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Research on school leadership has confirmed that principals influence teacher and student learning by building an “academic-focused ethos” in their schools. In this study, our objective was to examine if and how the learning-centered leadership of principals influenced academic optimism of teachers and the resulting effects on their engagement in professional learning. More specifically, we examined this hypothesized set of leadership effects among teachers and principals in high schools located in Thailand.

The study was conducted with 1,763 teachers and 152 principals from 159 randomly selected, medium size secondary schools located in Thailand. The research employed multi-level structural equation modeling and bootstrapping analyses in order to test and explore these relationships in a mediation model of school leadership effects on teacher professional learning through academic optimism.

Results of this study reinforce prior research which has found that principal leadership can have significant direct and indirect effects on the professional learning of teachers. This finding is important because, as elaborated earlier, scholars believe that teacher professional learning is a key to sustainable improvement in schools. More specifically, our results extend prior research in two ways. First, as the first study to link Learning-Centered Leadership with Academic Optimism, this study extends findings that point to the role of school leadership in sustaining a culture of academic optimism in schools. Second, this study also established Academic Optimism as a mediator through which school leadership supports Teacher Professional Learning.

Although our results support a positive conclusion concerning the effects of school leadership and academic optimism on teacher learning, this was a cross-sectional study. Therefore, caution must be exercised before drawing causal attributions. For example, research has also found that teachers who work in schools that evidence features of a professional learning community are more likely to have a greater sense of collective teacher efficacy, a variable that is also associated with Academic Optimism. Therefore, although our study proposed Academic Optimism as the mediator and teacher professional learning as the dependent variable, it is also possible that this relationship could be reversed or reciprocal (i.e. mutually reinforcing). Future research should continue to examine these possibilities using longitudinal and/or experimental research designs that enable clearer delineation of causal relationships. We also suggest the utility of qualitative and mixed methods studies capable of exploring in greater depth the mechanisms through which school leadership contributes to productive teacher learning.

There is a need in Thailand, and elsewhere, to redefine the formal roles and professional standards of school leaders to include learning-centered practices. These standards should be embedded into the redesign of pre-service and in-service education programs for teachers and principals. We believe that, at present, relatively few school leaders in Thailand genuinely understand the meaningful impact they can have on teacher learning, and by extension, on student learning. Thus, there is a need for systemic change that recasts the nature of leadership expected from principals as well as the level of lifelong learning expected of teachers.

The findings from this research contribute to an evolving knowledge base on how school leaders influence teacher learning in different national contexts. The research also extends prior research by exploring the role of academic optimism as a mediator of school leadership effects on teacher learning.

This study aims to investigate the relationships between distributed leadership, teacher academic optimism and teacher organisational commitment with the contextual influence of gender and teaching experience.

This study employed partial least squares structural equation modelling for data analysis. This study has selected 421 teachers from 18 secondary schools in Penang.

Distributed leadership has a positive direct effect on teacher academic optimism and organisational commitment. The relationship between distributed leadership and teacher academic optimism was stronger for male teachers and senior teachers who have more than ten years of teaching experience. However, gender and teaching experience have no significant moderating effects on the relationship between distributed leadership and teacher organisational commitment.

The reason for the non-existent relationship between distributed leadership and teacher organisational commitment across gender and teaching experience remains unknown. In-depth investigation using interview method is required for further exploration.

This study complements and extends prior research on the relationships between distributed leadership, teacher organisational commitment and teacher academic optimism by providing evidence from Malaysia on how they contribute to the organisational conditions of their school.

This study has its originality in investigating the relationships between distributed leadership, teacher organisational commitment and academic optimism with the contextual influence of gender and teaching experience in the non-western society.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among academic optimism, community engagement, and student achievement in urban elementary schools across one district.

Data were collected from all 35 urban elementary schools across one district in Virginia, USA. Correlation, multiple regression, and factor analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

In schools where the faculty are optimistic that their students can succeed despite the obstacle of low socioeconomic status (SES) and where the community is engaged, students are more likely to achieve at higher levels. Findings of this study also supported that community engagement, collective efficacy, trust in clients, and academic press do act as predictors to collectively influence student achievement.

The Goddard measure for collective efficacy was replaced with one developed for more challenging settings such as urban schools.

Academic optimism and community engagement were found to work in ways that improve student achievement. Understanding the social contexts in classrooms and schools allows education leaders to work with faculty in examining current practice, in an effort to improve the educational outcomes for all students, even those who must overcome the obstacles to learning posed by their low SES.

With only one previous study of this construct in an urban elementary setting, the current study sought to test those findings in an effort to continue pushing this research agenda into urban settings.

The purpose of this study is twofold. First, this study reflects on the development of professional capital through understanding collective cultural factors, namely, academic optimism and shared vision. Second, it aims at exploring teacher learning. Teacher learning resulting in changes to teacher knowledge, attitudes and practices is crucial for the necessary changes education is continually confronted with. This learning is too often studied as a result of individual traits or structural factors, such as motivation or time. The authors investigated how teacher learning is influenced by academic optimism and shared vision.

The authors administered an online web-based survey to 278 teachers in higher education, using the educational change to online learning due to the covid pandemic as a unique chance to study the role of collective cultural factors in teacher learning.

