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Virginia Tech

Educational Leaders' Decision-Making: Presence, Influence, and Strength of Personal Values, Morals, and Ethics

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

The study investigated the degree to which the personal values, morals, or ethics of educational leaders enter into their decision making processes. A review of the literature suggests that leadership preparation programs for educators do not adequately equip aspiring administrators for the ethical challenges in a global society. The scholarship of John Dewey and Donald Willower in the field of educational leadership laid the groundwork for the dual methodology pilot study conducted with high school administrators and retired superintendents. Retired division superintendents from Virginia were interviewed to yield a database of thematic strands for developing ethical construct statements. Demographic data was collected in the first portion of the survey. In the second portion of the instrument, respondents indicated strength of relevance for each of twenty valuation statements applied to each of the four ethical scenarios. The third section ended by respondents assigning one of four value labels to each of the ethical scenarios. Implications for further research include early administration to members of new leadership preparation cohorts for comparison at program completion.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Doctor of Education
Level thesis:degree_level
doctoral
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
Department dc:contributor.department
Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2009

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Strickler, Mark Rosen
Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Twiford, Travis W.
  • Mallory, Walter D.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Powell, Susan T.
  • Tripp, Norman Wayne
  • Eller, John F.

Subjects

dc:subject × 5

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
etd-04172009-091459
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/26940

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Strickler, Mark Rosen. Educational Leaders' Decision-Making: Presence, Influence, and Strength of Personal Values, Morals, and Ethics. doctoral thesis, Virginia Tech, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/26940