A study of duties and responsibilities identified by Kansas assistant principals that promote job satisfaction and career stability

Purpose This research study concerned itself with a survey of a population of all Kansas public school assistant principals in terms of identification of duties and responsibilities, and attitudes toward the assistant principalship as a career. There was a dual purpose to the study: To identify those duties and responsibilities which did promote a sense of satisfaction among assistant principals as well as those duties and responsibilities which tended to promote a sense of dissatisfaction, and to determine if the relative satisfaction expressed in terms of categories of duties and responsibilities possessed predictive value in terms of present and future career orientations of assistant principals surveyed, Methods and Procedures Two studies were conducted as part of the research effort, A pilot study surveyed assistant principals in the Houston, Texas, area. The pilot effort served as a proving ground for evaluation of both the instruments utilized in the study and statistical methods employed in analysis of the data. Following revision and evaluation, the actual study focused upon Kansas assistant principals, with an 84 percent return of questionnaires from the total population. Three instruments were administered in both studies. The first, the Job Description Index (JDI), developed by Dr. Patricia Smith at Cornell University, obtained scores concerning satisfaction in basic areas of the job. Such scores were later analyzed concerning their predictive value as indicators of career orientation. A second instrument consisted of a modification of the Inventory of Administrative Activities (IAA), developed by Austin and Brown in 1970, which determined satisfaction levels found in responses to concrete duties and responsibilities. A Personal Profile Questionnaire completed the survey battery and established present and future career orientations of assistant principals as well as obtaining personal and professional data. Resulting data were subjected to appropriate statistical techniques in order to accurately assess the findings in terms of their impact upon the intent of the total study. Factor analysis, median, and multiple regression analysis accomplished this end. [...]