Perceptions of Vocational Administrators and High School Principals Regarding the Role of the Vocational Administrator.

The purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions of vocational directors and high school principals regarding the role of the vocational director to determine if programs need to be developed to provide for optimum relationships between the vocational director and high school principal. The following objectives were developed to aid in accomplishing this purpose. 1. To determine the role of the vocational director as perceived by the vocational director and high school principal. 2. To determine areas of agreement and disagreement between the vocational director and high school principal about the role of the vocational director. 3. To determine the relationship between selected variables (type of school district and position of the vocational director within the administrative structure of the local school) and opinions of vocational directors and principals. Procedure: Mailed questionnaire responses were received from 121 pairs of vocational directors and high school principals from the same school districts. Analysis of variance was used to determine the differences between responses of directors and principals. It was the method used, also, to test the level of association between responses and (1) type of school district, and (2) position of the vocational director within the administrative structure. Conclusions: 1. The role of the vocational director is understood by both directors and principals. Both groups perceived the role of the vocational director to include 55 functions stated within the questionnaire. They perceived that four statements did not describe a function of the director and disagreed with each other about the remaining two. 2. Little association exists between the perceived role of directors and the line and staff relationships utilized by local school districts for administrative purposes. There seemed to be little difference between responses whether the director was supervised by the principal or by personnel in the superintendent's office. 3. An association exists between the perceived role of directors and type of school district..