The development of a comparative appraisal of perceived resources and demands for principals

The purpose of this study was to develop the Comparative Appraisal of perceived Resources and Demands for Principals (CARD-P), which is used for appraising perceived stress in the elementary school principalship. An appraisal-based definition of stress was derived from literature and used as the theoretical framework for creating the instrument. The instrument was developed to capture the cognitive-transactional nature of stress as the differential between the subjective appraisal of demands and resources within the school/school district environment. The instrument was adapted from the Classroom Appraisal of Resources and Demands – School-aged Version developed by Lambert, McCarthy, & Abbott-Shim (2001). The CARD-P was developed in three stages. The first stage utilized a questionnaire given to a purposeful sample of six current principals stratified by grade level to determine characteristics (personal, school, and school system), demands, and resources perceived as most contributing to stress in the principalship. Due to the differences between perceptions of elementary and high school principals, the instrument was designed for elementary principals. The second stage aligned the characteristics, demands and resources with relevant literature to generate items and subscales for inclusion in a prototype. In the final stage, cognitive interviews with six elementary principals were used to improve the comprehension, structure, and clarity of the instrument