The Influence of Administrator's Values in Teacher Selection

Abstract

This study examined the influence administrators' values have on their selection of certificated teaching personnel. It was a qualitative study consisting ofinterviews, observations and document analysis to gather data from five "-'administrators from a large urban school district. The data were restricted to the administrators' experiences of opening new schools in this district. The research centered ar.ound the general question, 'what influence do values have on the teacher selection practices as reported by selected school based administrators?'. The researcher began by identifying and categorizing values noted by the administrators with the aid of an existing values matrix. Once the categories were refined to better reflect the intentions of the participants, they were then analyzed against the teacher selection process as identified by the participants. The research finding indicated that the administrators did not necessarily use the same values in their selection process as they did in their daily decision making activities. In teacher selection, the values which held the most influence were those from the social and political category, followed by basic human values and general moral values. With respect to the process of teacher selection as identified by the participants, value judgments could be found as influencing their actions at every step. An added benefit of this study was the reflective nature of the participants. Throughout the data gathering, they were forthright in acknowledging their value judgments and even began to apply them to their current practices. The hope here is that this will improve the decision-making practice of teacher selection thereby creating a more effective process.