Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine the leadership of orientations of California Elementary school principals who have completed the California School Leadership Academy (CSLA), and to compare those orientations with other California elementary principals who have not had the CSLA training. The study also examined the effects of certain moderator variables on the leadership orientations of both groups of principals. A parallel study by Peasley (1992), using the same design and instrumentation, studied the orientations of secondary principals. The study was based on both descriptive and "ex-post-facto" research methodologies. An existing questionnaire was used to determine the leadership orientations of the respondents; a questionnaire designed by this researcher was used to gather demographic data about the moderator variables. The sample population for the study was 265 CSLA-trained elementary principals and 351 non-CSLA-trained elementary principals. The sample was randomly selected from the 825 principals who had completed the CSLA training and the 3,811 principals who had not had the training. A response rate of 59% for the CSLA-trained principals and 55% for the non-CSLA-trained principals was obtained for the respective sample populations. The statistical procedures included percentages, means, Chi-Square test of Independent Samples, two-tailed test of differences, analysis of variance, and the Scheffe' test of paired differences. Descriptively, the two groups of principals were very similar. This study found no significant differences in leadership orientation between the two groups. The only significant difference between the two groups was in the moderator variable of gender; for both the Human Resources and Symbolic leadership orientations, female principals had a stronger orientation than did male principals. This study found no evidence that CSLA training impacted the leadership orientations of California elementary school principals. As such, this study supports the literature which suggests that leadership orientation is a stable characteristic, and is a function of something other than leadership training.