The Relationship of the School Principal\u27s Leader Behavior to Teacher Morale.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between morale of Louisiana public elementary school teachers and their principal\u27s leader behavior. The study was designed to test the following major hypotheses: (1) There is no significant relationship between elementary school teachers\u27 perceptions of the principal\u27s leader behavior and teacher morale. (2) There is no significant difference in the relationship in the mean morale score of teachers perceiving their principals as above the mean on the total leader behavior score and those perceiving their principals as below the mean on the total leader behavior score. (3) There is no significant difference in the relationship between the initiating structure factor and the consideration factor of the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire in relation to teacher morale. (4) There is no significant difference between the teacher morale-leader behavior relationship of the selected demographic category sub-groups, age and years of teaching experience. In order to test the hypotheses, a random sample of 600 elementary school teachers was selected from 22 Louisiana parishes. Two instruments, the Purdue Teacher Opinionaire and the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire, were mailed to the subjects and 356 or 59 percent responded. Data derived from the measure of teacher morale, the Purdue Teacher Opinionaire, was correlated with data derived from the measure of leader behavior, the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire. The correlation coefficients were computed according to the Pearson product-moment correlation formula. Tests for determining the significance of the difference between correlation coefficients and between means were also used. The following conclusions were determined from the findings related to the testing of the four major hypotheses of the study: (1) Hypothesis One was rejected; there was a significant relationship between the elementary school principal\u27s leader behavior and teacher morale according to the results of this study. (2) Hypothesis Two was rejected; there was a significant difference in the relationship in the mean morale score of teachers perceiving their principals as above the mean on the total leader behavior score and those perceiving their principals as below the mean on the total leader behavior score. . . . (Author\u27s abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI