An Analysis of the Role Perception and Role Performance of Superintendents, Principals and Teachers in Selected High Schools in the State of Minnesota

Problem: Roles, even when clearly defined, and role perception of incumbents, constitute an area where perfect congruence is impossible. Wide divergence in the perception of superintendents and principals in the performance of their respective roles, and their views of the others\u27 role performance may be related to troublesome incidents, involving superintendents, boards, principals, staff, students, parents and community. The difference in which the superintendent and principal, or principals, regard these roles, and performance in them, may be directly related to the incidents of trouble. Procedure: The population of the study was limited to 217 schools in the State of Minnesota. Superintendents, principals and teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire designed for this study relating to twenty-five problem areas out of which problems may have arisen during the previous school year. In addition to this instrument, superintendents were asked to complete an additional questionnaire designed to gather demographic information, that only he would have, concerning the school. Principals and teachers were asked to complete a more personal type of instrument. The statistical techniques utilized were the chi-square and stepwise backward analysis of regression. The .05 level of significance was selected a priori for the determination of significance. Results: Differences significant at the .05 level were found among superintendents, principals and teachers in 33 areas. The study showed that the highest levels of significance were found for the superintendents and teachers, whose perceptions were consistently more different from each other than they were from those of principals. Teachers evidently disagreed with principals\u27 perceptions as well. It was evident that most of the significance could be attributed to teachers\u27 perceptions differing from both superintend- dent and principal. Stepwise backward regression analysis revealed little relationship-between demographic variables\u27and the criterion variables. Recommendations: The results of the study led to the following recommendations: 1. Further study should be conducted to determine why perceptions of principals within schools are not similar to either the superintendents or teachers. 2. Further study needs to be conducted to determine the effect to which differences in perceptions might eventually lead. 3. This study should be replicated with a larger geographical base. This should be done to see if the findings of this study can be duplicated in states other than Minnesota. 4. The study should be conducted on a longitudinal basis to determine if perceptions differ over an extended length of time as opposed to a one-year period