Administrative Role Perceptions of North Dakota Elementary School Principals as Related to Five Selected Dimensions of Administrative Function

Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this study was to determine: (1) the role dimension North Dakota elementary school principals perceive to be the most important in performance of the duties of a principalship; (2) whether North Dakota elementary school principals are functioning in the role dimension they perceive to be most important in performance of the duties of a principalship, (3) the perceived success of performance in each role dimension as judged by North Dakota elementary school principals, (4) what relationships exist between/among certain personality profiles of North Dakota elementary school principals and the perceived importance of and perceived success in selected administrative role dimensions. Summary of the Procedures: The population of this study included 92 North Dakota elementary school principals who attended the North Dakota Association of Elementary School Principals Mid-Winter Conference at Grand Forks, North Dakota, on February 18-20, 1976. Two instruments were designed by the researcher for the study to determine North Dakota elementary school principal perceptions of the actual, ideal, relative importance and success in the performance of selected role dimensions of administrative function. The Holland Vocational Preference Inventory, a personality inventory composed entirely of occupational titles, was utilized to obtain a personality profile for this study. The analysis of data involved the use of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (Nie et al., 1975). Related t tests were performed comparing principals\u27 perception of actual with ideal and successful with important. Pearson\u27s product-moment correlation coefficients were used to isolate any relationship between personality characteristics as indicated by the Vocational Preference Inventory and subject\u27s ratings of the role dimensions for ideal, relative importance and success in the performance of the administrative functions of a principal. Results and Conclusions: Examination of the data to this investigation suggests North Dakota elementary school principals perceive the role dimension in which they function most of the time to be that of an instructional leader. Principals further indicated they would prefer ideally to function as an instructional leader even more than is the perception of present performance. Principals also rated the instructional leadership role as the most important role dimension in the performance of the duties as principal. Principals rated their perception of success in the role of instructional leaders as second among the five role dimensions of administrative behavior. Elementary school principals perceive the conflict mediator role to be the least important role dimension and would prefer to spend even less time than they perceive themselves actually spending in this role. The public relations leadership role dimension was rated second as to its relative importance among the five administrative role dimensions. Principals indicated they would ideally prefer to function in that role dimension more than they do at present. The administrative leadership role was rated third as to its relative importance. However, elementary principals indicated they would prefer to act in this role even less than they perceive themselves acting. Principals indicated the administrative leadership role dimension to be the role dimension in which they functioned most successfully. Principals with advanced degrees, which comprised the majority of the subjects, indicated they function in the role of professional educational leadership less than they would like as a desirable ideal. Subjects with less than a Masters degree indicated they were functioning in the role of professional educational leadership at about the level they would ideally desire to function. While a minor relationship was shown to exist between certain personality characteristics and the perceptions of the role dimensions for elementary school principals, no conclusions of significance could be drawn