Prediction of success for school principal candidates by means of a decision‐making test
| Published date | 01 April 2002 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/09578230210421097 |
| Date | 01 April 2002 |
| Pages | 118-135 |
| Author | Joseph Klein |
| Subject Matter | Education |
Journal of
Educational
Administration
40,2
118
Journal of Educational
Administration,
Vol. 40 No. 2, 2002, pp. 118-135.
#MCB UP Limited, 0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/09578230210421097
Received November 2000
Revised February 2001
Accepted February 2001
Prediction of success for school
principal candidates by means
of a decision-making test
Joseph Klein
School of Education, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
Keywords Decision making, Control, Schools, Top management
Abstract In an attempt to identify the most capable candidates for selection as school principals,
examines the validity of the prediction of success by means of a questionnaire. This tool measured
the level of cognitive activity with respect to three diverse components of the decision-making
process. A total of 99 school principals ranked by their superiors responded to the questionnaire.
It was found that successful principals, in the first phase of the decision-making process, ascribed
great importance to gathering information from objective sources, while the unsuccessful
principals gave greater emphasis to data collection from subjective sources. In the final decision-
making phase, both successful and unsuccessful principals preferred the subjective sources,
although it was the former who particularly stressed the subjective aspect. Explores the reason for
the change in the approaches of the two groups. Investigation of three aspects of decision-making
processes characterizing the different groups, together with a locus of control test, made it
possible to identify the various gradations of success of the principals with a 55 percent degree of
accuracy.
Theoretical background
The effectiveness of a school depends to a large degree on the administrative
ability of its principal. The importance of this role has led to great interest in
methods of identifying suitable candidates for principalship. Until the late
1970s, the selection process focused on an examination of the curriculum vitae
of applicants, previous experience, and personal references. Interviews
designed to reveal talents and abilities, undetected by other methods, were also
conducted. Methods of screening candidates for the position of principal were
enhanced with the founding of assessment centers, which employed fitness
checks, personality analyses, an intelligence examination, and performance
tests involving selected professional tasks.
The Principal Assessment Center of the National Association of Secondary
School Principals opened its doors in 1976. Candidates were examined for
aptitudes and skills in the areas of leadership qualities, interpersonal relations,
intellectual independence, readiness to accept change, motivation, ability to
withstand stress, competence in problem-solving and decision-making,
organizational skills, decisiveness, facility of oral and written expression, and
extent of the range of interests (Walden, 1985). In order to increase reliability, a
number of assessors participated in the evaluation of candidates.
Gomez (1985), Hersey (1986) and Gomez and Stephenson (1987) reported a
significant predictive validity for the methods of the above-mentioned
assessment center. In contrast, later studies noted only limited success in the
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Prediction of
success
119
identification of candidates for principalship (Schmitt and Chohen, 1990).
Williams and Pantili (1992) found a correlation of less than 20 percent between
the NASSP assessment ratings and the job performance criteria for principals.
In view of the equivocal findings with regard to the predictive validity of the
assessment center, particularly for purposes of certification and selection, the
literature calls for further research on screening processes for school principals.
A characteristic which the literature has attributed to successful educational
administrators is high competence in problem-solving and decision-making.
The prominence of the administrator as a decision-maker is exhaustively
surveyed by a number of researchers (Webster, 1994; Terry, 1995; Peterson and
Beekley, 1997). Whether the principal is free to express that ability depends on
the philosophy of the institution in which he/she works.
Clark (1995), noting that ``the principal as all knowing patriarch and
problem-solver is passeÂ'', opposed the kind of centralized administration that
endows the principal with exclusive decision-making authority. In contrast to
this type of management, au courant, autonomous school principals grant their
staffs wide-ranging decision-making authority and encourage teamwork and
creativity. As senior members of their faculties, principals participate in
initiation of various key decisions, in allocation of resources for their
implementation, in execution of plans, and in evaluation of the outcome. While
these new methods are accepted in certain institutions, principals still have the
last word in most schools.
It is difficult to differentiate between candidates of varying capacity for
decision making. Many of the decisions in the field of education rest on value-
based or probability-based judgments. Thus, differing and even opposing
opinions in the context of the educational situation have legitimacy.
The accepted method of investigating the quality of the probability-based
decision is to monitor the cognitive processes employed while the decision is
being formulated. The basic assumption is that a carefully considered solution
to a problem of probability necessitates concentration on a number of crucial
components of the decision; ignoring these will damage the quality of the
decision.
The literature reports normative models, which describe major components
of the decision-making processes (Stanovich and West, 1998). The components
reported in the various models are not uniform, reflecting differing
interpretations of the central thought processes involved in making a decision.
This lack of agreement hampers the use of normative models as part of the
process of screening candidates for school administration.
Specific features of the decision-making process may also be examined by
comparing the manner in which experts and novices make decisions (Larkin
et al., 1980; Rowland, 1992; Randel et al., 1996; Lipshitz and Ben Shaul, 1997).
The distinction between experts and novices has also been studied in the fields
of teaching (Westerman, 1991; Henry, 1994; Ferry and Ross, 1998) and of
educational administration (Leithwood and Stager, 1989; Allison and Nagy,
1991; Allison and Allison, 1991).
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