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Public school superintendents' involvement in and perceptions of educational program evaluation
Abstract
The focus of this qualitative study was on the formulation of a grounded theory concerning perceptions which public school superintendents maintain about educational program evaluation. The study specifically identified the superintendents' role as an evaluator, the preferred evaluation approaches and procedures employed by educational evaluators within a school setting, and which of those approaches was viewed as effective. Superintendent perceptions regarding the information-gathering and decision-making stages of evaluation, what preparation is adequate for a superintendent to serve as an evaluator, and in what ways district size affects evaluation procedures were also determined. Interviews with public school superintendents were used to gather data. These data were coded and analyzed for interpretation, which resulted in identifying thirty-four categories of perceptions expressed by the superintendents. These perceptions were clustered for interpretation in the areas of descriptive data (concerning the superintendent sample) and narrative data (analyzing the perceptions of evaluation processes, information-gathering and decision-making procedures, the superintendent as an evaluator, and local school district needs). A substantive theory evolved from the findings of the study. That theory was based on the following conclusions: (1) Superintendents from large school districts were removed from the role of the district evaluator partially due to the fact that these districts hired advance-degree educational leaders. (2) Small districts hired superintendents with fewer graduate degrees, which resulted in less awareness of, time for, and emphasis on the need for evaluation and evaluation procedures. (3) Philosophically, superintendents of middle-sized districts were more closely aligned with the superintendents of large districts; however, they related to the same global job descriptions felt by the superintendents of small districts.
Subject Area
School administration
Recommended Citation
Rogier Lesiak, Myra Lee, "Public school superintendents' involvement in and perceptions of educational program evaluation" (1993). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9331423.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9331423