Principal Support of Student Psychological Needs: A Conversational Approach to Greater Trust

• In Event: 69.014 - Leadership Focused on Students' Academic and Affective Needs

Abstract

Research has not examined at any great depth the extent to which leadership conversations contribute to a climate of trust. We take up such a line of inquiry in this study. Using self-determination theory, we advance Principal Support of Student Psychological Needs (PSSPN) as a concept that frames effective principal-teacher interactions around the psychological needs of students and instructional processes capable of activating students’ natural inner drive to learn and grow. We argue that PSSPN represents interactions that have positive consequences for faculty trust in principal, faculty trust in students, and student trust in teachers. As hypothesized, PSSPN had statistically significant and positive relationships with each trust form over and above the effects of school-level control variables.

Authors

• Curt M. Adams, University of Oklahoma

• Jentre J. Olsen, University of Oklahoma

• John A. Lepine, University of Oklahoma