School Leadership Preparation and Practice Survey (SLPPS)

The School Leadership Preparation and Practice Survey (SLPPS) is designed for leadership preparation programs to solicit feedback from their graduates and alumni about:

• Program features
• Leadership learning outcomes
• Leadership career intentions and advancement
• Leadership practices
• School improvement work
• school climate, and
• Student, parent and teacher engagement
• Student learning outcomes

The survey was developed through the UCEA/LTEL-SIG Taskforce (University Council for Educational Administration/ Learning and Teaching in Educational Leadership Special Interest Group) on Evaluating Leadership Preparation Programs. It has been field tested in a wide variety of programs and institutions nationwide, has demonstrated strong content validity, and its scales have robust measurement reliability.

The SLPPS survey includes approximately 50 items, using a five-point Likert-type scale, to assess graduates’ experiences and perceptions. The survey is designed for the purpose of facilitating program assessment (in the aggregate) and accreditation and program improvement. The survey is aligned with the national ELCC leadership standards and provides a source of evidence on program outcomes.

Leadership Preparation Programs may use the survey for many purposes:

• Provide relevant and timely information on program graduates and alumni, including:
  • feedback on program experiences, such as internship attributes
  • assessment of what graduates learned through the program
  • documentation of graduates’ career outcomes
  • ascertainment of graduates’ influence on their schools
• Compare graduates’ experiences, for:
  • different cohorts
  • different program delivery options
  • subgroups of graduates (such as by gender, race/ethnicity and experience)
• Provide evidence for state and national accreditation reports
• Compare program features and delivery type with other programs regionally and nationally
• Identify areas for program and course improvement
• Make the case for program resources and support
• Research the relationship between program design and delivery, graduate outcomes, and school improvement work

In addition, each participating institution receives a customized report that includes a brief overview of aggregate findings and useful data comparing the graduates with other SLPPS respondents from participating institutions along various dimensions.

UCEA aggregates programs’ survey results for benchmarking and comparison purposes, as a field improvement resource.

The SLPPS survey is made available for programs' use at a low cost. The survey is housed at the University of Utah. Its Utah Education Policy Center provides survey management and fielding support on behalf of UCEA. Visit https://www.ed.utah.edu/ELP/policy/SLPPS/index.html for more information.

School Leadership Program Directors have found the survey results helpful in pinpointing program strengths and weaknesses, demonstrating improved graduate outcomes following program changes, and assessing differences among programs based on service delivery and sponsorship.

SLPPS Brochure - downloadable and printable information about the School Leadership Preparation and Practice Survey in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf).