The review of the literature clearly shows that the exploration of a critical question is missing from the analysis of internships: Do interns who experience higher levels of involvement develop higher levels of knowledge and skills? In this study, learning experiences are defined as the type of involvement (i.e., low-involvement or high-involvement). The purpose of this study is to examine if higher levels of intern involvement result in the acquisition of higher levels of perceived knowledge and skills. Survey research method was used to assess the principle interns’ level of involvement in a set of specified activities and to assess the relative importance of each kind of involvement

Bird, James

Dunaway, David

Flowers, Claudia

Lyons, James

English

Fort Hays State University

Academic Leadership: The Online JournalVolume 8Issue 3 Summer 2010 Article 357-1-2010Principal Interns’ Level of Involvement andPerceived Knowledge and Skills Developed Duringthe Internship ProcessDavid DunawayJames BirdClaudia FlowersJames LyonsFollow this and additional works at: https://scholars.fhsu.edu/aljPart of the Educational Leadership Commons, Higher Education Commons, and the TeacherEducation and Professional Development CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by FHSU Scholars Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Academic Leadership: TheOnline Journal by an authorized editor of FHSU Scholars Repository.Recommended CitationDunaway, David; Bird, James; Flowers, Claudia; and Lyons, James (2010) "Principal Interns’ Level of Involvement and PerceivedKnowledge and Skills Developed During the Internship Process," Academic Leadership: The Online Journal: Vol. 8 : Iss. 3 , Article 35.Available at: https://scholars.fhsu.edu/alj/vol8/iss3/35academicleadership.org http://www.academicleadership.org/497/principal_interns_level_of_involvement_and_perceived_knowledge_and_skills_developed_during_the_internship_process/Academic Leadership JournalBackgroundPreparing the next generation of school leaders to assume the reins of leadership is a topic ascomplex as the schools these aspiring leaders will be guiding. While the value of traditional universitycourse-oriented preparation is often debated (Mitang, 2007), there is little debate about the value of theinternship as a critical component of the process of leader preparation. Baugh and Matthews (2004)describe the internship experience as a set of carefully designed experiences that link schoolleadership theory found in coursework with real-school practices and add emphasize that “[t]his type ofknowledge can be accessed only in the context of action” (p.53). The Southern Regional EducationBoard (n.d., p. 1) describes successful internships as possessing several key components including:· Collaboration of university and district representatives, emphasis on quality, development of criticalsuccess factors, and anticipation of potential problems;· Participant role clarification, sufficient length to experience the consequences of one’s decisions, anddevelopment of critical success factors for principals that make a difference in student achievement;and,· Explicit developmental learning experiences (observing, participating, then leading activities),mediation of district/school needs intern needs and university requirements, mentorselection/training/match-making with interns, and data driven formative and summative programevaluation.However, within this arena of agreement, much remains to be considered in crafting quality internshipexperiences. According to Hansford and Erlich (2006), in a review of 40 research-based papersfocusing on the mentoring of future principals, “The findings highlight the necessity for planners ofprograms to ensure that mentors are trained; the matching process is executed to eliminate potentialincompatibilities; and, time for mentoring is factored into program implementation” (p. 36).Where these factors are not adequately considered, much dissonance can be found as described byDaresh and Playko (1994) who noted that aspiring principals and practicing administrators have verydifferent views of the kinds of skills that are important for effective job performance. Aspiring principalsplace a much higher value on the demonstration of technical skills while practicing administrators rankthese skills as least importance and place much more importance in newcomers showing socializationskills. Superintendents whose views of the internship are seldom considered had another view. Theyindicated that they made decisions on whether or not to retain novice administrators based ondemonstrated self-awareness skills.Clearly, while accepted as a best-practice, the internship is not without significant issues. Hung (2001)concluded in a review of the literature regarding the effectiveness of internships:In summary, while there is a clear case for improving administrator preparation programs across thecountry, there is no clear answer on how to redesign them so that they can produce effective principalswho are then capable of handling