Date of Award
6-1999
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Educational Leadership
First Advisor
Dr. Uldis Smidchens
Second Advisor
Dr. Catherine Sielke
Third Advisor
Dr. Jianping Shen
Fourth Advisor
Dr. Craig Misner
Abstract
One hundred Michigan public high schools were randomly selected to participate in a study of the relationship between transformational leadership and teacher attitudes. Forty-eight high schools with enrollments ranging from 237 students to 1,730 students responded, a response rate of 48%. The study required that each building principal complete the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. Designed by Bass and Avolio (1990), the instrument uses 45 questions to identify the relative level of transformational leadership exhibited by the building principal.
Five dependent variables including teacher motivation, teacher satisfaction with administration, follower identification with work, teacher willingness to disagree with administration and teacher attitudes toward change were measured using staff responses to the twenty-two question Teacher Motivation Survey.
The Teacher Motivation Survey was constructed based on the research of Patchen (1975), and the Teacher Satisfaction Survey developed by Schmitt and Loher (1986) for the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
Pearson correlations were used to compare individual principal responses to the responses of his/her staff. No evidence was found to support a positive relationship between transformational leadership, as reported by the building principal, and the five dependent variables reported by staff. Post hoc analyses comparing five transformational leadership behaviors with teacher attitudes produced similar results.
Access Setting
Dissertation-Open Access
Recommended Citation
Palczewski, Scott, "A Study of the Relationship between Transformational Leadership and Teacher Attitudes" (1999). Dissertations. 1526.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/1526