The Relationship Between Transformational Leadership Practices and Developing a Professional Learning Community

This quantitative study investigated self-perception of elementary school principals' leadership practices and the impact of these practices on developing and fostering a professional learning community within their schools. Fifty-nine elementary school principals, from school districts located in south central Pennsylvania, participated in this study. Five schools were selected to obtain additional responses from professional staff members working within the schools. Independent variables of principal's gender, highest level of education, and years of administrative experience were requested. Additional information regarding the size/population of the school staff and the size/population of the student body were collected to add to the analysis. The exemplary leadership practices were assessed by using The Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) by Kouzes & Posner (2003) and consisted of five leadership practices: Challenging the Process, Inspiring a Shared Vision, Enabling Others to Act, Modeling the Way, and Encouraging the Heart. Principals and professional staff members, from the five selected schools, provided perceptions of their schools as learning communities by completing the School Professional Staff as Learning Community (SPSLC) questionnaire, developed by Shirley Hord (1996). The learning community dimensions assessed by the SLSPC are: Principal's Facilitative Leadership, Shared Visions for Improvement, Collective Creativity and Learning, Classroom Observations and Feedback, and School Conditions and Capacities. Descriptive statistics, One-way Analysis of Variance, and Correlation coefficients were tests used to respond to the research questions. The results of my study indicated that the principals perceived they were engaging in transformational leadership practices and that their schools were developing as professional learning communities. The data analysis also showed that a relationship does exist between the transformational leadership practices, of the principals, and the schools developing as professional learning communities.

Grantor dc:publisher

Temple University. Libraries

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Wiestling, Troy L.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Davis, James Earl, 1960-

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Partlow, Michelle Chaplin, 1941-
• Leonard, Jacqueline
• DuCette, Joseph P.
• Ikpa, Vivian W.

• Education, Administration
• Community
• Leadership
• Learning
• Professional
• Transformational

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Dc Identifier Other

864884851

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/3818