MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Diane Sue Burnside Huffman Candidate for the Degree: Doctor of Philosophy ___________________________________________ Director Dr. Thomas S. Poetter ___________________________________________ Reader Dr. William J. Boone ___________________________________________ Reader Dr. Kathleen Knight Abowitz ___________________________________________ Reader Dr. Andrew M. Saultz ABSTRACT SUPPORT AND MISTREATMENT BY PUBLIC SCHOOL PRINCIPALS AS EXPERIENCED BY TEACHERS: A STATEWIDE SURVEY by Diane Sue Burnside Huffman Skillful teachers are key to developing good schools. Because of this, understanding the school as a workplace is necessary to investigate why teachers leave and what encourages them to stay. The relationship between the principal, as the boss, and the teacher, as the employee, is one under- researched component of the school workplace which is important for developing a broad understanding of teacher turnover. This cross-sectional study uses a definition of principal mistreatment behaviors from the literature in the development of an original mixed method survey and a random sample of teachers from public schools in the State of Ohio to investigate how often principal mistreatment behaviors are experienced by a random sample of teachers in K-12 public schools. Mistreatment behaviors were paired with an opposite principal support behavior using Likert-style response options and were specifically focused on the 2012-2013 school year. Open- ended questions were included which asked for more general experience with principal mistreatment behaviors, effects on the teachers health, opinions about school culture and student bullying, and the effects of principal treatment behaviors on the teachers sense of efficacy and job satisfaction. The result of the study suggests that principal mistreatment and lack of support behaviors are widely experienced by teachers in the sample; however, these behaviors occur at a low frequency. Almost half of the teacher experienced severe level principal mistreatment behaviors, as defined by past research, during the school year. Mistreatment behaviors experienced by teachers resulted in a variety of teacher’s health concerns. A majority of teachers considered the principal-teacher relationship as an important factor in their sense of efficacy and job satisfaction. It is recommended that the education of future teachers and principals include a model of administration leadership which is developed by actual teacher experience. Further research is warranted. SUPPORT AND MISTREATMENT BY PUBLIC SCHOOL PRINCIPALS AS EXPERIENCED BY TEACHERS: A STATEWIDE SURVEY A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Educational Leadership by Diane Sue Burnside Huffman Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2015 Director: Dr. Thomas S. Poetter © Diane Sue Burnside Huffman 2015 List of Tables .......................................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures ....................................................................................................................................... vii Dedication ............................................................................................................................................. viii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................ ix Chapter 1: Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Literature Review ............................................................................................................... 6 The Researchers .............................................................................................................. 6 Workplace Bullying: Factors .......................................................................................... 7 The bully boss ............................................................................................................. 7 The target. ................................................................................................................... 9 The on-lookers ............................................................................................................ 9 Teacher Mistreatment.................................................................................................... 10 The Micropolitics of Educational Leadership .............................................................. 12 Laws and Policies ......................................................................................................... 14 Importance of This Study.............................................................................................. 15 Chapter 3: Methodology and Methods ............................................................................................... 17 Deweyan Pragmatism ................................................................................................... 17 Deweyan pragmatism as a research discourse .......................................................... 19 The current study ...................................................................................................... 21 Methods ........................................................................................................................ 24 Research study ethics ................................................................................................ 25 Population ................................................................................................................. 26 Sample ....................................................................................................................... 27 Instrument ................................................................................................................. 28 Procedure .................................................................................................................. 31 Internal Validity ......................................................................................................... 31 iii External validity ........................................................................................................ 32 Reliability .................................................................................................................. 36 Chapter 4: Results ................................................................................................................................ 37 Operationalizing the Principal Support/Mistreatment Construct .................................. 37 Quantitative Results ...................................................................................................... 39 Individual question sets. ............................................................................................ 39 Support recoded Mistreatment scores ....................................................................... 43 Mistreatment Level Scores........................................................................................ 44 Inferential statistics ................................................................................................... 47 Qualitative Results ........................................................................................................ 50 Question 1 ................................................................................................................. 50 Question 2 ................................................................................................................. 56 Question 3 ................................................................................................................. 57 Question 4 ................................................................................................................. 58 Question 5 ................................................................................................................. 59 Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................................... 61 Analysis of Quantitative Research Questions ............................................................... 63 Research Question 1 ................................................................................................. 63 Research Question 2 ................................................................................................. 64 Research Questions 3 to 7 ......................................................................................... 66 Analysis of Qualitative Research Questions ................................................................. 67 Research Question 8 ................................................................................................. 67 Research Question 9 ................................................................................................. 68 Research Question 10 ............................................................................................... 70 Research Question 11 ................................................................................................ 73 Research Questions 12 and 13 .................................................................................