To what extent do teachers and principals agree? Univariate and multivariate evidence on principal leadership and school leadership

We designed both univariate and multivariate multilevel frameworks to examine the issue on the degree of agreement between principals and teachers in their perceptions of three leadership practices (general principal leadership, orientation for school renewal, and school renewal principles and practices). Data involved 2,243 teachers nested within 109 principals (schools) in the United States. We found that both univariate and multivariate approaches produced quite similar measurements (means) on teachers’ ratings of each leadership practice. Both approaches confirmed positive and statistically significant agreement between principals and teachers across leadership practices. Analytical discrepancies occurred between univariate and multivariate approaches in the estimation of the degree of agreement between principals and teachers. Methodologically, the multivariate approach is preferred over the univariate approach because the univariate approach tends to overestimate the degree of agreement. Under a methodologically more appropriate multivariate approach, the degree of agreement is quite consistent across leadership practices.