THE EFFECT OF PRINCIPAL INSTRUCTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS ON THE ACADEMIC GROWTH OF LOWER SOCIOECONOMIC STUDENTS

Abstract

As states move to include assessment data to be used in principal evaluations, there is a debate as to whether the principal has an effect on student achievement. Research on the principal in the past started as qualitative studies and moved to quantitative studies to identify specific behaviors in a principal that led to greater student achievement. Modifications and refinements to the research have been performed; however, mixed results have allowed the debate to continue. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of principal instructional management characteristics on the growth of lower SES students. Utilizing the Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS) (Hallinger, 1983), 128 teachers in a single school district rated the principals of their building. Results of the principals in these nine schools on the PIMRS were used as predictor variables for the normed growth of the lower socioeconomic status (SES) students on the Acuity® Predictive assessments. The findings of this research was that only one characteristic of the principal had an effect on the growth of the lower SES students. The characteristic of protecting instructional time showed a -0.177 coefficient meaning that as a principal protected instructional time with more frequency, growth of academic scores in lower SES students decreased.