Principals' decision making in discipline policy implementation: The Lutheran schools' perspective

<p>This quantitative study examines the relationship of philosophical beliefs of administrators of Lutheran schools and the influence of those beliefs on discipline decision-making styles, job satisfaction, and other factors. The study patterns the survey work from William Perry (1999) and other theorists regarding philosophy and ethics. A theoretical framework postulates a positive relationship of objectivist philosophy with directed decision-making style and interpretivist philosophy with participative decision-making style.</p> <p>The administrators from two Lutheran education organization’s listserves, through invitation, participated in the qualitative online survey. The investigation uses path analysis, factor analysis, and regressions to explore survey and descriptive data. Some contextual variables such as gender and training have statistically significant relationships to decision-making styles and decision actions. Objectivist philosophy correlates to the selection of directive decision-making styles, while interpretivist philosophy correlates to participative decision-making style. There did not seem to be a strong relationship to religious faith and the selection of the objectivist philosophy, but data allow for a new category of visionary educators. Factors of the student did not influence satisfaction and self-reported effectiveness of administrators. Included are limitations and future study suggestions.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Leadership and Counseling

Year dc:date.available

2013

Author dc:creator

• Brandon, Katherine Jane

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. David Anderson
• Dr. Robert Carpenter
• Dr. Ronald Williamson

• decision-making
• discipline
• Lutheran
• philosophy
• administration
• Educational Leadership
• Educational Methods

Repository record dc:identifier

https://commons.emich.edu/theses/459

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:commons.emich.edu:theses-1829