Faculty trust in the principal: an essential ingredient in high-performing schools
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-02-2014-0024 |
| Date | 02 February 2015 |
| Published date | 02 February 2015 |
| Pages | 66-92 |
| Author | Megan Tschannen-Moran,Christopher R. Gareis |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy |
Faculty trust in the principal:
an essential ingredient in
high-performing schools
Megan Tschannen-Moran and Christopher R. Gareis
Educational Policy, Planning, and Leadership, The College of William & Mary,
Williamsburg, Virginia, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships among faculty trust in the
principal, principal leadership behaviors, school climate, and student achievement.
Design/methodology/approach –Data from 64 elementary, middle, and high schools in two school
districts formed the basis of the study (n¼3,215 teachers), allowing for correlational and regression
analyses of the variables.
Findings –The authors found that faculty trust in the principal was related to perceptions of both
collegial and instructional leadership, as well as to factors of school climate such as teacher
professionalism, academic press, and community engagement. Student achievement was also
correlated with trust, principal leadership behaviors, and school climate. The authors found that both
of the composite variables, principal behaviors and school climate, made significant independent
contributions to explaining variance in student achievement and that together they explained 75
percent of the variance in achievement.
Research limitations/implications –Limitations of the study include the use of a single form to
collect participants’responses that may have elevated the degree of correlations, as well as the
exclusion of rural schools from the sample.
Practical implications –The findings of this study suggest that principals must foster and maintain
trust in order to lead schools effectively. Importantly, trust has both interpersonal and task-oriented
dimensions. Thus, principals must be prepared to engage collegially with teachers in ways that are
consistently honest, open, and benevolent, while also dependably demonstrating sound knowledge and
competent decision making associated with administering academic programs.
Originality/value –Situated in a conceptual framework of systems theory, this study explored the
interplay of faculty trust in the principal, principal behavior, school climate, and student achievement.
The findings suggest that it is necessary for principals to evidence both interpersonal and
task-oriented behaviors in order to be trusted by teachers. Furthermore, the strength of the
relationships suggests that schools will not be successful in fostering student learning without
trustworthy school leaders who are skillful in cultivating academic press, teacher professionalism, and
community engagement in their schools.
Keywords Principals, Organizational culture, Educational administration, Trust, Administrators,
Instructional leadership, Faculty trust, Student achievement, School climate, Collegial leadership,
Principal leadership
Paper type Research paper
For more than 30 years, public education in the USA has been in a near constant state
of critique and reform. The publication of the federal report A Nation at Risk (National
Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE), 1983) in 1983 is widely viewed as the
historical milestone at which time the present accountability era began. Other
milestones that further characterize the past three decades have followed in succession,
such as the publication of curriculum standards by the National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics, Commission on Teaching Standards for School Mathematics (1991), the
articulation of Goals 2000 as federal policy in 1993 (United States Department of
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 53 No. 1, 2015
pp. 66-92
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-02-2014-0024
Received 5 February 2014
Revised 30 June 2014
4July2014
Accepted 6 July 2014
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
66
JEA
53,1
Education (USDOE), 1993), the passage of No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (2002),
and, most recently, the adoption of the Common Core State Standards (National
Governors’Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School
Officers , 2010). Taken together, these five historical markers signify the advent of and
continuing momentum toward nat ional standards for curriculum, assessment,
and accountability. But the USA is not alone in this drive for educational
accountability. While other countries have long had national curricula or have long
histories of using standardized assessments for high-stakes decisions for students,
ongoing, and worldwide attention has been given to reports that compare the
educational achievement of students, such as TIMSS (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2013) and PISA (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Develop ment
(OECD), 2010). The sense of competitiveness and of external accountability has reached
such intensity that these international comparisons have been described as “league
tables,”a pointed allusion to the competition of professional sports (Hawker, 2013).
The historical markers noted above also suggest a common approach taken towa rd
educational reform, namely, that if we are clearer about our expectations for
student learning (as expressed in explicit curriculum standards), if we rigorously
assess students’achievement relative to these expectations (such as with
technology-enhanced assessments), and if we hold educators in schools accountable
for the results, then the educational systems of states (and, collectively, of the
nation) will improve. This chain of reasoning is indicative of an understanding
of the educational process as a complicated system, when, in fact, the process of
teaching and learning in schools is a complex system.
By way of explanation, a simple system is one that will predictably bring about
expected results given that one has attained a given level of experience and pro ficiency
in a requisite set of knowledge and skills. An example of a simple system is the process
of cooking using a recipe. A complicated system is one in which a number of
component parts must work in tandem to bring about the expected result, and which
requires a high level of expertise and the application of tested formulae to undertake
certain operational processes of the system. Such expertise increases the likelihood
of bringing about the intended outcome, although not with absolute assurance.
Examples of complicated systems include the internal mechanisms of a clock or
sending an unmanned rocket into space. A complex system oftentimes incorporates
both simple and complicated subsystems, but the realization of intended outcomes is
less predictable. This is because complex systems include unpredictable and sometimes
unknown variables. Furthermore, complex systems are also characterized by the
phenomenon of reciprocal causation, whereby the acted upon also serves as an actor
within the processes of the system, thus being both affected by and affecting other
processes within the system as well as the outcomes of the process. Examples include
farming, policy making, and, of course, education (Senge, 1990).
Education is complex. It cannot be reduced to an easy formulae such as higher
standards +rigorous assessment +accountability ¼higher achievement. An
inordinate number of variables are at play in the teaching and learning process,
especially in organizations such as contemporary public schools. One such set of
variables are the many and varied interpersonal relationships that develop, ebb, and
flow among the myriad members of a school community, namely, students, parents,
teachers, and principals. As individuals and groups, students, parents, teachers, and
principals work simultaneously with and for each other. As with any complex system,
members in the system are both actors and acted upon by the system.
67
Faculty trust
in the
principal
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