Implications For School Leaders Research Articles

THE IMPACT OF SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT ON TEACHERS’ JOB SATISFACTION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

<p>This quantitative correlational study examined the relationship between the school environment and teachers’ job satisfaction. The study focused on finding the extent to which four predictors of the school environment (teachers’ collaboration, motivation, instructional materials, and teachers’ participation in decision making) predict teachers’ job satisfaction. Besides, the study also aimed at determining which variable is the best predictor of teachers’ job satisfaction. This study was guided by the following research questions: (1) To what extent does teachers’ collaboration influence their job satisfaction? (2) To what extent does teachers’ participation in decision-making influences their job satisfaction? (3) To what extent does motivation influence teachers’ job satisfaction? (4) To what extent do instructional materials influence teachers’ job satisfaction? The simple random sampling technique was used for this study. The sample population was made up of all 550 teachers in 15 public secondary schools, 320 females and 230 males. A questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection. The instrument’s validity and reliability were ensured. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. Pearson product-moment correlation was used to determine the relationships between the independent variables and the dependent variable. Simple linear regression was used to determine the amount of variance in the dependent variable accounted for by each independent variable. In addition, a multiple regression was used to assess the ability of four control measures to predict teachers’ job satisfaction and to find out which of the independent variables is the best predictor of teachers’ job satisfaction. The study found out that all the independent variables make a unique and statistically significant contribution to predicting teachers’ job satisfaction. The model explains 84.9% of the variance in teachers’ job satisfaction. Teachers’ participation in decision-making made the largest contribution (Beta= .626). This reveals that teachers’ participation in decision-making is the best predictor of teachers’ job satisfaction, followed by motivation (Beta= .532). This study provides useful findings which have implications for school leaders and policy-makers.</p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0750/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Teaching thinking in South African schools: Selected school leaders’ perceptions

In this article we argue that school leaders should ensure that teachers experience a supportive professional learning community committed to collaborative, thoughtful inquiry and be enabled to create similar communities in their classrooms. This study followed on one published in 2017 that explored school leaders’ responses to an introduction to cognitive education. The same participants investigated cognitive education practices (ways of teaching thinking) in their schools, with an emphasis on the factors that facilitated or constrained implementation. Using a qualitative research approach an open ended research assignment in the form of a report was completed by 32 teachers in school leadership positions. The data was analysed using the guidelines of grounded theory to identify key themes. The findings suggest a possible starting point for leadership initiatives, although cognitive education practices in the participating schools were constrained by a number of structural, contextual and personal factors. Discussion highlights the importance of the development of professional learning communities that focus on cognitive education and identifies a possible leadership direction, namely, building on the progress already made in training teachers to apply Bloom’s taxonomy to assessment tasks. Although our data is from schools in one area of South Africa, our conclusions are likely to have implications for school leadership generally, with particular reference to the development of classroom and professional thinking and learning communities.

Theorising and preparing students for precarity: how can leaders and educators better prepare students to enter an increasingly insecure workforce?

ABSTRACT Workforce insecurity has significant implications for the role of school leaders and teachers preparing students for changing worlds of work. For educators to better prepare students to enter an increasingly casualised labour workforce, there first needs to be an acknowledgement of how students perceive themselves in relation to post-school life. Drawing on a study of approximately 2500 secondary school students in the Australian state of Victoria, the figure of homo promptus is presented as a figure of youth to understand the real and imagined characteristics of students as workers-in-the-making. Homo promptus is entrepreneurial and strategic, yet on ‘standby’ as short-termism problematises future planning. This figure is overlaid onto students’ perceptions of their own career identity relative to post-school aspirations and transitions. The emergence of homo promptus and the broader labour and education landscapes from which this conceptualisation has been developed have implications for school leaders, teachers and school-based careers advisors.

Centering “Grace”: Challenging Anti-Blackness in Schooling Through Motherwork

Anti-Blackness is global and present in every facet of society, including education. In this article, we examine the challenges Black girls encounter in schools throughout the United States. Guided by select research centered on Black women in their roles as mothers, activists and school leaders, we assert that sociologist Patricia Hill Collins’ concept of Motherwork should be an essential component in reframing the praxis of school leadership and in helping school leaders to rethink policies, practices, and ideologies that are anti-Black and antithetical to Blackness and Black girlhood. While most research aimed to improve the schooling experiences of Black children focuses on teacher and school leader (mis)perceptions and systemic racial biases, few studies build on the care and efficacy personified by Black women school leaders. We argue that the educational advocacy of Black women on behalf of Black children is vital to culturally responsive school leadership that combats anti-Blackness and honors Black girlhood. We conclude with implications for school leaders and those concerned with the educational experiences of Black children, namely Black girls.

