Relationships between job description, role behavior, and effectiveness of elementary school assistant principals in Virginia public elementary schools

The Problem. The purpose of this study was to determine the quality of written job descriptions for the position of elementary assistant principal and to measure the observed role behavior, preferred role behavior, and effectiveness of assistant principals as perceived by principals, assistant principals, and teachers. It was hypothesized that the three study groups differed significantly in their perceptions of observed role behavior, preferred role behavior, and effectiveness of assistant principals; that there was a significant relationship between the rated effectiveness and the congruence of observed and preferred role behavior; and that there was a significant relationship between the rated effectiveness and the quality of the job description.;Research Procedure. The subjects were the principals, assistant principals, and 25% of the teachers of 54 randomly selected Virginia public elementary schools. A 66-item Role Analysis Questionnaire developed by the investigator was used to collect data. One-way analysis of variance procedures were used to test the hypotheses regarding differences in perceptions. Pearson Product Correlation procedures were used to test the hypotheses regarding relationships between effectiveness and congruence of role behavior scores, and between effectiveness and the quality of the job description.;Findings. There appear to be significant differences among principals, assistant principals, and teachers in their perceptions of observed role behavior and effectiveness of assistant principals; however, the three study groups do not appear to differ significantly in their perceptions of preferred role behavior. There appears to be a significant relationship between the rated effectiveness of assistant principals and the congruence of their observed and preferred role behavior. There was not a significant relationship between rated effectiveness and the quality of the job description