AbstractsEducation Research & Administration

An eighteen-variable path analysis model was developed that traced the effects of varying degrees of leadership style through paths of student characteristics and student perceptions of teachers and those teachers' supervisors;A series of least-squares regression and errors-in-variables regression analyses were performed to obtain path coefficients showing the strongest paths to two measures of student productivity. These criterion variables indicated the number of job interviews vocational students had in their area of training and the amounts of the salaries being offered them;The original path model analyzed indirect paths flowing from three levels of exogenous and endogenous variables. The resulting path coefficients were rather small and indicated a model that did not fit the theory as well as had been expected. Briefly, the theory posited that administrative or supervisory leadership style affected teacher leadership style. This interacted with various student characteristics and resulted in degrees of student productivity as measured by employment success;Hypotheses tested relationships between the measures of administrative leadership style and student productivity, leadership styles of teachers and administrators, teacher and administrator leadership style and student productivity, and a comparison of the original correlation matrix and a reproduced correlation matrix derived from path coefficients;Data were collected with the Vocational Student Perception Inventory and yielded a sample of 642 vocational students from nine midwestern states;Results were that administrative leadership measures of initiating structure and consideration influenced the teacher and interacted significantly with student characteristics of sex and the size of the community native to the respondent. These paths then affected the productivity measurement of salary offers per job interview;Student perception of teacher and supervisor leadership style was examined through factor analysis. The results were that the factors derived were very similar to those found in previous research using the same criteria. The characteristics of three vocational training disciplines were examined using analysis of variance on all eighteen of the variables in the model. There was found to be a significant difference between the three training disciplines.