Epistemological beliefs and transformational-transactional leadership behaviours of Directors in child-care centres

摘要

This paper reports on a small pilot study to assess the epistemological beliefs and leadership values related to learning espoused by five Directors working in long day care centres in Brisbane. The study uses an interview protocol to assess beliefs about leadership and beliefs about the nature of knowing and knowledge. As expected, there were broad correlations between the epistemological beliefs relating the nature of knowing and knowledge and the beliefs about leadership espoused by the directors. Espoused leadership beliefs associated transformational leadership were correlated with relativistic epistemological beliefs, while espoused leadership beliefs associated with transactional leadership were correlated with naïve and dualistic epistemological beliefs. Directors espousing mixture of leadership beliefs were found to hold mixture of epistemological beliefs.