The focus on student achievement in America’s public schools has increased dramatically over the past decade. The pressure to perform and show growth in student achievement has been placed squarely on educational leaders. Producing results through students that they are educating is critical to the success of educational leaders. Establishing ways to make this happen and sustaining this growth and success is no longer an option but is a demand that must be met. Failure to meet this demand not only impacts the futures of educational leaders but also, and most importantly, negatively impacts the futures of their students. To bring about meaningful change, leadership must find ways to positively influence student behavior in order to experience long-term growth. Through an administrator’s influence on student behavior, sustainable change becomes a possibility. Assessing an educational leader’s spirituality is an avenue to make this influence a reality.
This study was designed to consider the possibility that an educational leader’s spirituality may be able to positively influence their perceptions on student success. These perceptions may then lead to the discovery of ways that will impact student behaviors and as a result student achievement. The research questions define an individual’s spirituality and examine the possibility of its existence in public education through the influence of the leadership of a public school on student behaviors. To determine if the principles of spirituality exist within the leadership style of public school administrators, the “Inventory on Spirituality”, (Rayburn & Richmond, 2006) created and updated by Carole Rayburn and Lee Richmond, was utilized and amended to create the “Inventory on Spirituality/Morality.” This instrument was used to measure the existence of spirituality within the lives of public school administrators. To eliminate confusion about the meaning of spirituality as it related to public school administrators, the word morality was used in this study.
Once this was discovered, steps were taken to determine if spirituality, through the administrator’s leadership style, had an influence on public school administrators and if this influence had an impact on their perceptions on student success in Pennsylvania public schools. To address these areas, descriptive and inferential statistics were analyzed. This is the first study of this kind to examine the influence that spirituality has on a public school administrator and, then what, if any, influence this might have on student behavior in a public school setting.
The study will define spirituality and through research will determine if its existence in public education through the influence of public school administrators impacts their perception on student success. For public school administrators, would the terms spirituality and morality be synonymous, in other words could one be interchanged with the other and still convey similar meanings? If so then spirituality and morality, as seen through the perceptions of public school administrators, may have an impact on student’s success in the public school setting.
Demographic information was collected to determine the make-up of this group of administrators. Administrators were also asked to define their leadership style. Once identified, the study explored the possible influence that the administrators’ spirituality had through their leadership style on student behaviors in the public school setting. School district data was collected and examined in relation to this potential influence.
Results were analyzed using SPSS version 18 to compute descriptive and inferential statistics. Significant findings and implications for public school administrators today, as well as ideas for future research, were presented.