It is generally understood that the effectiveness of school administration and teachers' commitments depend heavily on the leadership styles of a principal. With this consideration in mind, this study was designed to find certain relationships betw...
It is generally understood that the effectiveness of school administration and teachers' commitments depend heavily on the leadership styles of a principal. With this consideration in mind, this study was designed to find certain relationships between the leadership styles of kindergarten heads and the commitments of the teachers. The detailed objectives of the study were as follows:
1. To investigate and analyze various leadership styles of kindergarten heads perceived by the teachers under the leadership of the heads and find some differences of the teachers' perceptions according the teachers' backgrounds such as ranks and teaching experiences, and the sizes of the kindergartens the teachers worked.
2. To investigate and analyze the teachers' commitments according to their personal backgrounds and the sizes of kindergarten.
3. To identify some influences of the leadership of kindergarten heads on the commitments of the teachers and to find the levels of relationships between the leadership and commitments.
As a research method, a questionnaire survey was conducted. The questionnaire was revised from a review of the related literature, and it was divided into two separate parts. Part one dealt with the leadership styles or behavior of kindergarten heads, and part two was concerned about the commitments of kindergarten teachers. For the survey, a total of 181 kindergarten teachers in Seoul were randomly selected, and they were provided with a sheet of the questionnaire by mail or in person. The data collected from the teachers were statistically analyzed with SAS 9.1 for correlation, F-test, and one-way ANOVA to find certain relationships and a significant level of difference between the leadership styles of kindergarten heads and the teachers' commitments
Some important findings and conclusions of the study were as follows:
1. The study found that there was a significant difference between the teachers by rank and kindergarten size regarding the teachers' perceptions on the situational rewards of the transactional leadership of kindergarten heads. In other words, the study found that the higher the teachers' ranks and the bigger the sizes of the kindergartens, the higher the situational rewards of the leadership were shown.
2. It was found in the study that there was a significant difference in the teachers' perceptions on the change and vision-oriented, intellectual stimulus, consideration, support, goal-oriented, and empowering behavior of the transformational leadership. In other words, the higher the ranks of the teachers , the higher the teachers' perceptions on the vision-oriented leadership behavior were. Also, the study found that the smaller the sizes of kindergartens, the higher the perceptions on the change and vision-oriented leadership behavior were. On the contrary, the perceptions of the teachers in big sized kindergartens on the change and vision-oriented leadership behavior were low.
3. Regarding the teachers' perceptions on their commitments, it was found that there was a significant difference in the teachers' professionalism and educational love. In other words, the higher the ranks of the teachers, the higher the perceptions on professionalism, and the more teaching experiences, the higher educational love were. But, It was interesting to know that it was found that there was a significant difference between the teachers' perceptions on the educational love regardless of the teachers' personal backgrounds(variables) and the sizes of the kindergartens. Also, the study found that the higher the ranks of the teachers, the stronger enthusiasm for kindergarten education were shown. 4. There was a higher correlation between the leadership of kindergarten heads and the teachers' commitments, but no correlation was shown between the heads' exception to policy oriented- leadership behavior and the educational love. In other words, the highest correlation shown in the study was that of the teachers' professionalism and the situational rewards leadership style or behavior. Also, the study found that a type of the heads' leadership behavior, which showed the next highest correlation with the professionalism was the goal-oriented, support, empowering, consideration, and intellectual stimulus behavior in this order. Also, there was the highest correlation between educational love and the goal oriented, support, and empowering leadership behavior, and a type of the leadership behavior, which showed the next highest correlation with educational love was the situational rewards, change and vision-oriented, intellectual stimulus, consideration and support behavior in this order.
5. Regarding educational enthusiasm, it was found that there was the highest correlation between educational enthusiasm and the kindergarten heads' intellectual stimulus behavior, and that a type of the leadership behavior, which showed the next highest correlation with educational enthusiasm was the situational rewards, goal-oriented, empowering, change and vision-oriented, consideration, support, and exception to the policy oriented behavior in this order.
In conclusion, it is generally understood that the leadership of a school head is important to maintain the effectiveness of school administration and raise teachers' morale and commitments. It was found in the study that in general, there was a higher correlation between the leadership behavior of kindergartens and the commitments of kindergarten teachers. Therefore, a kindergarten head should make efforts to study on leadership and exercise certain leadership necessary for the effectiveness of kindergarten administration and strong commitments of the teachers.