Principals\u27 Communication Styles and Processes and Their Relationship to School Performance

This study aimed to describe principals\u27 communication styles and processes and their relationships to school performance in Al Ain city in the UAE as perceived by school staff. The study was guided by three research questions and used the mixed research method. Data for this study were collected through a questionnaire and semi-structured phone interviews. The questionnaire was divided into four sections. The first section included demographic information of participants. The second part included 26 statements that were used to identify the communication processes at school. The third part was comprised of 25 statements that were used to describe the communication styles of the school principals. The last section consisted of 25 statements used to measure school performance. There were also four open-ended questions in the questionnaire that were used with the interview to probe and clarify the participants\u27 responses. The questionnaire was applied in 40 schools in Al Ain, and it was completed by 667 male and female school staff. The means, cumulative means, standard deviations, Kruskal Wallis test, Mann-Whitney test and qualitative data analysis were used to describe communication processes and styles. Pearson r and qualitative data analysis were used to answer the second question about the relationship between communication processes and principals\u27 communication styles and school performance. The third question was answered by analyzing the open-ended questions and interviews. The results of the study showed that school principals use a variety of communication processes and communication styles to communicate with different stakeholders. The study found that communication processes and styles correlated with school performance in different degrees and directions. Finally, school staff perceived that there were relationships between the principals\u27 communication styles and processes and school performance