Stem High School Teachers' Leadership Style and the Relationship of Their Hispanic Students' School Engagement as Perceived by the Student

ABSTRACT Across our nation, educators struggle with effective practices that will prepare college or career ready students for our ever-changing world. The rules are constantly changing since President George Bush introduced "No Child Left Behind" in 2001, (Bush, 2001). Students from The Rio Grande Valley (RGV) deal with many barriers in order to succeed in high school, but school leaders work to try to get them to the next level despite the RGV's largest city being ranked as the poorest metropolitan area in 2015. The RGV is right on the Mexican border and consists of 43,000 miles along the Rio Grande River. (Chambers and Quiroz, 2016).;Klem and Connell (2004) state that students need to feel that teachers care about them and are working towards something that has meaning and relevance in their future life as well as in the present. The authors add that although engaging students has challenged educators for decades, studies show that students become more disengaged as they progress from elementary through high school. The area of teacher relation and High school student engagement is an area of research that needs to be explored, especially within The Rio Grande Valley, Texas.;The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a relationship between STEM teachers' Transformational, Transactional, and Passive Avoidant leadership style as perceived by the student and the students' Cognitive (Academic) Engagement, Social Engagement, and Emotional Engagement when controlling for students' Gender, Language, SES, and Type of School. The purpose of this study was also intended to contribute to the body of knowledge in education and leadership plus provide research that focuses on Hispanic students from the Rio Grande Valley. Participants consisted of predominately Hispanic high school magnet students from a South Texas school district. The participants (N = 228) rated one of their STEM teachers using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-5X) (Bass & Avolio, 2004), and then answered the High School Survey of Student Engagement (HSSSE) (Center for Evaluation and Education Policy, 2003; 2012; 2017) pertaining to questions on their school engagement. Transformational Leadership was found to be significant predictors of Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Engagement. Gender was found to be a significant predictor for Cognitive and Social Engagement and Types of School was found to be a significant predictor for Social and Emotional Engagement.