University-School Partnership in China: Teachers’ Personal Factors, Working Conditions, and Principal Leadership That Explain Their Development in Teaching

In China, the university-school partnership (USP) is a community of continuous professional development (PD) for teachers, involving teacher educators who visit schools. This study explores teachers’ personal factors, school working conditions, and principal leadership in order to explain differences in teachers’ learning when they have participated in the training program. Using a one-group pretest-posttest design, 375 teachers from 12 primary schools in Shanghai participated. Their learning performances are measured by changes in their teaching quality as evaluated by their students. Results of regression analyses show that teachers generally receive higher scores on teaching quality after the program than before. Three factors are significantly and negatively related to the changes in quality: teachers’ educational level, the extent to which teachers feel emotional pressure in their profession, and the support from their school principal. Implications for school leaders and policymakers are discussed.

Leadership and change in a Norwegian school context: Tensions as productive driving forces

This article examines the leadership of school principals who, based on the narrative case of the Blueberry School, discuss how they as principals would have responded to a similar problematic situation regarding a school change process. The study is grounded in the context of the Norwegian National School Leadership Programme. Theoretically, the study is informed by cultural–historical activity theory. The findings exemplify how the principals’ responses encompass various viewpoints and arguments through which tensions inherent in the context of the change process are provoked and displayed. This study has three implications for school leadership and change. First, when principals experience problematic change processes at their school, they should take time to identify the tensions, discuss how to understand them and think through their implications for leadership. Second, leading these types of tension-laden change processes in schools requires analytic and reflective skills and training; thus, steps to strengthen these skills should be included in leadership programmes. Finally, there is a need for research focussing on how to conduct informed analysis to reveal tensions when problematic situations occur in school change processes. This is because informed analysis may lay the groundwork for how school leaders can utilise tensions as productive driving forces in change processes.

It's a 'we' thing: Five principles of collaborative teaching, with implications for school leadership

It's a 'we' thing: Five principles of collaborative teaching, with implications for school leadership

Leading for School Inclusion and Prevention? How School Leadership Teams Support Shy Students and Their Teachers

ABSTRACT School shyness may have immediate and long-term detrimental effects. Drawing on cultural-historical understandings of motivated actions and conceptual and material tools, the study examined how ten school leaders in three Norwegian elementary schools interpreted and responded to the demands on the school in their work with shy children. Data comprised individual interviews and concluding school-based group conversations with leaders. The schools were recognized as enabling teachers’ responsive work with shy children in classrooms and presented a useful tension between central direction by school leaders and the professional discretion that enabled teachers’ responsive pedagogies. The leadership teams’ focus was school inclusion through adaptive pedagogies. This strong focus on inclusion emphasized classroom-based Tier 1 universal interventions. There were Tier 2 targeted interventions with shy children undertaken by social teachers, but they could seem ad-hoc by depending on teachers’ capacity to identify the need for them. The implications for school leadership are discussed.

Science Education Success in a Rural Australian School: Practices and Arrangements Contributing to High Senior Science Enrolments and Achievement in an Isolated Rural School

Science education is essential for sustainability and prosperity. However, students from rural communities, arguably the future custodians of our environment and significant drivers of our economies, underperform in science education. In Australia, rural students generally lag behind metropolitan students in science achievement and engagement. However, this is not the case for all rural schools. This paper reports on one case study of a rural school performing much better than expected in senior science subjects. Counter to trends of lower expectations, limited resourcing and restricted pathways afflicting rural science education, this school maintained high expectations backed by proactive support, used local resources to offer rich science learning and creatively maintained a broad array of science learning pathways. Further, the school actively raised the profile of science, and built the capacity of their science teaching team. This case study demonstrates that rural schools, by capitalising on their local resources, relatively small size and strong community relationships, can succeed in science education. This case, along with similar cases, has implications for school leaders, teachers and policy makers seeking to improve rural science education.

Service Animals in PreK-12 Schools: Legal and Policy Implications for School Leaders

Despite increasing animal prevalence in public spaces, few districts have proactively developed policies to integrate assistance, therapy, service, and emotional support animals that are both legally sound and support the needs of individual students. Federal legislation defines a variety of animals that could accompany students, but only those trained to perform a specific disability-related task are considered service animals. Policy development to address the increasing prevalence of service animals on school campuses has not been widely examined. This article uses standard legal analysis to gather data from court rulings in the United States; uses secondary sources such as peer-reviewed journals, special education journals, and professional organizations; and provides recommendations on how to develop a sound service animal policy and procedures.

