Leadership Practices of Non-Traditional Seminary Students

The purpose of this study was to determine differences in Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI-Self) scores between masters-level seminary students based on the independent variables of student age, class load, gender, marital status, and parental status. The 1,254 masters-level seminary students enrolled on the main campus of Dallas Theological Seminary for the fall semester of 2003 received a survey packet, consisting of the LPI-Self, a demographic survey, and a cover letter. Three hundred thirty (330) survey packets were returned and a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze statistical difference. Statistically significant differences were found in the LPI-Self scores between groups based on age (Wilks' lambda = 0.905, F = 2.182, p = 0.006). Non-traditional age students, especially age 40 years and older, scored significantly higher in Challenging, Enabling, Modeling, and Encouraging. Other indicators of non-traditional student status (class load, gender, martial status, and parental status) were found not to be significant.