Participation Training,Agreement,and Teacher Participation in Decision Making

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of participation training and agreement or disagreement among teachers and their principals on the teachers' desires for participation in decision making as well as their perceptions that participation would increase decision effectiveness. The results indicate that teachers who had received participation training liked participating signifi cantly more when therewas teacher-principal agreement than when there was disagreement. Conversely, teachers who had not received such training felt that participation would result in more effective decisions when there was teacher-principal disagreement than when there was agreement. Furthermore, when there was agreement, teachers who had received participation training rated the amount of desired participation and the amount of participation likely to achieve effective decisions higher than did the untrained teachers. When there was disagreement, the opposite tended to occur. Implications of the results for participation training are discussed.