Date of Award

Fall 2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Committee Chair

Tracie Swilley

Abstract

The achievement gap between high-poverty and low-poverty schools is well documented. Principals play a key role in creating the conditions and instituting practices that help ensure students achieve regardless of socioeconomic status. In addition to teachers’ direct effect, strong principals have a positive, though primarily indirect, effect on student achievement. Highly effective principal instructional leadership is crucial. The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a significant difference in principal, teacher, and supervisor perceptions of principal instructional leadership in high-performing, high-poverty (HP-HP) elementary schools in South Carolina. The Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS), comprised of 10 functions, was used for this quantitative study. Criteria that included the free/reduced lunch percentage, state assessment performance in English language arts and math, report card rating, and principal tenure were applied to identify the HP-HP schools in this study. Four elementary principals agreed to participate. The principals, their teachers, and the principals’ supervisors completed the PIMRS survey with 50 items rated on a Likert scale. The statistical testing used was an analysis of variance (ANOVA). The ratings were analyzed to determine if there was a significant difference in the mean scores of the principal and teachers, the principal and the supervisor, and the teachers and the principal’s supervisor. The results were analyzed for any similarities and differences in the functions’ mean scores for individual schools and across schools. Findings indicated there was no significant difference in the mean scores between principals and teachers, principals and supervisors, and teachers and supervisors.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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