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Additionally, recruiting efforts to attract interested and quality teachers into administrative credential programs is also an important responsibility. Trying to recruit candidates who can effectively address complex issues involved in leading schools is at best problematic (Cooley&Shen, 1999). In their study of 189 assistant principals, Winter and Morganthal (2002) found limited empirical knowledge about what factors influence recruitment of candidates for principalships even in light of the applicant pool shrinking. Pijanowski et al. (2009) asked superintendents what they thought would increase the number of principal candidates – their responses were, first - salary, second - improving the training of prospective leaders, and third – redefining the role of principals to focus on instruction.

Redefining the principal’s role is a common theme in the literature. Murphy (2007) described the “grim catalogue of problems besetting prospective school administrators” (p. 582). Much of his research focuses on improving the preparation of future school leaders through a redirected focus on practice and less theory. Pounder&Merrill (2001) offered advice to school boards on recruitment as well as the selection process – find ways to reduce the inhibitors or disincentives, such as time, stress, and salary while enhancing the intrinsic characteristics of the position; they recommend a redesign of the job. Harris, Arnold, Lowery, and Crocker (2000) suggested recruitment efforts focus on four factors – personal/professional gain/benefit, altruism, challenges (personal and professional), and leadership/influence over others.

Research methods

This text-driven content analysis was used to obtain descriptive detail about the motivations of aspiring school leaders. Content analysis is best suited for analyzing written communication (Krippendorff, 2004) and was motivated by my interest in the content of student writing journals in determining their motivations to become school leaders. Other researchers have used text-driven content analysis in their study of the reflective journals of teacher certification students to provide focus on areas of concern (Gallagher, Vail,&Monda-Amaya, 2008) and in identifying pedagogical strategies used by preservice secondary teachers to improve their reflective thinking (Spalding&Wilson, 2002). In the present study, journal entries of aspirants were analyzed in response to the prompt ‘ Why me? ’ to determine what motivation led them to enroll in an administrative credential program.

Research participants

Participants were 83 aspiring school leaders (hereafter, aspirants) enrolled in Introduction to Instructional Leadership , the first course of a 30-unit masters/administrative credential program in educational leadership in a large, comprehensive four-year university in Southern California. Aspirants self-reported their gender, race/ethnicity, years of teaching experience, and school organizational level where they taught. Among participants, over 60 percent were female, over half were White and a third were Hispanic. In terms of teaching experience, almost half had been teaching less than six years, about a third from 6 to 10 years, and the remaining had been teaching between 11 and 17 years. The average teaching experience among aspirants entering the program was 6.6 years. In terms of organizational level to which participants were currently assigned, over 40% were from elementary schools, nearly 25% were in middle schools, and the remainder worked in high schools.