It was noted that the most intense dedication by the principal was for duties related to higher bodies and those concerning school life. With less intensity (although not far behind) there are the duties of administration, management and improvement of the school and those concerning relations with families.
One must point out that the duties of the principal related to the teaching staff obtain the lowest average mark, although this itself is relatively high (with a value near to 4 on a scale of 1 to 5); these are the duties such as encouraging advantage to be taken of teacher skills, information on teaching and orientation efficiency, encouragement of team work, procedure generation and teacher training at the school.
DIFFERENCES IN APPRAISAL OF THE PRINCIPAL'S DUTIES BY THE SECTORS INVOLVED
As described above, the appraisal of the principal's duties by all the respondents lead to the general conclusion that the assessment is fairly high in practically all the duties on which an opinion was requested, although there are differences between these. However, in addition to these general particulars, it seems appropriate to refer to the estimates on these functions issued by the diverse sectors asked. In order to offer this sectorial viewpoint, the differences in appraisal of the different management functions have been noted among the following sets of groups:
- Assessment of the principal (self-assessment), compared with the rest of the member respondents (hetero-assessment).
- Assessment by the principal, compared with the joint one by the students, teachers and parents.
- Assessment of the principal's duties at Primary Schools, compared with those at Secondary Schools.
- Assessment of the principal's duties at schools with a female instead of male principal.
The self-assessment by the male or female principal of his or her own management tends to be greater than the external assessment by the rest of the members asked as to the functions related to school life, followed by those related to management of the school and its improvement. On the contrary, the principal considers less time is spent than others do on functions related to the Administration and higher bodies. The two types of assessment are equal as to the functions related to teachers and parents.
When self-assessment of the principal's duties is compared with the assessment of same by students, parents and teachers, the differences encountered are very similar to those described before between the principal's self-assessment and assessment by the rest of the members asked (see graph 4).

Graph 4. Self-assessment of the principal's duties, and joint assessment by parents, students and teachers
When the appraisal is differentiated according to the educational stage of the school, few differences have been found between Primary and Secondary Schools, as the twelve duties of the principal were valued in the same way at both types of school. Only the time spent by the principal on maintaining agile relations with the parents' associations is more highly valued at Primary Schools than at Secondary Schools. On the other hand, Secondary Schools have a better appraisal of dedication by the principal to: identifying the needs of the school; controlling the improvement projects; obtaining information on the teaching and orientation efficiency of the teachers, and guaranteeing fulfilment of the school rules.
On the other hand, female principals were noted to receive a higher average rating in their duties than male ones as to the school in general and its improvement and in duties related to school life, with teachers and the Administration. However, no differences were noted as to duties concerning students' families.
FACTOR GROUPING OF THE APPRAISAL OF PRINCIPAL'S DUTIES
The seventeen variables on which an opinion was requested as to the principal's duties as discussed in the previous sections provide detailed information. Due to this, the need was considered to study whether the whole block of questions had an underlying structure that articulated its composition in a logical manner and which, at the same time, summarised the information provided by the original variables. Due to this, factorial analysis was used in order to discover the existence of latent factors or variables that summarise the information provided by the original ones without a substantial loss in that information. The description of the factors is as follows.
Factor 1 could be defined as functions that officially are attributed to the principal. This factor forms several original variables that refer to functions which, in a certain way, are officially expected of the principal. In order from greater to lesser importance in the factor there are the following: availability to hear and deal with suggestions from the different sectors of the school community; execution of resolutions by the collegiate bodies; intervention in conflicts; encouragement of a good atmosphere of relations; responding to higher bodies, identification of the needs of the school; guaranteeing fulfilment of the school rules; control of improvement projects; collaboration with the Administration as to teaching quality; maintaining communication with parents' associations; application and control of the budget; and assuring proper use of facilities and resources. Overall, they may be considered the classical functions expected of the person appointed principal of a school.