the increased responsibilities and expectations of the role. Themajority of opinions and reports support the use of internships to improve principal preparation, but it isunclear what exactly works when implementing the internship. (p.12, 13)Purpose of this StudyThe review of the literature clearly shows that the exploration of a critical question is missing from theanalysis of internships: Do interns who experience higher levels of involvement develop higher levels ofknowledge and skills? In this study, learning experiences are defined as the type of involvement (i.e.,low-involvement or high-involvement).The purpose of this study is to examine if higher levels of intern involvement result in the acquisition ofhigher levels of perceived knowledge and skills. Survey research method was used to assess theprinciple interns’ level of involvement in a set of specified activities and to assess the relativeimportance of each kind of involvement.MethodWe used a survey to collect data for examining the following research questions: Are thererelationships between level of involvement in the internship (i.e., observing/participating in an activity orleading an activity) and interns’ knowledge and skills in the domains of (a) vision, (b) instruction, (c)operations, (d) external environment, and (e) ethics learning? The a priori hypothesis is that interns willreport a higher level of knowledge and skills for all domains when they have a higher level ofinvolvement (i.e., leading an activity).Participants and ProceduresA total of 160 principal interns who completed the 10-month principal internship in the Masters inSchool Administration graduate program in a large southeastern university were sent an invitation toparticipate in this study. All potential participants were emailed a letter inviting them to complete an on-line survey. The letter was sent using university logos which identified the nature of the study, the namesof the researchers, the link to access the survey, information concerning rights of participants, andcontact information if they had questions. A followup email was sent approximately one week after theintial email thanking those who completed the survey or reminding those who had not completed thesurvey to please do so. Electronic mail addresses were not associated with responses and allparticipation was anonymous.InstrumentationThere were 75 items on the survey. The first part of the questionnaire asked participants their age,gender, race, highest degree earned, work position, and years of teaching and administrationexperiences. The next part of the survey asked respondents to rate their perception about how muchthey (interns) learned during the internship program (1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree) and thedegree of involvement for each skill ( observed, participated, and led). We defined high-involved internsas those that had an opportunity to lead an activity associated with the specific skill and low-involvedinterns were those that only observed or participated in the activities associated with the skill. Therewere five knowledge/skill domains of learning examined: (a) vision (4 items), (b) instruction (7 items),(c) operations (7 items), (d) external environment (4 items), and (e) ethics (5 items). Domains and itemdevelopment were based on leadership areas consistent with ISSLC and ELCC standards: vision,culture, instructional leadership, school management, involvement in the external environment, andissues of ethics and values.Recommended procedures for constructing a questionnaire were used in this study (Dillman, 2000).For example, questions were created in a way that minimized the need to reread portions in order tocomprehend the response task. The questionnaire was reviewed by the research team and changesmade in the questionnaire that satisfied the principle of questionnaire design. To evaluate the clarity ofthe questionnaire items, two interns were asked to talk-aloud as they responded to the items in thequestionnaire. The results indicated that items were not ambiguous and easily understood by potentialrespondents. Coefficient alphas for the five domains ranged from .74 (operations) to .87 (vision), whichsuggest reasonable internal consistency for the domains.Design and Data AnalysisThe research questions in this study examined interns’ level of involvement and their perception of theirknowledge and skills in (a) vision, (b) instruction, (c) operations, (d) external environment, and (e)ethics. A series of independent t-tests were conducted, with the independent variable of level ofinvolvement (low-involvement as defined by interns only observing/participating in the activity or highinvolvement as defined by interns leading the activity) and the dependent variable being the interns’perception of their learning in specific domains. To insure adequate statistical power, no correction inalpha was made for conducting multiple statistical tests.ResultsDescription of RespondentsA total of 59 interns out of 160 invited interns completed the survey, which