THE TOOL FOR SCHOOL LEADERS IN MEASURING CLIMATE FACTORS FOR BETTER EDUCATIONAL IMPROVEMENT

Abstract

Different schools that are nestled in different locality possess different climate factors. For this paper, it emphasizes mainly on how climate factors of a school influence pupils and teachers in the teaching and learning processes in the English language. The case site is a low-performing rural primary school in a bucolic setting in the state of Sabah which is 130km away from the nearest urban centre. The main purpose of this paper is to delineate the building of an instrument as a tool for school leaders to start analysing climate factors for better educational improvement. There are four general concepts depicted under the climate factors – physical environment, social relationship/system, orderliness, and expectations on student outcomes (and teacher behaviours). To ensure a more holistic measurement of these indicators, five measurement dimensions – frequency, focus, stage, differentiation, and quality are adopted. Sources of data are from various data collection methods namely peripheral observation, classroom observation, classroom participation, formal interview, conversational interview, focus group interview as well as documents. Multiple sources of data ascertain triangulation and better trustworthiness of the data to facilitate the building of a comprehensive instrument with wide-ranging constructs. This instrument can be used as a self-evaluation guide for school leaders to further understand the weaknesses as well as strengths of their schools. Through the synthesis of the data collected using this instrument, it has facilitated clear discernment of the capacities for the case school under-investigated and how the roles of financial, human, time, and programme capacity affect the pupils’ performance in the English Language.