0.19 Watts, l., kolsun, c., cline, v., & Williams, l. (october 20  (Page 8/11)

Procedure

Surveys were sent by Survey Monkey to 180 principals identified by e-mail lists who served schools in the fourteen counties. No attempt was made to distinguish between the grade levels of the schools or whether the schools were in an incorporated town— none of the counties had urban schools. After the initial e-mail was sent to principals, follow-up requests were sent out three times with each request being about five days apart. Those who chose to participate completed the surveys and returned them through Survey Monkey to the researchers.

Measures

In addition to five demographic questions ( Appendix A: Demographic Questions ), participants were asked to complete two surveys: (a) the Principal Sense of Efficacy (PSE) developed by Tschannen-Moran and Gareis (2004), and (b) a researcher-created survey of nine questions entitled the Cultural Influences Survey (CIS) developed by Cline, Kolsun, Williams, and Watts (2011).

The Principal Sense of Efficacy (PSE) was developed by Tschannen-Moran&Gareis (2004). They describe it as “an 18-item measure that assesses principals’ self-perceptions of their capability to accomplish various aspects of school leadership…The instrument was patterned after Bandura’s unpublished Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale” (2007, p. 97). In addition to providing an overall score of the sense of self-efficacy, three subscales are available which were named Principals’ Sense of Efficacy for Instruction, Principals’ Sense of Efficacy for Management, and Principals’ Sense of Efficacy for Moral Leadership (p. 97). The scale uses a 9-point Likert scale: 1 = none at all, 3 = very little, 5 = some degree, 7 = quite a bit, and 9 = a great deal. The survey is found in Appendix B: Principal Sense of Efficacy .

The Cultural Influences Survey (a 5-point Likert scale) contained nine questions related to perceptions of the principals whether certain cultural influences often identified with Appalachia had any effect on student achievement and success. The questions generally asked the respondents to indicate if a particular statement concerning a cultural influence or characteristic was perceived to have a relationship ranging from strongly negative (1) to strongly positive (5) Appendix C: Cultural Influences Survey .

Data analysis

Measures of central tendency, including means and standard deviations were calculated for all survey items. Correlations to identify relationships between sense of efficacy and perceptions of the influence of cultural factors were conducted for some items. Multiple regression was used to follow up on factors that showed correlation. To make comparison of data clearer, the researchers chose to convert the 9-point Likert scale into a 5-point scale with the following modifications: responses of 1 and 2 were considered as “not at all or minimum” (recorded as 1); responses of 3 and 4 were considered as “little” (recorded as 2); responses of 5 and 6 were labeled as “some” (recorded as 3); responses of 7 and 8 were “to a considerable degree” (recorded as 4); and responses of 9 became “to a high degree” (recorded as 5). It is recognized that this conversion of ratings weakens the ability of the instrument to discriminate between various levels of response.