This paper examines the impact of implementing Participatory School Administration, Leadership and Management (PSALM) on the levels of trust among the educational stakeholders in Philippine public secondary schools. After an introductory section, the research context is provided by briefly reviewing relevant literature on PSALM and on trust and by describing the Philippine school system. The next section describes the research methods, which included an experiment with empirical surveys (first survey - 735 respondents; second survey - 603 respondents), documentary analysis and interviews. Research results are then discussed. Finally, based on the data, the paper concludes by suggesting that the Philippines should expedite the process of establishing school councils in its public schools.
Purpose -The paper aims to examine the effect of implementing participatory school administration, leadership and management (PSALM) on the levels of empowerment among the educational stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach -A mixed method approach, combining the experimental design with empirical surveys, interviews and documentary analysis, was used. Survey respondents (735 for the first survey and 603 for the second survey) were school heads, teachers, students, alumni, parents and community leaders coming from 76 public secondary schools in one provincial school division in the Philippines. Findings -Stakeholders who implemented PSALM reported higher levels of empowerment compared with the control group; school heads and teachers felt more empowered than the other stakeholders after one year of PSALM implementation; there was a trend for the younger and 51 years þ participants to feel less empowered after implementing PSALM. The stakeholders faced challenges in implementing PSALM but they overcame them by opening communication channels and manifesting supportive behaviours. Research limitations/implications -Only people who indicated willingness to implement PSALM were involved, so there was no way to determine how stakeholders who are hesitant to practice the experimental intervention would react. Practical implications -It is suggested that the Philippine public schools should expedite the implementation of PSALM via school councils as a way to improve the school system. Originality/value -The paper presents evidence, drawn from a management experiment, that establishes the link between PSALM and empowerment levels of stakeholders.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.