The attitudes of principals of Catholic secondary schools toward teacher empowerment: A study of principals in the Western region of the national Catholic Education Association
The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of principals of selected Catholic secondary schools toward aspects of teacher empowerment. The Attitudes Toward Teacher Empowerment Survey was developed to measure attitudes toward empowering teachers in certain decision areas and to examine attitudes about the effects of teacher empowerment; The instrument was reviewed by two separate expert panels and sent, in final form, to 201 secondary school principals in the western region of the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA). The selected principals returned 161 (80.1%) usable surveys; The first part of the survey, items 1 through 29, measured principal attitudes toward empowering teachers in certain key decision areas in schools. Factor analysis reduced the data into three decision domains: (a) the manager-controlled decision domain which dealt with decisions made primarily by administrators, (b) the teacher-controlled decision domain which dealt with decisions made primarily by teachers, and (c) the collaborative decision domain which included decisions for which administrators wanted to share responsibility with teachers; The principals surveyed in this study had highly positive views toward empowering teachers in the teacher-controlled decisions and the collaborative decisions, and they were mildly positive toward increasing teachers\u27 influence in manager-controlled decisions; The second part of the survey, items 30-43, measured the principals\u27 views about the effects of empowering teachers. Factor analysis reduced the data into two groupings: the positive effects of empowerment grouping and the problems with empowerment grouping. The principals\u27 views about these two groups of questions were consistent with their attitudes toward the first section of the survey. The principals surveyed were optimistic about the positive benefits of empowering teachers, and they did not exhibit great concern about the problems that empowering teachers might create; Finally, characteristics such as a principal\u27s lay or clerical status, gender, or years of experience as a principal and the size of the school were evaluated. These data had no meaningful effect on the principals\u27 view of empowerment
