Abstract
This study was designed to identify organizational climate factors that influence the implementation of instructional leadership behaviors subsequent to training in those behaviors. Subjects for this study were sixty-three K-12 principals in their third year of training with the California School Leadership Academy program. A Training Implementation Survey measured the degree to which the principals perceived implemention of the intended instructional leadership behaviors since entering the program three years ago. Principals used a Likert scale to rate the degree of implementation UPON ENTERING THE PROGRAM (3 years ago) and NOW. A School District Organizational Climate Survey measured the degree to which attributes of four identified dimensions of climate identified existed within the school district organization. Principals used a Likert scale to measure strong disagreement or agreement that an attribute existed within the school district organizational climate. In the application of Cronbach's Alpha to test internal consistency, a highly significant relationship among items within each of the four dimensions of the Survey was found. The four dimensions were Autonomy, Structure, Rewards and Consideration-warmth-support. The means of the differences between pre- and post-measure ratings were ranked and divided as equally as possible to establish the groups of high, middle and low implementers of the intended instructional leadership behaviors. The two tailed dependent t-test found significant differences between high and low implementers in pereived-implementation of the intended leadership behaviors, both separately and overall. However, the two-tailed independent t-test showed no significant differences in the climates of high and low implementers. These findings do not support an assumption that research on the organizational climate necessary for implementation of management training in the private sector applies to implementation of management training in schools. Further research needs to focus on school district structure that might support implementation of instructional leadership behaviors by principals and ultimate impact upon student achievement.