resulted in a 37% return rate.Most respondents were females ( n=42, 71%). The age range of respondents was 64% ( n=38)between 30-39 years old, 20% ( n=12) between 40-49 years old, 9% ( n=5) between 50-59 years old,and 7% ( n=4) under the age of 30 years old. Most of the respondents identified their race asCaucasian ( n=42, 71%) and 17 (29%) respondents identified as African-American. Over half of therespondents held administration positions at the elementary ( n=32), 31% of respondents heldpositions at middle ( n=18), and 15% ( n=9) held a position at the high school level ( n=8). The averagenumber of years teaching and experience as a school administrator was 10.4 years ( SD=4.9) and 1.7years ( SD=1.4).Research Questions ResultsThe survey items, sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and effect sizes (Cohen’s d) for internswho reported a low level of involvement (i.e., observed/participated in the school activities associatedwith the specific knowledge or skill) and those interns who reported a high level of involvement (i.e., hadthe opportunity to lead the activity) are reported in Tables 1-5. Table 1 contains the items associatedwith the knowledge/skill domain of vision. The results indicated that interns with the higher level ofinvolvement (led the school activity associated with vision) reported higher means for all the visionitems. There were statistically significant differences between the groups, with effect sizes ranging from.64 to .77. These results suggest that interns who were provided the opportunity to lead the activitiesassociated with vision were more likely to report higher levels of learning how to develop andimplement the school vision, use the vision to guide decisions, and work with school staff, parents, andcommunity in developing and revising the school vision.For instruction (Table 2), themeans for all items werehigher for the high-involvement interns than thelow-involvement interns.There were statisticallysignificant differencesbetween the means for 5 ofthe 7 items. There were notstatistically significantdifferences for (a) developa school improvement plan,and (b) process/proceduresof effective teacherobservations from my mentor principal. The effect sizes ranged from .30 to .58, suggest small tomoderate magnitudes of differences between group means. The instructional items with the largesteffect sizes (i.e., greater than .50) tended to be items associated with evaluating and assessingeffective instruction.Differences between thetwo intern groups for itemsassociated with schooloperations are displayed inTable 3. Statisticallysignificant differencemeans between the interngroups were found for only3 of the 7 items. Themagnitude of differencebetween the intern groupsranged from small (.18) tovery large (1.12), which isdifferent from the previoustwo domains. Largedifferences (i.e., greaterthan 1.0) were detected for(a) monitor and evaluateschool operations and (b)technology to support school operations and processes.The results for the 4 itemsassociated with externalenvironment are reported inTable 4. There werestatistically significantdifferences in the means for3 of the 4 items. Themagnitude of differencewas moderate (.57) to verylarge (1.25). A largemagnitude of differencewas found for (a) engageparents and communityrepresentatives inaccomplishing the schoolmission and (b) involvedwith stakeholders in schooldecision-making.Table 5 contains the resultsfor the items associatedwith the domain of ethics.Statistical significantdifferences were found for 4of the 5 items with amagnitude ranging from .27(small) to moderate (.73).Interns who lead theactivities tended to reporthigher means for applyingand modeling ethicalprinciples and operatingwithin the framework ofschool laws and protectingstudents’ rights.DiscussionInterns clearly reported thatthey learned more in thoseactivities in which theyperformed at higher levelsof involvement. Having theopportunity to lead anactivity was associatedwith higher learning levelsthan having the opportunityto just observe orparticipate in said activity.They consistently reportedthis pattern across all fivedomain areas: vision,instruction, operations,external environment, andethics.Leadership opportunities were created for interns within all domain areas. Among domain areas, themost often providing leadership opportunities for interns was ethics followed in order by instruction,vision, school operations, and external environment.. While the areas of school operations and externalenvironment provided the least opportunities for leadership activities, interns that did lead activities inthose domains reported levels of learning among the highest assessed in the study.Given the results of this study, we would make the following changes in our program. First, care shouldbe given to include structured activities in all five domain areas to give the intern the needed broad-based experience. Secondly, there should be intentional inclusion of activities that induce not onlyobservation and participation by the intern but also