Demographic Factors Accounting for Variations in Tutors' Perceptions of the Transformational Leadership Practices of Their College Principals: A Study of the Colleges of Education in Ghana

Abstract

Many empirical research studies on school leadership consistently demonstrate the impact of principals' transformational leadership practices on teachers' performance, teachers' commitment and job satisfaction. While most of these studies identify the specific leadership practices that contribute significantly to these teacher-effect variables, what is less studied and very much less researched is the extent to which teacher demographic factors such as age, race, gender, socio-economic status, academic qualification, and years of experience impact on variations of their perceptions of leadership. This current study investigates the extent to which some of these demographic factors impact on tutors'
perceptions of their principals' transformational leadership in the University Colleges of Education in Ghana. The study involved responses from 434 tutors. Data was sourced through the use of the Principal Leadership Questionnaire (PLQ). Data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics such as means and standard deviations, t-test, and ANOVA. Findings indicated that tutors perceived the leadership practices of their principals to be transformational. Transformational leadership practice such as: providing vision, modelling best behaviour, fostering commitment and holding high performance expectations recorded higher mean scores while leadership practices such providing individual support and intellectual stimulation showed lower scores. There was no statistically significant relationships between the studied demographic factors and tutors' perceptions of leadership. This finding had significant implications for leadership practices in the studied colleges.