Purpose

We surveyed educational leaders in a large, urban school district in the southeastern United States, examining: (1) the factor structure of scores from a new measure of administrators' preferred teacher applicant characteristics, and (2) the relationships between administrator demographics and their preferences.

Design/methodology/approach

We implemented a non-experimental, cross-sectional survey design using the Preferred Teacher Applicant Characteristics Survey (PTACS). We undertook descriptive and exploratory factor analyses in order to examine dimensions and underlying patterns among the 31 survey items. The retained factors served as the dependent variables in our multiple regression analyses.

Findings

We identified a four-factor structure: (1) personal, (2) professional, (3) student outcomes, and (4) demographics. Our analyses suggest that there was not meaningful variability in administrators' preferred characteristics of applicants across racial and gender variables, but revealed a significant difference between principals and assistant principals for applicant demographics.

Research limitations/implications

Our findings are limited in their generalizability to the respondents from a single urban district who completed our survey in spring 2018. Although we cannot establish causation, the significant difference between principals and assistant principals for demographics may result from principals feeling greater pressure from district targets to hire diverse staff than their assistant principal counterparts. It is important to note that preferences for teacher applicant characteristics are different from actual hiring decisions and the availability of preferred characteristics.

Originality/value

Our study is the first large-scale use of the instrument in a large US urban school district, a context, which poses significant challenges to the education of youth as well as the hiring and retention of educators.

中文翻译：

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某大城市学区学校领导对教师申请特征的偏好

目的

我们调查了美国东南部一个大型城市学区的教育领导者，检查了：(1) 行政人员首选教师申请人特征的新衡量标准的分数的因素结构，以及 (2) 行政人员人口统计数据与其喜好。

设计/方法/方法

我们使用首选教师申请人特征调查 (PTACS) 实施了非实验性横断面调查设计。我们进行了描述性和探索性因素分析，以检查 31 个调查项目的维度和潜在模式。保留的因素作为我们多元回归分析中的因变量。

发现

我们确定了一个四因素结构：（1）个人，（2）专业，（3）学生成绩，以及（4）人口统计。我们的分析表明，行政人员在种族和性别变量中对申请人的偏好特征没有有意义的变化，但在申请人人口统计数据方面显示校长和助理校长之间存在显着差异。

研究限制/影响

我们的研究结果对 2018 年春季完成调查的单个城区的受访者的概括性有限。虽然我们无法确定因果关系，但校长和助理校长在人口统计方面的显着差异可能是因为校长感到来自地区目标的更大压力雇用不同的员工而不是他们的助理主要同行。需要注意的是，教师申请人特征的偏好与实际的招聘决定和偏好特征的可用性不同。

原创性/价值

我们的研究是该工具在美国大型城市学区的首次大规模使用，该环境对青年教育以及教育工作者的聘用和留用提出了重大挑战。