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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.

This research aims to add to the literature on Academic Optimism, a composite measure composed of teacher perceptions of trust in students, academic press, and collective efficacy by exploring a similar set of constructs from the student perceptive. The relationships between student trust in teachers, student perceptions of academic press, and student identification with school were examined as well as how they were individually and collectively related to student achievement in the schools in an urban school district.

This study assessed the perceptions of students in 49 elementary, middle, and high schools in one urban district. The measures used included the Student Trust in Teachers Survey (Adams and Forsyth), the Identification with School Questionnaire (Voelkl), and an adaptation of Academic Press (Hoy, Hannum and Tschannen‐Moran). Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to explore whether these three observed variables would form a latent variable called Student Academic Optimism. Finally, the relationship of Academic Optimism to student achievement, controlling for SES, was examined using SEM.

Strong and significant relationships were found between all three of the observed variables. A CFA analysis confirmed that they formed a latent variable the authors called Student Academic Optimism. Student Academic Optimism had a significant direct effect on student achievement (b=0.73, p<0.01) while SES (percent of students eligible for the free and reduced lunch program) had a significant negative effect on student achievement (b=−0.37, p<0.01). Together student academic optimism and SES explained 67 percent of the variance in student achievement with student academic optimism making the largest contribution to the explanation.

The findings that Student Academic Optimism was unrelated to SES and that Student Academic Optimism has a significant effect on achievement over and above the effects of SES and student demographic characteristics leads the authors to consider the possibility that SES may not be as influential as once thought when other conditions of the school environment are taken into consideration.

This study makes a unique contribution to the literature by focusing on the perspectives of students and by linking the measures of three important dynamics within schools to form a new construct: Student Academic Optimism.

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 purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships among faculty trust in the principal, principal leadership behaviors, school climate, and student achievement.

Data from 64 elementary, middle, and high schools in two school districts formed the basis of the study (n=3,215 teachers), allowing for correlational and regression analyses of the variables.

The authors found that faculty trust in the principal was related to perceptions of both collegial and instructional leadership, as well as to factors of school climate such as teacher professionalism, academic press, and community engagement. Student achievement was also correlated with trust, principal leadership behaviors, and school climate. The authors found that both of the composite variables, principal behaviors and school climate, made significant independent contributions to explaining variance in student achievement and that together they explained 75 percent of the variance in achievement.

Limitations of the study include the use of a single form to collect participants’ responses that may have elevated the degree of correlations, as well as the exclusion of rural schools from the sample.

The findings of this study suggest that principals must foster and maintain trust in order to lead schools effectively. Importantly, trust has both interpersonal and task-oriented dimensions. Thus, principals must be prepared to engage collegially with teachers in ways that are consistently honest, open, and benevolent, while also dependably demonstrating sound knowledge and competent decision making associated with administering academic programs.

Situated in a conceptual framework of systems theory, this study explored the interplay of faculty trust in the principal, principal behavior, school climate, and student achievement. The findings suggest that it is necessary for principals to evidence both interpersonal and task-oriented behaviors in order to be trusted by teachers. Furthermore, the strength of the relationships suggests that schools will not be successful in fostering student learning without trustworthy school leaders who are skillful in cultivating academic press, teacher professionalism, and community engagement in their schools.

The purpose of this paper is to link the social interactions between principals and their teachers to teachers’ perceptions of their students’ engagement with school, empirically testing the theoretical proposition that principals influence students through their teachers in the US charter school environment. The mediating influence of latent beliefs of trust and support are tested in this process.

By analyzing pooled network and survey data collected in 15 Indianapolis charter schools using stepwise, fixed-effects regression techniques, this study tests the association between interactions of principals and teachers, on the one hand, and teachers’ perceptions of student engagement, on the other. The extent to which latent beliefs about teachers – in particular, trust in teachers and support of teachers by the administrators – mediate this relationship is also tested.

Direct relationships between principal-teacher interactions and latent beliefs of trust and support are confirmed. Direct relationships between latent beliefs and perceptions of academic and school engagement are also confirmed. There is a relationship between principal-teacher interactions and teacher perceptions of student engagement, but the mediating effect of latent beliefs of trust and support accounts for much of the direct association. The reachability of the principal remains a significant and direct influence on teachers’ perceptions of academic engagement after accounting for trust and support.

Moving beyond principals’ personality dispositions in management and turning to the social relationships that they form with teachers adds to the understanding of how principal leadership affects student learning. Empirically distinguishing between the actual interactions and social dispositions of principals helps inform practical implications. Focussing on how principals’ social interactions with teachers influence teachers’ perceptions of students’ engagement provides a theoretical link as to how principals indirectly influence student achievement.

The relationships that principals build with teachers have real implications on the beliefs of trust and support among teachers in a school and have a ripple effect on teachers’ perceptions of student engagement. These findings therefore suggest that frequently moving principals among schools is not an ideal policy.

This study tests the theoretical boundaries of school organization research by using a within-schools design with charter schools. It also links leadership research to outcomes typically restricted to research on school culture and climate.

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 paper is to examine the role of collective teacher efficacy, academic press and faculty trust, all of which are components of academic optimism (AO), in predicting school innovation. In addition, the authors explored the extent to which faculty trust mediates the association between collective teacher efficacy and academic press with school innovation.

In all, 1,009 teachers from 79 schools in Northern Israel completed anonymous questionnaires about AO and innovation. Aggregation, descriptive statistics, bivariate correlation analyses and mediation analysis were performed to analyze the data.

Results showed that the components of AO, i.e., collective teacher efficacy, academic press and trust, were positively correlated to school innovation, and that trust mediated the relationship between collective teacher efficacy and school innovation. The study results confirmed that AO holds a significant predictive value in school innovation and highlights the importance of trust in supporting innovation.

As school leaders are challenged to foster innovative new practices in their schools, the findings suggest that they will need to know how to cultivate collective teacher efficacy, academic press and faculty trust.

This is the first study to examine the role of the components of AO in predicting innovation. By using a robust sample, the authors were able to examine the proposed school-level model with respect to the factors that affect school innovation. Originality also lies in the organizational approach to educational innovation in relation to faculty’s beliefs and behaviors.

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.

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 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.