Leadership skill development and attitudes of collegiate leaders enrolled in an academic leadership class

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the change in self-perceived leadership skills and attitudes toward leadership by students enrolled in an academic leadership class. This research was a Post-Then design to assess students' skills and attitudes both before and after completing the collegiate leadership course. The population was students enrolled and receiving credit in a collegiate leadership course. The sample was college students in a leadership course at Texas A&M University during the Spring semester of 1999. Twenty-four students were enrolled and the responding sample included eighteen students. This study used a self-perceived leadership skills inventory, an attitude inventory, and a demographics questionnaire. SPSS[] Graduate Pack 8.0 for Window[] was used to analyze the data. The overacting conclusion of this study was that there was a significant increase in self-perceived leadership skills after completing a collegiate leadership course. Concerning attitudes toward leadership, attitudes decreased with regard to leader control (p=.000) and increased toward a group-centered environment (p=.000). A significant increase in leadership skills took place in each scale area of the survey instrument. Demographic data was garnered from this study to identify commonalities among students. Due to small population and sample size, definitive inferences were unable to be made in most cases; however, the data does exhibit some similar characteristics. Assessing students' participation in leadership activities, results showed that students had opportunities to participate in leadership activities both in high school and college. When considering leadership courses, students generally lacked participation in high school leadership courses, but were more involved in collegiate leadership courses.