Search results

This study was designed to test the relationship between principal support of student psychological needs and faculty trust in students. Without direct empirical evidence to draw from, the line of reasoning integrated evidence on social-cognitive processes involved in trust formation and conversation theory to advance two hypotheses: (1) After accounting for school and leadership conditions, principal support of student psychological needs will be related to school differences in faculty trust in students; (2) The relationship between principal support of student psychological needs and faculty trust in students is mediated by a positive view of the teaching task.

Hypotheses were tested with a nonexperimental, correlational research design using ex post facto data. Due to the hierarchical structure of the data, hypotheses were tested with a 2-2-1 multilevel mediation model in HLM 7.03 with restricted maximum likelihood estimation.

Findings were consistent with the hypothesized relationships – principal support of student psychological needs was related to faculty trust in students and this relationship was mediated by teacher perceptions of the teaching task.

School research has primarily examined interpersonal antecedents of trust, focusing on behaviors and characteristics that position a person or group as trustworthy. This study extends trust research to the cognitive side of the formation process, calling attention to the function of mental representation in shaping trust discernments. Results suggest that cognitive processes hold promise as both a source of faculty trust in students and as a malleable mental structure that school leaders can shape through conversation.

The purpose of this paper is to trace a 40‐year research journey to identify organizational properties that foster the achievement of all students, regardless of socio‐economic status (SES).

The author describes a search for school properties that have an impact on the cognitive and social‐emotional development of faculty and students, with special emphasis on academic achievement.

Three characteristics of schools were identified that make a positive difference for student achievement controlling for the SES: collective efficacy, collective trust in parents and students, and academic emphasis of the school. Further these three measures are elements of a latent construct, academic emphasis of school, which is a powerful predictor of student achievement regardless of SES.

The paper identifies school variables that are often as important, or more important, than SES in explaining academic achievement, and a new model is created to explain how academic optimism influences student achievement.

The aim of this study was two‐fold: to demonstrate a general construct of schools called academic optimism and to show it was related to student achievement in urban elementary schools, even controlling for socioeconomic factors, and school size.

Data were collected from 99 urban elementary schools in Texas and multiple regression and factor analyses were used to test a series of hypotheses guiding the inquiry.

The major hypotheses of the study were supported; academic optimism was a second‐order construct comprised of collective efficacy, faculty trust, and academic optimism. Moreover, academic optimism is a school characteristic that predicts student achievement even controlling for socioeconomic status.

The results support Bandura's social cognitive theory, Coleman's social capital theory, Hoy and Tarter's work on organizational climate, and demonstrate the existence of a cultural property of schools called academic optimism. Further, the findings have practical implications for developing strategies to improve the academic performance of urban schools.

The findings demonstrate the existence of a new collective construct, academic optimism, which has the potential to help improve the effectiveness of schools.

Although leadership evidence highlights the importance of cooperative principal-teacher relationships, research has not looked thoroughly at the content behind principal-teacher interactions. The purpose of this paper is to use self-determination theory and organizational conversation to develop principal support for student psychological needs (PSSPN), a concept that represents principal-teacher interactions based on social and psychological factors contributing to student learning. The empirical part of the study tests the relationship between PSSPN and faculty trust in students and student self-regulated learning.

Hypotheses were tested with a non-experimental, correlational research design using ex post facto data. Data were collected from 3,339 students and 633 teachers in 71 schools located in a metropolitan area of a southwestern city in the USA. Hypotheses were tested with a 2-2-1 multi-level mediation model in HLM 7.0 with restricted maximum likelihood estimation.

Principal support for student psychological needs had a positive and statistically significant relationship with faculty trust in students and self-regulated learning. Additionally faculty trust mediated the relationship between principal support for student psychological needs and self-regulated learning.

This is one of the first studies to examine school leadership by the content that is exchanged during principal-teacher interactions. Principal support for student psychological needs establishes a theoretically-based framework to study leadership conversations and to guide administrative practices. Empirical results offer encouraging evidence that the simple act of framing interactions around the science of wellbeing can be an effective resource for school principals.

The purpose of this study is to test the validity of using collective trust as a social indicator of instructional capacity.

A hypothesized model was advanced for the empirical investigation. Collective trust was specified as a latent construct with observable indicators being principal trust in faculty (PTF), faculty trust in principal (FTP), faculty trust in colleagues (FTC), and faculty trust in students (FTS). It was hypothesized that enabling school structure is directly related to the latent collective trust construct and collective trust is directly related to school performance. Data were collected in the spring of 2010/11 from teachers and students in 85 schools in an urban school district in a southwestern state. A partially latent structural regression model was tested in AMOS 7.0.

Results of the measurement model support the theoretical relationship among faculty trust in principal, faculty trust in colleagues, faculty trust in students, and principal trust in faculty. Both directional hypotheses were supported: enabling school structure had a strong, direct effect on a culture collective trust and collective trust had a strong, direct effect on school performance.

The sample consisted of schools in one urban district in the southwestern part of the USA, and collective trust only operationalized the social dimension of instructional capacity.

Regular and consistent measures of collective trust have the potential to improve how administrators at site and district levels manage the implementation of improvement strategies designed to build capacity.

Many theoretical discussions treat trust as a constitutive property of capacity building, but few studies have empirically tested a priori models that specify relationships among structures and processes aligned with instructional capacity, collective trust, and school performance.

The purpose of this paper is to consider trust as an important relational source in schools by exploring whether trust lowers teacher burnout. The authors examine how trust relationships with different school parties such as the principal relate to distinct dimensions of teacher burnout. The authors further analyze whether school-level trust additionally influences burnout. In doing this, the authors account for other teacher and school characteristics.

