1. Faculty of Education
Research Methodology
( EDU 702 )
Lecturer : Dr Johan@Eddy Luaran
Article Review Assignment
Title : What Makes a Good Principals?
How Teachers Assess the Performance of Principals.
Prepared by: Noor Azreen Binti Jalaludin
Student ID : 2013557299
Name of Journal : Economics of Education Review
Issues/Volume : Vol 14, No 3
Page Number : 243-252
Year Published : 1995

2. 1. An Overview of the Study
This article was written by two leading authors which is Dale Ballou
and Michael Podgursky. This two authors came from Department of
Economics , University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, U.S.A.This
article titled “What Makes a Good Principal? and How Teachers Assess the
Performance of Principals?. The problem addressed in this study is how to
make a great principal and how teacher can assess the performance of
principal. This is a most important issues that the researcher needs to
explore in order to remain that effective school have a good leadership is
what is a good characteristics of principal?And how teacher can assess
the performance of principle by using a survey. So from that, the
researcher might take a small sample to make a report. According to
Dale Ballou and Michael Podgursky another important issue that have
been discussed were, the performance of public schools principals as
rated by teachers they supervise. Besides that, the highest performance
rating is teaching experience rather than outside experience or
administration experience.Eventhough the researcher found that
graduate training even in school administration has shown the lower
performance of ratings, instead of by looking the licensing requirements
for principals in most states. Refers to the problem, the researcher
highlighted, the purpose of this statement is to study why teachers tend to
rate a principal of their own race or sex giving male principals lower
evaluations. Female teachers consistently give priority to female principals
because as more helpful, supportive and can be a great leaders in
school. Otherwise, another part of trends that researcher found male
principals as significantly less helpful rather than female principals as more
helpful, supportive and being a good leader. . Researcher tends to use
quantitative research problem because he used data from a large
national survey of teachers and school to examine the relationship
between the performance of public school principals as evaluated by the
teachers they oversee. Researcher have studied again and explored
that, those teachers who share their goals will help principals to achieve
the objective they have set for their school. A final conclusion effective
schools seem to be headed by principals who have a clear vision,
knowledgeable about teaching, and protect schools from the kinds of
demands that make it difficult. But the other issue of trends in how teacher
can assess performance of the principal is some of them interest in their
own right. Meaning to say, teacher has tendency to rate their own
demographic group higher rather than give male principals lower

3. evaluations. So that, researcher requires use qualitative research in this
statement problem by using the data School and Staffing
Survey(SASS)1987-1988.SASS question asks the teacher to rate the principal
on either a four or six point scale.
2. Description of the Methodology
Objective of the Study and Its Importance,
The purpose of this qualitative study is to discover association between
principals’ characteristics and job performance as rated by their instructional
staff. It is intended to explore the capability of the principals to be outstanding
as a good principal. Moreover, a good principal should provide instructional
guidance for teachers in term of teaching and classroom management. So this
is how their working together between teachers and principal. Indirectly,
teachers can assess the performance of principals by using data of collection
1987-1988 SASS are used to investigate the influenced of principals’ educational
credentials and work histories on several measures of leadership, including
assistance provided teachers.
Research Question.
In qualitative research, the question include the central concept being
explored.The research question are typically at the end of the introduction of
the “statement of the problem”.The researcher have explored that the relevant
question would be
i) “Whether principal helped teacher to improve teaching or solve class
management?
II) How to access the level of monitoring of a teacher’s performance?
III) Do they(teachers) feel that their individual efforts are recognized?
iv) What type of measure of a principal’s instructional leadership?
To discover about the subject of the study questions,it would seem to cover
important aspects of the organizational environment of a school and the
principal’s performance.
Population
The population refers is a group of individuals who have same characteristic.
For example, researchers have found whereby all principals in public school in
one city as a population.But to select a sample.There are 4 characteritsic to

4. evaluate the principal performance which is 20% of those teachers who said
their principals provided no instructional, 55% principals was helpful ,38%
principal unhelpful and 69% was said principals very helpful.
Setting/Activity
The activity that researcher being studied that principal characteristic and job
performance, including school characteristic, teacher characteristics and
principal teacher interactions.
Method of Data Collection
The aspect of qualitative method of data collection, that will address
researcher question at a research site was interviews and questionnaires(based
on the teacher ratings statistic to assess various aspects of the principal’s
performance. Another aspect is interviews equally popular to observe in
qualitative research. Our dependent variables come from items according to
SASS , typically four to six point scale that teacher response is systematically
related to an underlying evaluation of performance which varies continuously.
Based on data, analysis and results showed 20% of those teachers who said their
principals provided no instructional help strongly agreed,55% principals was
helpful,38% principal unhelpful and 69% was said principals very helpful.So to
make a good principal,characteristics is a most important that rated by staff
Evaluation
According to analysis, the significance of the research question(s) adequately
establish because in sum teachers tend to view their principal performance
differently depending on sex, race and ethnicity including black and Hispanic,
but female teachers rate female principals as more helpful,supportive and
better leaders. rather than giving a lower evaluations to male principal.In
fact,according data SASS,principal will be evaluated by staff in terms of
principals characteristic and job performance.However white teachers’
evaluations of white principal is at less level while principal is able to hire like-
minded teachers that help to achieve the objective they have set for their
goals.
Discussion Implication
Refers to this article, principals with graduate degree receive significantly lower
performance ratings compared to teaching experience is a higher requirements
and a plus to this field.Morever,in my opinion for school characteristic and for
teacher and principal demographic variables some of which are of interest in

5. their own right. There is a pronounced tendency for teachers to rate an
administrator of their own demographic group higher.The effect, women gives
male principals lower evaluations. Referring to the above statement, teaching
experience in education field is a higher performance ratings because we need
our principal who are knowledgeable enough about teachings that the school
would be “effective school “by the principal who have a clear “vision”.From all
this, teacher can assess performance of principal by doing a staff survey(SASS)
which is the questions must be relevant and related to the statistic are reported.