Results showed how teachers characterized their learning, academic optimism and shared vision during the educational change to online learning resulting from the covid pandemic. The authors found that teacher learning was greatly influenced by teachers' collective sense of efficacy, an aspect of their academic optimism. Teachers' strong belief in each other, that they as fellow professionals could handle the challenging changes that the covid pandemic required, strongly enhanced teacher learning during the covid pandemic. Teachers' feeling of a professional community helped teacher to make sense of, and push through, the undeniable chaos that was the covid pandemic.

Collective cultural factors are rarely studied in conjunction with educational change. Insights into how a collective culture of professionalism enhances or hinders teacher learning are important for theory, policy and practice as it helps understand how teacher teams can be supported to build their professional capital by learning from educational change.

The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between four patterns of distributed leadership and a modified version of a variable Hoy et al. have labeled “teachers' academic optimism.” The distributed leadership patterns reflect the extent to which the performance of leadership functions is consciously aligned across the sources of leadership, and the degree to which the approach is either planned or spontaneous.

Data for the study were the responses of 1,640 elementary and secondary teachers in one Ontario school district to two forms of an online survey, xx items in form 1 and yy items in form 2. Two forms were used to reduce the response time required for completion and each form measured both overlapping and separate variables.

The paper finds that high levels of academic optimism were positively and significantly associated with planned approaches to leadership distribution, and conversely, low levels of academic optimism were negatively and significantly associated with unplanned and unaligned approaches to leadership distribution.

This study provides as‐yet rare empirical evidence about the relationship between distributed leadership and other important school characteristics. It also adds support to arguments for the value of more coordinated forms of leadership distribution.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of teachers’ optimism and trust in their individual citizenship behavior (ICB), and the extent to which teachers’ optimism is related to teachers’ ICB, and mediated by teachers’ trust. ICB is a concept coined by Hoy et al. (2008). The concept refers to teachers’ voluntary and discretionary behavior directed toward colleagues, students, and the students’ parents, that exceeds the formal job expectations. The primary aim of ICB is to enhance students’ academic success.

In all, 370 teachers from public elementary schools in northern Israel completed questionnaires, assessing teachers’ optimism, trust, and ICB; the category was examined both by direct and projective measures. Factor and reliability analyses; a bi-variate correlation Pearson test; a hierarchical regression analysis; and a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis were conducted to analyze the data.

The research hypotheses were partially supported: teachers’ optimism, trust, and ICB were positively correlated; teachers’ optimism and trust predicted ICB; trust in students and their parents mediated the association between optimism and ICB, whereas trust in teachers mediated the association between optimism and the projective measure of ICB.

The study results confirm that optimism and trust in students and their parents, and in other teachers have a significant presence in teachers’ ICB; emphasize the importance of a positive school environment; emphasize the importance of teachers’ ICB toward students’ and their parents; indicate the potential benefit of using direct and projective measures; and show support for the mediating model.

The present study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the short form of personal optimism and self-efficacy optimism-extended (POSO-E) among Indian teachers.

Two studies were conducted to adjudge the reliability and validity of the scale. In the first study, the sample of 510 respondents was randomly divided into subsamples. The first subsample was subjected to the Exploratory Factor Analysis which yielded a two-factor solution explaining 71.02% of the variance. This model was subjected to the Confirmatory Factor Analysis using a second subsample. Acceptable model fit indices suggested factorial validity of the two-dimensional POSO-E among Indian teachers. In the second study, acceptable Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability estimates (greater than 0.70) indicated the scale's reliability. Also, as expected, personal optimism, self-efficacy optimism and overall optimism reported a positive correlation with spiritual well-being and a negative association with distress. It confirmed the criterion validity of the POSO-E among Indian teachers.

The results showed appreciable psychometric properties of the POSO-E in the context of Indian teachers. The study offered a valid and reliable scale to measure teachers' optimism levels. It is poised to generate renewed interest among scholars to emphasize teachers' positive and optimist thinking. The findings also reported a positive association between teachers' optimism and spiritual well-being. It suggests that spiritual practices and interventions could be used to develop an optimistic academic workforce.

The study is one of the pioneer studies that evaluated the reliability and validity of the POSO-E among Indian teachers.

In the context of Thailand’s progress towards education reform, scholars have identified a lack of effective school-level leadership as an impeding factor. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a theoretical model of authentic leadership effects on teacher academic optimism and work engagement. Authentic leadership was considered a suitable model of school leadership in light of Thailand’s explicit recognition of the importance of developing the moral capacity of students and emphasis on ethical leadership.

The study employed a quantitative cross-sectional survey design. Survey data were obtained from 605 teachers in a nationally representative sample of 182 primary schools. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

The results indicated that the model of authentic leadership effects on teachers’ academic optimism and work engagement was validated. A moderate relationship was observed between authentic leadership and the dependent measures of teacher attitudes.

The study identified a potentially important lack of alignment between the espoused values and actions/decisions of school principals in Thailand. When combined with prior research conducted on leadership for educational reform in Thailand, our findings highlight the systemic nature of the problem faced in changing traditional patterns of behavior in Thai schools. More specifically, despite change in the nation’s educational goals, human resource management of the nation’s school leaders continues to produce administrators and managers rather than leaders, either instructional or moral.

The study extends prior studies of school leadership in the context of Thailand’s education reform that focused more specifically on principal instructional leadership in Thailand. In addition, this study of authentic school leadership is one of only a few conducted outside of Western societies.