The authors use quantitative data gathered during the 2008-2009 school year from 673 teachers across 58 elementary schools in Flanders (i.e. the northern Dutch-speaking region of Belgium). Because teacher and school characteristics are simultaneously related to burnout, multilevel modeling is applied.

Trust can act as a buffer against teacher burnout. Teachers’ trust in students demonstrates the strongest association with burnout compared to trust in principals or colleagues. Exploring relationships of trust in distinct school parties with different burnout dimensions yield interesting additional insights such as the specific importance of teacher-principal trust for teachers’ emotional exhaustion. Burnout is further an individual teacher matter to which school-level factors are mainly unrelated.

Principals fulfill an important role in inhibiting emotional exhaustion among teachers. They are advised to create a school atmosphere that is conducive for different kinds of trust relationships to develop. Actions to strengthen trust and inhibit teacher burnout are necessary, although further qualitative and longitudinal research is desirable.

This paper offers a unique contribution by examining trust in different school parties as a relational buffer against teacher burnout. It indicates that principals can affect teacher burnout and prevent emotional exhaustion by nurturing trusting relationships in school.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between academic optimism (AO) and elementary reading achievement (RA).

Using correlation and hierarchical linear regression, the authors examined school‐level effects of AO on fifth grade reading achievement in 29 elementary schools in Alabama.

Correlational analysis revealed that AO was positively correlated with RA (r=0.78, p<0.01), as were all the components of AO, namely: collective efficacy (r=0.70, p<0.01); faculty trust in students and parents (r=0.83, p<0.01); and academic emphasis (r=0.58, p<0.01). Percent free and reduced lunch, which was a proxy for socio‐economic status (SES), was negatively correlated with all the variables in the study. Hierarchical linear regression revealed that academic optimism had a significant effect on RA (b=0.52, p<0.01) and accounted for approximately 18 per cent of the variance in reading achievement above the effects of SES.

Limitations include the small sample size of 29 schools and the fact that these schools were a part of a sample of convenience. Findings support the conceptualization that AO has a positive effect on RA.

While SES has been often seen as an insurmountable factor, this research suggests that the contextual conditions of trust, efficacy, and academic emphasis create an environment conducive for higher academic achievement, despite the level of poverty in the school.

The paper confirms prior studies that have found AO to be linked to achievement and further demonstrates the positive relationships between AO and RA in a sample of elementary schools.

The concept of organizational justice is defined, and, based on a review of the literature, ten principles of organizational justice are elaborated. Similarly, the elements of faculty trust are conceptualized and discussed. Then, a model of organizational justice and trust is proposed and tested using path analysis. The results underscore the symbiotic relations between trust and justice. The paper concludes with a few suggestions for future research and recommendations for practice.

Limited attention to messages transmitted between principals and teachers led to the general question for this study: is principal support of student psychological needs related to functional social conditions within the instructional core? Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to define principal support of student psychological needs and explain its leadership function through the lens of conversation theory. Without much empirical evidence to draw from, a theoretical argument for how principal support of student psychological needs might influence the features of the teaching and learning environment is advanced then tested empirically.

Hypotheses were tested using a non-experimental, correlational research design based on ex-post facto data collected from teachers and students in 93 schools in a metropolitan city of the USA. Data were collected in the spring of 2017 from randomly sampled teachers and students in the 93 schools. Usable responses were received from 1,168 teachers, yielding a response rate of 66 percent. A total of 4,523 students received surveys and usable responses were received from 3,301, yielding a response rate of 73 percent. Multi-level modeling was used to analyze the data.

Principal support of student psychological needs was related to school-level differences in faculty trust in students, collective teacher efficacy and student perceived autonomy support. Leadership practices surrounding professional development and instructional coherence had moderately strong, positive relationships with the outcome variables; however, the strength of these relationships diminished when principal support was included in the analysis.

The argument in this study proposes that principal–teacher conversations enhance leadership practices and support a vibrant and engaging instructional core when intentional messages build mental representations that enable teachers to understand sources of optimal student growth. Such use of conversation extends the functionality of principal–teacher interactions beyond that of teacher control and toward an ongoing sense-making and learning process.

The purpose of this paper is to use SEM to explore the effects of enabling school structure (ESS) and academic optimism (AO) on school achievement (SA).

A sample of 58 urban schools, including 42 elementary schools and 16 middle schools in a southeastern district in the USA were included in this study. Structural equation modeling was used to test the effects of three exogenous predictor variables (ESS, elementary status, and socio-economic status (SES)) on a latent mediating variable (AO) and a latent dependent variable (academic achievement).

Findings confirm that three factors; collective efficacy, faculty trust in clients, and academic emphasis come together to create the general latent construct referred to as AO by Hoy et al. (2006). Findings also support the importance of ESS in establishing a culture of AO. Together ESS, AO, elementary school level, and SES explained 77 percent of the variance in SA, with AO having the most significant effect above and beyond the effects of SES.

This study was based on a sample of schools in the Southern portion of the USA. Findings may not be generalizable to other areas. The lack of availability of individual student achievement data prevented the use of hierarchical linear modeling.

Findings from this study point to the importance of administrators establishing flexible rules and regulations and engaging in a leadership style that is collaborative. It appears that ESS not only promotes the establishment of AO but contributes to increased SA and is likely to be critical for upper levels of schooling.

Reform efforts need to involve parents and community members. AO may provide an appropriate lens to further explore parent and community perceptions of reform efforts and relationships with administrators and teachers. ESS may assist in creating the structures necessary for increased parent and community involvement as well as increased perceptions of AO.

This study is one of only three studies known to explore the effects of ESS on AO and is one of the first known studies to explore these effects in a middle school setting.