Abstract
D.Ed.
The South African Schools Act 84 of 1996 mandates the introduction of
democratic school governance. The problems that need to be addressed are
poor school governance, poorly motivated learners and educators, and a
general lack of managerial skills in school leadership.
This research has argued that developing school governing bodies, and
providing them with the skills to govern effectively, is crucial to the success of
a school transformation process.
The research concentrated on schools in the Northern Cape and Gauteng
Province. A quantitative research methodology was used to elicit the
perceptions of educators with regard to the frequency with which school
leaders practice collaborative leadership.
A structured questionnaire consisting of 61 items was administered to
500 educators, with a return of 87%.
In this research, 61 items were formulated to secure information on the
importance of various essential functions for school leaders to collaboratively
govern their schools. The construct validity of the instrument in this research
was investigated by means of successive first and second order factor
analytic procedures performed on the 61 items. The first order procedure
involved a principal component analysis (PCA1) followed by a principal factor
analysis (PFA1). The following four first order factors were derived from the
first analytic procedure performed on the 61 items:
Achievement orientated leadership consisting of 25 items with a
Cronbach-Alpha reliability of 0,979 with no items rejected.
Team orientated leadership consisting of 15 items with a Cronbach-
Alpha reliability of 0,962 with no items rejected.
Communication orientated leadership consisting of 14 items with
Cronback-Alpha reliability of 0,962 with no items rejected.
Innovation orientated leadership consisting of 7 items with a Cronbach-
Alpha reliability of 0,913.
The four obtained from the first order factor analysis were now used as
inputs for the second order procedure.
These procedures resulted in the four factors consisting of 61 items
being reduced to one factor that was named authentic collaborative
leadership. It had a Cronbach-Alpha reliability coefficient of 0,990 with
no items rejected. The literature survey was used to indicate the difference between authentic
collaborative leadership based on an achievement, team, communication, and
innovation orientation and inauthentic collaboration based on contrived
collegiality.
The research is concluded with recommendations based on 19 findings.