The impact on the principals leadership style and parental involvement on the achievement of fifth grades in a metropolitan school system

摘要

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of the principalu27s leadership style and parental involvement on s tuden t achievement, as measured by the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills reading scores of fifth graders. In order to complete the investigation, the components of leader behaviors - consideration and initiating structure - and the components of parenta l involvement - PTA index and volunteer indexwere studied extensively. The population was made up of 58 elementary school teachers and 432 fifth graders found in six randomly selected elementary schools.Information was gathered through the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire and from records on Parent Teacher Association membership and on volunteerism that are kept on file in the central office. These data were converted to forms that could be subjected to statistical analysis.The study sought answers to four questions: (1) Is there a relationship between the principalu27s leadership style and student achievement? (2) Is there a relationship between parental involvement and student achievement? (3) Is there a relationship between the principalu27s leadership style and parental involvement? (4) Which of the two factors, principalu27s leadership style or parental involvement, impacts student achievement greater?The findings revealed that neither the principalu27s leadership style nor parental involvement were significantly related to student achievement, Those findings contradict much of the current literature on the topics. In addition, it was found that the principalu27s leadership style does not significantly impact parental involvement. Finally, parental involvement is a better predictor of ITBS reading scores than the principalu27s leadership style, though neither predicts significantly.