Secondary school vice‐principals: commitment, challenge, efficacy and synchrony

Abstract

The study sought to investigate Hong Kong secondary school vice‐principals’ job facets leading to overall job satisfaction, and to differentiate the satisfaction of vice‐principals of different career orientations and gender groups. The findings indicated that there are four main facets of satisfaction, in rank order of influence on overall satisfaction, ‘professional commitment’, ‘level of personal challenge’, ‘sense of efficacy’ and ‘sense of synchrony’. The study also found that vice‐principals who aspired to the principalship exhibited a higher degree of professional commitment, a stronger sense of efficacy, and experienced lower levels of stress associated with personal challenge than vice‐principals who did not aspire to a principalship.

Notes

1. Different titles for this position are present in different countries. This study uses the term vice‐principal as this is the term used in Hong Kong. In other settings, deputy or vice‐principal may be used. Likewise, the different labels may hold different meanings in different settings. For example, schools in some systems will have deputy principals and vice‐principals in the same school. For the purpose of this study, vice‐principal refers to the person or people one position below the principal in a formal hierarchy. Most Hong Kong secondary schools have two such positions.

2. This project is supported by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong through an Earmarked Grant (CUHK4289/03H).

3. For further information on the Hong Kong reform context see Cheng (2002, 2004), Morris (1996, 2002), and Morris and Stott (2003).