Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Dissertation - NSU Access Only

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice

Advisor

Jo Campbell

Committee Member

Hardwick Johnson

Committee Member

Kimberly Durham

Keywords

school district superintendents, transformational leadership, transactional leadership, authentic leadership, student achievement, Florida

Abstract

The demands on school district superintendents include a variety of management responsibilities, but the ultimate goal has been to increase student achievement. The principal researcher pursued to explain what types of leaderships styles allowed superintendents to effectively lead their districts toward increasing student achievement as demonstrated from state high-stake assessments.

The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and Authentic Leadership Questionnaire combined by Mind Garden, Inc. was distributed to the 73 school district superintendents throughout the state of Florida. Each superintendent self-rated themselves on 43 questions to determine the leadership styles possessed. The independent variable was leadership styles. The dependent variable was student achievement. The self-rating score was associated and compared with overall point systems represented by the 11 components to determine if there was a statistical relationship between the determined leadership style and the computed grade of the district determined by the points received from the high-stake test.

The Pearson’s r analysis was used to measure and determine if a statistically significant relation between transformational, transactional, or authentic leaderships and student achievement. The researcher pursued to determine if a specific leadership style was evidence of promoting high level (A or B) school district grades. The analysis revealed there is no statistically significant relationship between leaderships styles and student achievement. Discussion of the finding, interpretations of the finding, limitations of the study, and future research directions were also included.

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