A Qualitative Study of Teachers’ Perceptions of Increased Recess Time on Teaching, Learning, and Behavior

ABSTRACT Recess in the United States is decidedly limited in elementary schools, despite numerous research findings that support unstructured play as a vehicle for development across multiple domains. It is widely understood that recess breaks promote prosocial behaviors, physical activity, and attentiveness in class. However, few researchers in the United States have explored effects of multiple daily recess periods on teaching, learning, and behavior. In this investigation, we report findings from interviews with 17 teachers who provide four recess periods daily. We describe the LiiNK Project, inspired by European approaches that provide recess breaks throughout each school day. Findings from this study extend existing knowledge about benefits of recess by providing teacher accounts about how multiple recess periods affect students cognitively, socially, and emotionally. Furthermore, this research makes a new contribution to the literature by reporting how teachers maximize instructional time while increasing daily recess from 15 to 60 min. Implications for school leaders and teachers are shared.

Australian super veteran secondary school music teachers: Motivated and valuable

Veteran teachers are defined as having over 15 years’ teaching experience. This research introduces a new career stage of ‘super veteran’ for music teachers that have worked for 30 plus years and seeks to identify the influences on, and contributions of, Australian secondary school music teachers of this career stage. This article reports on survey data gathered in a larger qualitative study that contained a national survey and interviews. The analysis of the interview data in the larger study is yet to be completed. Likert-type scale questions were used for demographic data collection and open-ended questions explored influences on music teacher work practice. Of the responses, 32 were from super veteran secondary school music teachers. These teachers were motivated by working with students and felt valued by them and their parents. Super veterans continued to be engaged in professional development, found work–life balance a constant challenge and many were planning to continue teaching. This research has implications for school leaders in encouraging, valuing and utilising the expertise of super veteran secondary school music teachers. It suggests tailoring professional development for this career stage, gives feedback on the implementation of new curriculum and indicates strategies for stress management and work–life balance.

INTERPLAY BETWEEN DEFICIT IDEOLOGIES AND LEADERS’ SELF-EFFICACY IN DROPOUT PREVENTION: A CASE STUDY OF U.S. URBAN HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPALS

Researchers examined principals’ perceptions of their abilities and efforts to prevent dropouts in their diverse high schools. Two concepts, self-efficacy and deficit thinking, were used to frame principals’ beliefs. A large urban school district in the southwest region of the country served as the backdrop. The student population was exceptionally diverse. Three high school principals having diverse backgrounds participated. However, in general, the principals interpreted the problem through the lens of their personal background. A sense of empathy was noted throughout their commentaries. A sense of empathy emerged throughout their commentary. Implications for school leaders are discussed

Integrated Teaching Strategies Used by ESL Teachers: How are Strategies of Arts, Mathematics, and Sciences Correlated?

The philosophy and practices of STEAM education have been drawing influential attention over the past decade. Using the interdisciplinary and integrated framework of STEAM, this study aims to understand ESL teachers’ integrated teaching strategies of arts, mathematics, and sciences and examine the correlation among the domains of linguistic, artistic, musical, mathematical and logical, and science-related teaching strategies. Data collected from 67 ESL teachers in a Midwestern state were analyzed using the Pearson correlations. Results indicated that ESL teachers not only emphasize the traditional linguistic teaching strategies, but also integrate artistic, musical and mathematical, and sciences-related strategies in their classroom teaching. ESL teachers’ classroom teaching strategies of arts, mathematics, and sciences were highly and moderately correlated. Interpretations of the findings related to the integrated perspective of STEAM and implications for school leaders and ESL teacher educators were discussed.

Twelve YearsUnslaved: Lessons From Reconstruction andBrownfor Contemporary School Leaders

This conceptual analysis centers two historical periods in which Black communities in the United States secured educational rights for themselves in spite of (not because of) intervention from the federal government. Drawing from the Critical Race Theory, the authors argue that Reconstruction and the post-Brown era offer valuable lessons for school leaders today about the ability—and even need—to operate autonomously from formal channels. The authors feature lessons from Reconstruction and Brown regarding self-reliance, community control, and the hard-won victories whose benefits extended far beyond the Black community itself. The authors conclude with implications for school leaders.