leadership opportunities as well. Depending on theinterests and talents of the intern and the pragmatic needs of the school setting, an appropriate mix ofobserving, participating, and leading activities needs to be structured across the internship experience.To be most productive, when feasible, these activities should move along the intensity continuumtowards greater and greater leadership opportunities as the internship transpires. Such intentional andfocused planning and monitored implementation should involve the three main characters of universitysupervisor, district mentor, and intern. Working together these three can create an effective set ofactivities across the five domain areas with sufficient intensity to optimize the intern’s experiences.Universities and school districts need to create more meaningful experiences for interns to immersethemselves in the activities of building level budget development and management processes (Authors,2009). Perhaps textbook and software publishers can be pursuaded to produce viable exercises forprofessors, mentors, and interns which devote more attention to this area, as most textbooks do notcurrently clearly present practical information for developing and managing budgets at the school level.If intern activity intensity is expected to increase throughout the internship along a continuum ofobservation/participation/leading, then a system of concomitant monitoring needs to be establishedand enacted by the university supervisor and/or the principal-mentor.Recommendations for Further StudyThe imputus for this study emerged from a previous study conducted for the purposes of improvingintern experiences for students, mentors, and university supervisors (Authors, et al. 2009). Data wasgathered from the interns regarding the intensity level of their involvement and its resultant relationshipto assessed learning. In that study, mentors were not asked about the intensity levels of the internactivities. The mentors’ perceptions of this relationship would be very interesting and its comparision tothe interns’ perceptions would be potentially enlightening.What is the perceived value of the intensity ofvarious internship experiences by the interns, principal-mentors, university academic and clinical staff,and superintendents? Each of these actor groups has compatible, but just as often, uniqueperspectives on the importance of varying intern experiences. For instance, should the internshipemphasize leadership or management experiences? Should the internship focus on preparation for theassistant principalship or the principalship? Should the internship be specific to a school system orprepare students in a more holistic manner. Is the internship a university directed experience or schoolsystem directed experience?Lastly, we would recommend that some qualitative studies be conducted in which researchers studyand monitor the experiences of administrative interns and their field-based principal-mentors on anongoing basis during the the experience—from beginning to end. These studies could provide somevery rich, illuminating data that could be used to improve principal preparation programs and enhancethe emerging knowledge base.ReferencesAuthors. (2009). Identities masked for blind review purposes.Baugh S. W. E., & Matthews J. (2004). Developing a mentoring internship model for school leadership:Using legitimate peripheral participation. Mentoring & Tutoring, 12(1), 53-70.Daresh, J. and Playko, M. (1994). Aspiring and Practising Principals’ Perceptions of Critical Skills forBeginning Leaders. Journal of Educational Administration, 32(3), 35-45. Retrieved April 10, 2009, fromhttps://connect2.uncc.edu/Insight/,DanaInfo=www.emeraldinsight.com+viewContentItem.do?contentType=Article&contentId=839027.Dillman, D.A. (2000). Mail and internet surveys: The tailored design method. (2nd ed.). New York: JohnWiley Co.Hansford, B., & Ehrich, L. (2006, January). The Principalship: How Significant Is Mentoring? Journal ofEducational Administration, 44(1), 36-52. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ801626)Retrieved February 23, 2009, from ERIC database.Hung, S.S. (2001). The nature of administrative internships on principal preparation. Retrieved June25, 2008, from ProQuest Digital Dissertations. (AAT 3014777).Mitgang, L. (2007, March). Getting principal mentoring right: Lessons from the field perspective.Wallace Foundation.Southern Regional Education Board. (n.d.). Developing internship programs for school leaders: A how-to guide for university and school district partnerships. Retrieved September 18, 2008, fromhttp://www.sreb.org/main/Leadership/Modules/descriptions/Developing%20Internship%20Programs.pdf.VN:R_U [1.9.11_1134]

Principal Interns’ Level of Involvement and Perceived Knowledge and Skills Developed During the Internship Process

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Principal Interns’ Level of Involvement and Perceived Knowledge and Skills Developed During the Internship Process

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