Principal Curriculum Influence
In this study, the amount of influence the principal has on the school’s curriculum is considered as an indirect measure of school outcome. The influence of the principal’s curriculum is related to the curriculum alignment with the school’s mission and vision. The principal’s involvement in curriculum development is mainly related to framing, conveying and sustaining the educational goals to assure the focus of curriculum on the school’s purpose and vision. In this view of the principal’s curriculum influence, the
Research in Higher Education Journal
The effect of principles, page 10
school outcome is perceived more broadly as achieving the school’s overall goals, including the student’s academic achievement. Hallinger (1996) found that establishing and maintaining a clear school vision was a key avenue of an increased school outcome. Furthermore, Goldring and Pastrnak (1994) found that curriculum linked to a vision established collectively by teachers, staff and the administration is a strong predictor of school outcome. On this basis, the principal’s influence on curriculum is selected by this study as a school outcome indicator (see Question 4 in TIMSS Questions).
Table 4 (Appendix) summarizes the descriptive statistics of the influence of both the authoritative and integrative principals’ leadership styles on the school curriculum. Since this data is interval data, the mode (“most likely” value) is used as the measure of the central tendency. (Note: the numerical values are assigned for each of the four scales as seen in Question 3 in TIMSS Questions.
Table 4 (Appendix) indicates that the integrative leadership style of the principal tends to influence the curriculum more often than those principals who possess an authoritative leadership style. This is illustrated in Figure 6 when the mode of value 4 (“A lot” of influence) is compared with the mode of value 3 (“Some” influence). The extreme difference between the two modes of the two styles is seen on the multiple histograms (Figure 6, Appendix) and shows the distribution of the curriculum influence for both the authoritative and integrative principal leadership styles.
The histogram indicates that the curriculum influence modes of the two styles of leadership are different. One concern with this data is the difference in sample size as Table 4 (Appendix) shows. One way to minimize this discrepancy is to compare the percentages of the two modes. Approximately 50% of the integrative principals have “a lot” of influence on the school curriculum (solid line in Figure 6, Appendix). On the other hand, the data shows approximately 40% of the authoritative principals have some influence on their school curriculum (dashed line in Figure 6, Appendix).
All in all, the data analysis of the USA schools and students revealed that the integrative principal leadership style not only encourages, but also creates cooperative school environments. Consequently, the school’s effectiveness and outcomes are high. This relationship between the principal’s leadership style and school outcome could be direct, indirect or both. Figure 7 (Appendix) depicts this cause/effect model that is suggested by the USA schools and student data.