The Unheared Voice of Truant Students: Implications for School Leaders

The objective of this study was to explore the possible factors, impacts and prevention mechanisms by school administrators of absenteeism among high school students in Yekatit 12 preparatory school of Addis Ababa City Administration. To achieve the objective of the study a qualitative approach was employed and data was collected from five students based on the number of days that they were absent from school. The main data collection methods employed were consultation of documents like the attendance sheet and records of the student on their absenteeism and in depth interview. Once the data was collected, it was transcribed and translated. Content analysis was used to find out the main themes emerging to answer the basic questions raised. Base on the analysis of the study, it was found out that substance abuse resulted from peer pressure; economic problems due to family separation and domestic chore burden were the main factors for students’ absenteeism. The impact of absenteeism was also found to be huge in decreasing academic performance and results of the students as they miss lectures, demonstrations and class activities which are going to be marked including tests and quizzes. Though teachers and school administrators support was mentioned, it was not found to be at the level which is required to fully understand and help them not to dropout from Scholl. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that the school has to put in place a strict control of drugs and alcohol inside the school premise, guidance and counseling service of the school to be strengthened and to try to engage NGOs and other partners to assist economically poor students.

A qualitative inquiry into the relationships between teacher efficacy beliefs and teaching task analysis in the context of learner-centred pedagogy

Theoretically, teacher efficacy beliefs (TEBs) are influenced by the analysis of the teaching task and its context (hereafter, teaching analysis). However, there is a lack of empirical study on the relationships between them. This qualitative exploratory study investigated how teachers related their TEBs to their teaching analysis. Interviews were conducted with ten science teachers in Singapore, who were adopting learner-centred pedagogy in their teaching. Six themes emerged: (a) familiarity with the task; (b) improvability of the task; (c) complexity of the task; (d) compatibility of the task with students; (e) collegiality and (f) structural supports. Findings also reveal the dynamic nature and the contingent aspect of TEBs. Implications for school leaders and educators are suggested.

Tight, Loose, or Decoupling? A National Study of the Decision-Making Power Relationship Between District Central Offices and School Principals

Do school district central offices and school principals have the same level of influence on school decisions? What does the district–principal power relationship look like? These two questions are discussed but are rarely examined in the literature. Based on a nationally representative sample from the 2007-2008 Schools and Staffing Survey data, we explored these two questions. Specifically, we applied the paired samples t test to compare the district central offices’ and school principals’ influences and applied the multilevel modeling method to estimate the power relationship. We found that (a) on average, districts and principals had the same level of influence on establishing curriculum, whereas school principals had higher influence on the other six decision areas examined (performance standards, teachers’ professional development programs, evaluating teachers, hiring teachers, discipline policies, and school budget), and (b) a tight coupling power relationship between district central offices and school principals was identified for the three areas related to the technical core of schools (performance standards, establishing curriculum, and teachers’ professional development programs), a loose coupling power relationship was revealed for the personnel (hiring and evaluating teachers) and budget areas, while a decoupling power relationship was found for discipline policy decisions. Discussions and implications for school leadership and policy were included in this study.

Pono Choices: Lessons for School Leaders From the Evaluation of a Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.

The US Office of Adolescent Health (OAH) funded studies of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention programs in 2010. The results of a 5-year OAH study conducted in the state of Hawai'i with middle school youth has implications for school leaders in the selection and implementation of comprehensive sex education curricula yielding positive outcomes for youth. A cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted across 34 middle school in the state of Hawai'i with 1783 student participants in pre-, post-, and 1-year follow-up surveys to determine effectiveness of a culturally responsive teen pregnancy prevention curriculum, called Pono Choices, specifically developed for youth in Hawai'i. Students receiving the Pono Choices curriculum had significantly higher rates of knowledge gains than students in control schools, although there were no statistically significant differences in initiation of sexual activity between the groups at the 1-year follow-up. Teachers implemented the curriculum at high rates of adherence to fidelity making this a model for implementation. Knowledge and retention of medically accurate teen pregnancy and STI prevention information can be attributed to implementation of a comprehensive program with attention to factors such as fidelity, program quality, engagement, and dosage.

Student Population Change in Rural Illinois Schools and Its Implications for School Leaders

This paper examines rural public school student population change in Illinois and explores the implications of these changes on educational leadership. Secondary analysis of 16 years of data from NCES Common Core of Data Universe Surveys illuminates population change in terms of student enrollment and demographic characteristics. Findings suggest that these changes have occurred over the 16 year period and present potentially considerable challenges for school leaders especially given the broader state climate.