An examination of the perceptions of selected Alabama public school principals and assistant principals concerning ethical considerations in their day-to-day administrative and leadership functions

The purposes of this study were as follows: (1) Determine perceptions of Alabama public school principals and assistant principals through their ranking of selected ethical standards according to those considered most important compared to those most often encountered. (2) Determine how they rank-ordered the ethical standards, the degree of training they received in the ethical standards in their college administrative preparation program(s), degree of impact ethical considerations had on their day-to-day administrative decisions and actions, and degree of impact ethical considerations had on other principals and assistant principals with whom they were acquainted. (3) Determine if significant perceptional associations and differences existed between the various groups of principals and assistant principals.;A stratified random sample of 300 elementary and secondary principals and assistant principals was used for this study. Each was sent a survey that contained the following parts: (1) Demographic variables. (2) Listing of 14 ethical standards identified from a review of the literature, with columns to rank-order each based on most important and most often encountered. (3) Three general questions related to the last 3 items listed under the second purpose of this study as presented in the foregoing paragraph.;Responses to the rank-ordering of the 14 ethical standards were first analyzed using the Spearman Rank Correlation Procedure. The results of this analysis indicated that no significant associations were found in the perceptions of the various groups of principals and assistant principals regarding those standards they selected as most important compared to those they selected as most often encountered. This data was also used to analyze and present descriptively how respondents rank-ordered the 14 ethical standards.;Finally, responses from the 3 general questions were analyzed and the results given in descriptive terms. The researcher also used this data to determine if perceptional differences existed between the various groups of principals and assistant principals regarding their responses to the 3 general questions. Utilizing the Chi-Square Test of Independence, it was determined that no significant differences existed in the responses from the various groups of principals and assistant principals.