Abstract:

The purpose of the current study was to analyse both the general school constituents’ and male and females school constituents’ ratings of the performance of male and female highperforming principals in the Jamaican public schools. With a sample of 2384 respondents representing school constituents from 125 schools, the returns were 1523 (64%). The data were collected using a 69-item Likert scale and analysed using Principals Component Analysis (PCA) and t-test. The results of the analysis revealed four dimensions of leadership performance: philosophy and abilities, leadership and management, student support systems, and community support and relationships. The findings showed that there were significant differences in how the general school constituents rated high-performing principals on three of the four dimensions of performance. There were no differences in male respondents’ ratings of male and female principals however, there were significant differences in the ratings of female respondents of the four dimensions

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