The relationships among selected demographic variables, school settings, attendance in leadership academies, and the self -perceptions of secondary school principals

The purpose and research objectives of this study were to determine the perceptions of secondary principals toward the importance of specific skills necessary in performing their roles as school principals, their degree of preparation in the specific skills needed to perform their positional roles, and the helpfulness of certain training practices and courses included in their leadership preparation programs. The sample population consisted of the 191 public secondary school principals in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas who responded to a questionnaire developed by the researcher specifically for this study. Multivariate Analysis of Variance revealed a significant difference between gender and the ratings of importance of skills in instructional leadership, communication, school/community relations, student services, and management, and the only other demographic characteristic that was found to have a significant difference on the ratings of importance of any skill area investigated was years of teaching experience, impacting ratings of school/community relations skills. Gender was also found to be significant in the ratings of self-perceptions toward preparation in instructional leadership and communication skills and toward the helpfulness of courses in curriculum, supervision, educational research and statistics, computer applications, and school law. Leadership academy attendance was found to be significant in the self-perceptions of principals toward the helpfulness of instructional leadership courses, foundations courses, and the training practices of internship and leadership academy. The variable years of experience as a principal was found to be significant in the self-perceptions of principals toward helpfulness of school policy courses while age was found to be significant in the self-perceptions of principals toward the helpfulness of school law. The number of years as a principal was statistically significant in the ratings of self-perceptions of preparedness of principals in skills in communications and school/community relations. Only the variable leadership academy attendance significantly affected the ratings of perceived preparedness in skills in the area of student services. School size and school setting were not found to be statistically significant in the ratings principals assigned to the importance or preparation in any skill area or to the helpfulness of any course or training practice investigated