The Impact of the Texas High Stakes Accountability System on Principal Resiliency

The purpose of this study was to investigate characteristics associated with the resiliency of school leaders in Texas. Using the definition of Henderson and Milstein (2003), principal resiliency is defined as "the capacity to spring back, rebound, successfully adapt in the face of adversity, and develop social, academic, and vocational competence despite exposure to severe stress or simply to the stress that is inherent in today's world" (p. 7). Quantitative research methodologies were utilized to gather and analyze data collected via online survey and demographic questionnaire of 306 surveys completed by public school principals from the state of Texas. The online survey included the abbreviated Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10), which assessed the psychological resilience of participants, and the demographic questionnaire, which retrieved data about participants' school achievement, genders, ethnicity, years of experience, school level, and district size. Descriptive statistics were used to explore the trends. This research discovered the following relationships about resiliency for principals in Texas. For RQ1, there was no significant correlation between resiliency and school achievement. For RQ2, the result of the independent samples t-test was statistically significant, suggesting that there were significant differences in resiliency scores by gender. For RQ3, result of the independent samples t-test was not statistically significant, suggesting that there were not significant differences in resiliency scores by ethnicity. The results of the ANOVA were not significant, indicating there were not statistically significant differences in resiliency by race. For RQ4, the results of the ANOVA were not statistically significant, indicating there were not significant differences in resiliency by years of experience. For RQ5, the results of the ANOVA were statistically significant, indicating there were significant differences in resiliency by school level. For RQ6, the results of the ANOVA were statistically significant, indicating there were significant differences in resiliency scores by school size.