Academic optimism is a relatively new construct that combines collective efficacy, academic emphasis, and faculty trust in students and parents. The cumulative measure represents a robust picture of the social interactions within a school that influences the beliefs, behaviors and emotions of organizational members. Academic optimism has been established as a predictor of student achievement controlling for student socioeconomic status. However, past studies have not included student ethnicity in statistical models utilized to test the effect of academic optimism on student achievement, even though research and state achievement data show gaps among students of color and Anglo students that are just as substantial as those identified along socioeconomic. Additionally, there was a need to determine if academic optimism is simply a product of school context or if there is additional variance left to be explained by psychosocial interactions within schools. Therefore, the intent of this study was threefold: first, examine the relationships between the theoretical underpinnings of collective efficacy, academic emphasis, and faculty trust in students and parents; second, produce a more rigorous test of the effect of academic optimism on student achievement by including student ethnicity in addition to other student background characteristics; and third, determine to what magnitude school context explains a schools level of academic optimism. The author utilized multi-level analysis to test the relationship between school academic optimism and student achievement controlling for student ethnicity, socioeconomic status, previous achievement and school size within a new sample. The relationship between school academic optimism and school context was tested by employing multiple regression analysis. In a sample of 10,464 students nested within 97 elementary schools the author was able to determine that academic optimism is a positive predictor of student math and reading achievement. Furthermore, academic optimism is capable of mediating the negative relationships existing between both low socioeconomic status (SES) and student of color status and student achievement. Additionally, the studied revealed that only 52% of the variance in school level academic optimism is determined by school context.

This exploratory mixed method study builds upon previous research to investigate the influence of teacher self- and collective efficacy on technology use in the classroom. This population was purposefully sampled to examine first- and second order technology barriers, instructional strategies, and human influences on technology. The quantitative finding was supported by qualitative analysis of the teacher interviews and led to the conclusion that even thought there were strong teacher tendencies towards a belief in using technology actual practice demonstrated a lack of productivity or transference of that belief into classroom practice. A high self- and collective efficacy had no effect on technology use in the classroom and a belief in technology did not lead to the use of technology. <br>The study explored three research questions: 1) what is the effect of teacher self-efficacy on technology use in the classroom, 2) what is the effect of collective efficacy on technology use in the classroom, and 3) what is the relationship among teacher self-efficacy, collective efficacy, and barriers that inhibit technology use in a K-12 classroom setting? Thirty-five teachers in a New Jersey K-8 school district volunteered to take a 36-question survey. Three teachers were interviewed to corroborate the survey data. <br> This study is unique in the combined analysis of self- and collective efficacy and technology. It raises several questions for future study. Teacher responses overwhelmingly identified first order or extrinsic barriers as impediments to technology. These included poor technical support, access, time issues, and a lack of vision and training. These barriers are decades old and have been acknowledged for as long as technology has been in the classroom. Why, despite thirty years of technology in education, do the same barriers that existed in the very beginning continue to be strong deterrents of technology use? <br>Teachers identified administrators as the least influential on teacher practices. If this is so, how can there be such a high sense of collective efficacy? How much influence does the collective agency have on classroom teacher behavior? Specifically, at what point in a teacher's decision-making does the collective agency over-ride personal beliefs and what are the characteristics that contribute to this conflict and possible submissive behavior? <br> Finally, are we seeking answers to the wrong questions? Is it possible that teachers and educational systems are not able to modify intrinsic and standard operating practices to utilize technology successfully? / School of Education / Instructional Technology (EdDIT) / EdD / Dissertation

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between efficacy and teacher turnover intent in small, poor, rural schools. The researcher focuses on small, poor, rural schools in a Midwest state in the United States due to the state’s annual teacher turnover rate (16.4%) which mirrors the national rate. A sample of 730 teachers was solicited to participate in the study through their building principal with a final response of N = 220 participating. This non-experimental study explores the relationship between efficacy (independent variable) and turnover intent (dependent variable) by collecting data utilizing the online platform of Survey Monkey. The Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) measured the level of self-efficacy for participants in the study. Additionally, the Collective Teacher Efficacy Scale (CTES) (Tschannen-Moran & Barr, 2004) measured the level of participants’ sense of collective efficacy. The Turnover Intent Scale (TIS) (Tiplic, Brandmo, & Elstad, 2015) measured the level of turnover intent for each participant. The research questions and hypotheses were used to explore the relationship between self-efficacy and turnover intent as well as collective efficacy and turnover intent. In addition, three research questions focused the investigation on the relationship between the variables by exploring the subscales of self-efficacy: student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management. The mean scores for each scale show that generally participants displayed a moderately high level of efficacy and were not searching for a new job. Additionally, the results show a statistically significant relationship between participants’ sense of collective efficacy and turnover intent. The significant relationship suggests that school leaders should focus on increasing teachers’ sense of collective efficacy to help with teacher turnover.

The majority of today’s emerging adults view climate change as the defining challenge of their generation (Amnesty International, 2019). Young people’s climate concern has translated to unprecedented collective climate action, such as the youth climate strikes of 2019. However, young people and their relevant social identities are underrepresented in research on collective climate action. Following the social identity model of pro-environmental action (Fritsche et al., 2018), the current study assesses the extent to which emerging adults identify with Generation Z, or Gen-Z, as a relevant ingroup. In a Prolific survey of 296 participants aged 18-24 and currently living in Canada, I examined young people’s Gen-Z ingroup identification, perceived collective efficacy of Gen-Z, and three collective action outcomes: intentions to follow youth climate groups on social media, intentions to engage in future collective climate action, and participation in sending an advocacy message to the B.C. Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. I hypothesized that the interaction of ingroup identification and collective efficacy would predict collective climate action outcomes above and beyond the influence of each construct individually. This hypothesis was not supported. While Gen-Z ingroup identification and perceived collective efficacy each predicted intentions to follow youth climate groups on social media and intentions to engage in future collective action, the interaction term added no explanatory power to the models. Neither Gen-Z ingroup identification nor collective efficacy predicted participation in the advocacy message behaviour. These findings underscore the importance of systematically investigating broad social identities in the field of collective climate action, which has predominantly focused on specific environmentalist groups. The current study also highlights the need for further investigation of predictors of behavioural outcomes. / Graduate / 2022-12-15

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Individfokuserad forskning tyder på att Leader member exchange (LMX) är en prediktor för ökad self-efficacy medan gruppfokuserad forskning visar ett positivt samband mellan LMX och virtuell collective efficacy. Räddningstjänstpersonals unika arbetsform och relation mynnade ut i intresse att undersöka hur mycket av den totala variationen i  Collective efficacy (CE) som kan förklaras av LMX respektive sju bakgrundsvariabler. En enkät bestående av två skalor, LMX-7 och Collective Efficacy Belief Scale samt sju bakgrundsvariabler besvarades av 135 räddningstjänstpersonal. 129 svar analyserades. Urvalet bestod av 115 män och 14 kvinnor från 13 olika räddningstjänstregioner. Medelvärdet för ålder var 38.98 år (SD=9.62). En hierarkisk multipel regressionsanalys visade att 15,1 % av variationen i CE förklarades av LMX tillsammans med bakgrundsvariablerna. Män tenderar att ha högre CE än kvinnor. Resultatet kan inspirera chefer att arbeta med ledarskap för att stärka arbetsgruppers tro på sin förmåga samt vara en grund för vidare forskning om andra yrkesgrupper.

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