Leadership standards: Professional Development Schools versus non-Professional Development Schools

Abstract

This study compares the perceptions of two groups of West Virginia school principals through a survey instrument built in alignment with the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards. The perceptions of principals affiliated with Professional Development Schools (PDS) are compared to the perceptions of principals who are not affiliated with Professional Development Schools (non-PDS). The 587 principals in the state of West Virginia with active e-mail addresses were asked to participate in an online survey. The survey instrument contained six domains with 31 items aligned with the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium's (ISLLC) six national standards on leadership. Two hundred forty-nine principals responded for a return rate of 43.3%. The treatment group (PDS) had 117 principals that responded, and the comparison group (non-PDS) had 132 principals that responded. Only one statistically significant event (as determined by a t-test) occurred within the survey's 31 items. The statistically significant difference was found in Domain 2 (Advocating): Item 2 (collaboration).

The past is prologue part II: a study of PDS comparison dissertations

“…For this current study, we identified 25 of the 210 dissertations that used a comparison methodology to provide a window into how learning in PDS and non-PDS settings may differ. Of these dissertations, 12 were quantitative (Anderson, 1995;Coffelt, 2013;Gissy, 2010;Grissom, 2003;Hahn, 2000;Hamar, 2013;Lancaster, 2010;Newsome, 2003;Ogletree, 2007;Poe, 2003;Ray, 2013;Van Holten, 2016); 11 used a mixed methods approach (Bruemmer, 2018;Curtain, 2006;Dadlez, 1998;Grieb, 2000;Hildreth, 1997;Komorek, 2013;Kuchinski, 2005;Malin, 2002;Patterson, 2004;Starling, 1999;Wright, 2009); and only two were qualitative in nature (Hopper, 2016;Miller, 2014). A few of the dissertations had findings that informed more than one category.…”

“…Only one study was identified that explored the differences in the quality of the school leader in PDS and non-PDS settings. Lancaster's (2010) survey study compared the perceptions of two groups of West Virginia school principals using the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards which measured six domains using 31 items. Of the 31 items, only collaboration in Domain 2-Advocating was statistically significant.…”