common understanding of language, policy is open to individual interpretation.

Stress demands on school administrators in Singapore

Abstract This study investigated the use of the Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI) on school administrators in Singapore. The sample of 223 school administrators consisted of the top management group of principals and vice-principals and the middle management group of heads of department. The school administrators reported pressure at work, and consequently, higher levels of mental and physical ill health. They had high locus of control scores, indicating low internal control over their environment. However, they also reported greater use of coping strategies and higher job satisfaction. Psychometrically, the sub-scales of sources of pressure, job satisfaction, and mental and physical ill health were found to be reliable. The items of the scales of type A, locus of control and coping skills had to be re-factor analysed for the Singaporean sample. The new factors were found to have higher reliability. When the stress and job satisfaction levels of the principals/vice-principals and heads of department wer...

Treatment of group E streptococci-induced lymphadenitis in swine by feeding various concentrations of chlortetracycline: Relation of antibody with prevalence of abscesses

Summary Consumption of chlortetracycline (ctc) at concentration of 220 mg/kg of feed for 4 weeks in experiment 1 and at concentrations of 110 and 220 mg/kg for 3 weeks and 440 mg/kg for 2 weeks in experiment 2 failed to eliminate streptococci-induced lymphadenitis from swine referred to as principals. Abscesses, mostly in the head and neck, developed in at least a third of all swine in the various groups fed these ctc concentrations. Feeding of 220 mg of ctc/kg of feed in experiment 1 began 12 weeks after exposure of principals to an untypeable group E streptococci (ges; isolate 3X29A). In experiment 2, feeding of 110 and 220 mg of ctc/kg of feed began 5 weeks after exposure of principals to ges and feeding of 440 mg of ctc/kg of feed began 6 weeks after exposure. One or more cohabitating sentinel swine of experiment 1 and one or more sentinels in all groups of principals of experiment 2, except group 2, developed abscesses that were mostly in the head and neck. In experiment 2, correlation between serum GES antibody titer and development of one or more abscesses in the principals was highly significant (P < 0.01); however, correlation between antibody titer and abscesses in the sentinels only approached significance (P < 0.10).

Authentication in distributed systems

We describe a theory of authentication and a system that implements it. Our theory is based on the notion of principal and a “speaks for” relation between principals. A simple principal either has a name or is a communication channel; a compound principal can express an adopted role or delegated authority. The theory shows how to reason about a principal's authority by deducing the other principals that it can speak for; authenticating a channel is one important application. We use the theory to explain many existing and proposed security mechanisms. In particular, we describe the system we have built. It passes principals efficiently as arguments or results of remote procedure calls, and it handles public and shared key encryption, name lookup in a large name space, groups of principals, program loading, delegation, access control, and revocation.

Grading Students in Performing Groups: A Comparison of Principals' Recommendations with Directors' Practices

The purpose of this study was to examine how directors determine grades for students in high school band and choral classes and how the directors' grading systems compare with grading systems proposed by principals. Data were obtained from responses to questionnaires sent to band directors, choral directors, and principals at 98 randomly selected Illinois high schools. Results showed that directors relied most heavily on nonmusic criteria to determine grades; psychomotor criteria related to performance were the next most heavily weighted, followed by affective and cognitive criteria. In contrast, the principals' proposed grading systems assigned the greatest weight to psychomotor criteria, followed by nonmusic, cognitive, and affective criteria. Analyses of variance revealed significant differences ( p > .05) between the two groups of directors and principals: Principals placed more weight on cognitive criteria and on basic performance technique and less weight on attendance at concerts and behavior than did directors. Directors with 5 or more years' experience placed more weight on psychomotor criteria than did directors with fewer than 5 years of experience.

Authentication in distributed systems

We describe a theory of authentication and a system that implements it. Our theory is based on the notion of principal and a "speaks for" relation between principals. A simple principal either has a name or is a communication channel; a compound principal can express an adopted role or delegation of authority. The theory explains how to reason about a principal's authority by deducing the other principals that it can speak for; authenticating a channel is one important application. We use the theory to explain many existing and proposed mechanisms for security. In particular, we describe the system we have built. It passes principals efficiently as arguments or results of remote procedure calls, and it handles public and shared key encryption, name lookup in a large name space, groups of principals, loading programs, delegation, access control, and revocation.

Can audit improve patient care? Effects of studying use of digoxin in general practice.

A survey of monitoring of digoxin treatment in five practices examined the indications for prescribing digoxin, its long term use, and how its use could be monitored. These data were used to generate a protocol for monitoring treatment with digoxin in general practice. The findings of the survey and the protocol were distributed to and discussed with all the partners in the practices participating in the study. One year later similar analysis showed that record keeping (recording of pulse rate and rhythm) had improved significantly in the group of principals carrying out the audit but not in other principals in these practices. Audit may change only the auditors.

Peer-assisted leadership: Using research to improve practice

During the 1983–84 school year, the Instructional Management Program (IMP) Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development conducted a unique professional development activity for school principals, the Instructional Management Academy. Since that time, the name has been changed to Peer-Assisted Leadership (PAL) in order to distinguish this staff development activity from the host of other principals' “academies” emerging across the country. Derived from the findings of our program's research on principals, PAL provided practicing school administrators with an opportunity to analyze their own leadership behavior and that of a peer partner in a nonprescriptive and nonjudgmental manner. During the year-long process, participants learned and applied various skills for collecting data about their partners and sharing that information with them in a useful way. This paper provides: (1) a brief history of the Instructional Management Program leading to the development of PAL, (2) a description of the training program, (3) the findings from the first year's effort with two groups of principals, (4) a description of continuing PAL efforts, and (5) the possible future directions of the process.

The views of school principals and teachers on the role of the school nurse with handicapped students.

As part of recent program evaluation activities for the University of Colorado School Nurse Achievement Program, a questionnaire was distributed to a sample of school principals and teachers to obtain their views on the role of the school nurse with handicapped students. Generally, the respondents perceived this aspect of the school nurse's role as encompassing a variety of valuable activities; they tended to feel that certain activities (eg, writing the health component of the IEPs) should be carried out by school nurses more than they actually are; and they reported a myriad of unsolved problems and needs of handicapped students, many that could be dealt with by school nursing services if resources were available. Although the data were obtained from only a small and select group of principals and teachers, they help reveal how other school personnel view this increasingly important component of the school nurse's role and may provide some direction for future continuing education programs for school nurses as well as information-dissemination efforts for other school personnel.