Principals' Influence on Academic Achievement: The Student Perspective

Research identifying relationships between principals' instructional leadership behavior and academic achievement is problematic because it fails to consider the perspectives of the “consumer” (i.e., students). Consequently, this study investigated what students perceive principals do to influence their academic achievement. Students identified direct and highly influential instructional leadership behaviors. Among these were principal approachability, interactive classroom observation and/or visitation, and instructional leadership behaviors that firmly establish administrators as the “principal teachers” in their respective schools.