Group Of Principals Research Articles

What Do Principals Think of News Media Coverage?

The perceptions of one group of principals about the news media may not be representative of principals in general, admits this writer, who believes nevertheless that such perceptions should be noted.

Certification of Family Life Educators: A Status Report for Indiana

Several persons most directly interested at the college level in preparing family life educators for the secondary school systems of Indiana met in the late 1960's to compare experiences, assess the situation, and map out a future strategy. Among other things, the followirg common suspicions were generally confirmed: 1. Courses in family living (as opposed to a unit on some aspect of the family in a course by some other title with a different major focus) had been available to limited numbers of secondary school students in the state for several decades. 2. A variety of surveys conducted at periodic intervals indicated some increase in such opportunities for students over the years. 3. Such surveys, however, had failed to discover what might be considered anything similar to an appreciable gain in such course offerings in relation to the potential for them. In other words, Indiana's secondary schools had not experienced a landslide movement in the direction of increased family living courses as is reported to have occurred in some other states. 4. Inquiries among selected groups of the state's high school principals indicated a decided enthusiasm toward including such courses in their respective curricula. 5. Many administrators, however, ap-

" ... to the Advantage of Secondary Education"

A group of principals tell how the Neighbor hood Youth Corps is helping boys and girls in their schools. As one NYC enrollee said, "I know that someone cares."

Perceptions of Appropriateness of Counselor Behavior: A Comparison of Counselors and Principals

A number of studies employing standardized personality measures show that school principals and counselors tend to differ in their personality structures. Does this difference lead to differing perceptions of what counselors should do in specific kinds of problem situations? The answer to this question was sought by factor analyzing the responses of groups of counselors and principals to a critical incident questionnaire. The indications are from this study that, for most situations, counselors and principals are in general agreement as to the approach the counselor should employ. Where differences do occur, they appear to be related to differential sources of anxiety with resultant increases in controlling, authoritarian approaches being advocated as a means to reduce anxiety, rather than being related to any variations in personality structure.

What Parents Think of Their Schools and What They Know About Them

The University of Florida-CPEA Project has had as its purpose the description of how principals work with others—parents, teachers, and pupils—and how variations in these working patterns have differential consequences in such phases of school operations as attitude of parents, human relations among pupils and teachers, teaching methods stressed by teachers, program development within schools, and pupil achievement. Claims for certain types of administrative behavior have been evaluated against consequences in practice and the evidence indicates thus far, that how the principal does his job does make a difference. This article is a report on a part of the results of this project. The November 1956 issue of THE BULLETIN contains another report on this project. It is entitled "What Makes a Good Principal?" With a supplementary grant from the Kellogg Foundation, a new study is underway to test. out the consequences of a program of leadership train ing embodying recent advances in personality theory, perception psy chology, group process, and leadership research findings to see whether or not the more effective behavior patterns which have been identified can be developed among a group of principals.

Preliminary report of a controlled mental health workshop in a public school system.

1. A control mental health workshop was set up in a public school system. A volunteer group of teachers and the administrative group of principals, assistant principals and heads of departments were separately exposed to 15-week 1 ½hour seminars on mental health under the guidance of a qualified psychiatrist. 2. A control group was set up matching teachers as to age, sex, duration of service, and grade taught; also a control group of administrators from a neighboring community. 3. All 4 groups were given the same battery of psychological tests before and after the seminars. 4. Studies of the psychological test responses show that although there were statistically significant changes for the experimental group, these were also found in the control group. 5. It should be noted that if the pre-and posttesting of the experimental groups were evaluated without control groups the results could have been interpreted as excellent. 6. Further control studies are projected with varying size groups, different instructors, different methods of selecting participants, and varying the content of the lecture and discussion material.

Primary Reading Charts–How to Make Them Meaningful

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsEthel I. SalisburyReading charts have an honorable and acceptable place in helping children learn to read, depending of course upon how they are used. Miss Salisbury, professor of education at the University of California at Los Angeles, says that the purpose of reading charts should be that “of stimulating children's thinking or evoking their feelings or emotions to the end that they may see some aspect of life more vividly and truthfully than they otherwise would do.” She describes some ways of making and using primary reading charts that will evoke vital responses from children because of the quality of the experiences out of which the charts evolve.1 The writer is indebted to a group of teachers and principals from the West area of the Los Angeles City Schools for the illustrative charts.