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 study investigates the role of transformational leadership in influencing students’ outcomes in public secondary schools using Kuwait as a case study. The standard of academic achievement in Kuwait’s public schools has been declining over the years, which calls for a different type of leadership to transform these schools. It is argued in this thesis that there is merit in bringing in private sector business models to the public education sector in order to transform the sector and improve the schools’ outcomes. Furthermore, not much research has been undertaken on the paths through which transformational leadership influences public school outcomes in developing countries such as Kuwait. Following a critical review of leadership literature, a theoretical model for leadership that is transformational was conceptualised and this formed the basis of hypotheses formation and data collection. The thesis is thus original in its attempt to understand the paths through which school heads’ transformational leadership influence student’s outcomes in public secondary schools in a developing country (Kuwait). The study adopted a positivist ontology and objective epistemology and obtained data from 495 school heads and staff from 86 public secondary schools in Kuwait via a structured questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation models (SEM) tested the direct and indirect effects of school heads’ transformational leadership in influencing students’ outcomes the student “achievement” and the student “engagement” via several mediating variables including “school culture”, “class room condition” and “academic emphasis”. The analysis identified idealized influence (attributes) and idealized influence (behaviour) as the underlying dimensions of transformational leadership that directly and indirectly influences both student engagement and student achievement as the final outcome. The findings also confirmed differences between males and females in their leadership styles and subsequent influence on students’ achievement, and student engagement with the latter appearing to be better school heads. Therefore, two structure equation models were built to investigate the characteristics of each gender leadership style on the outcome variables. The findings also revealed that males’ leadership style has significant effect on student achievement but not student on engagement, while female leader ship style has significant effect on both student achievement and student engagement stronger than the males’ effect counterpart. Generally however, transformational leadership style has significant effect on both student achievement and student engagement. The study objectives were met and the study contributes to understanding the role of transformational leadership and its influence on staff and students’ achievement, from a developing country in the GCC. Managerial recommendations and suggestions for policy makers are made. Study limitations are highlighted leading to suggestions for further study.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This study investigated teacher beliefs and organizational climate constructs of collective efficacy, faculty trust, academic emphasis, enabling bureaucracy, and mindfulness as antecedents for implemented professional development. Researchers previously combined collective efficacy, faculty trust, and academic emphasis into academic optimism. Using Conscious Discipline as professional development and book study as delivery, in this mixed methodology study, 489 teachers in 17 suburban elementary schools completed surveys measuring organizational climate constructs, teacher beliefs about classroom management, and self-reported degree of imlementation. Morning greeting and classroom walkthrough observations collected evidence of implementation. Sixteen focus group teachers from four elementary schools explained the degree of implementation. This study found that (a) Teacher and school demographic data correlated with organizational climate constructs; (b) Teacher beliefs and faculty mindfulness explained 65.7% of variance in self-reported degree of implementation; and (c) Socioeconomic status, book club participation, and teacher beliefs explained 77.1% of variance in observation degree of implementation. / Ph. D.

Principal Academic Optimism is an hypothesized latent construct that has strong theoretical foundations in both educational research and educational psychology. Academic Optimism derives from research on school academic optimism and teacher academic optimism, which originated via Hoys, Tarters, and Woolfolk Hoys (2006a; 2006b) merger of school climate research with research on learned optimism, stemming from Martin Seligmans (1998, 2006) research on positive psychology. Principal Academic Optimism expands upon discoveries of School Academic Optimism and Teacher Academic Optimism. The theoretical framework of Principal Academic Optimism is built upon a strong research foundation of the organizational health model, social capital theory, social cognitive theory and positive psychology. The purpose of this research is to revise Riegel's (2012) Principal Academic Optimism Scale, thereby creating and testing a comprehensive measure of Principal Academic Optimism. The questionnaire used to accomplish this goal was a revised version of Riegel's Principal Academic Optimism Scale and Tschannen-Moran's and Gareis's (2004) Principal Trust Scale. By incorporating a measure for principal trust in faculty with a measure of principal trust in clients (parents and students), a more comprehensive measure of Principal Academic Optimism was validated and found reliable (α = 0.908). Perhaps the most compelling finding of the study was the significant negative relationship between principals' perception of trust in clients whose schools have high percentages of students receiving free and reduced price lunches (r = -0.444; p < 0.05). Principals with high percentages of free and reduced price lunch rates explained 72.203% of the variance in principals' self-reported perception of trust in clients. Principals of schools with 61%-80% or 81%+ percentages of free and reduced price lunch rates reported lower levels of trust in clients (parents and students). / Ed. D.

This study aimed at exploring the school effectiveness characteristics of two high schools, one with high (School A) and one with low (School B) levels of placement ratio in &Ouml / SS for their graduates, to observe their characteristics as perceived by their stakeholders (students, teachers, parents, school administrative staff and managers). In this study, a comparative pre-structured case study method was employed. The study was conducted in two private high schools in the province of Ankara, Turkey. The participants were 10 students, 10 teachers, 10 parents, 2 non-academic staff and 3 administrators from School A, and 10 students, 10 teachers, 7 parents, 3 non-academic staff and 2 administrators from School B. A framework drawn by the researcher as a result of review of relevant literature was used to conceptualize the study and to guide the interview schedules to collect data. According to this framework, six general areas in effective school literature were explored. These areas were academic emphasis, organization and administration, school climate, home-school relations, teaching staff, and physical and financial resources. The data collected through semi-structured interviews were analyzed using content analysis technique. The findings revealed that two case schools had major differences almost in all areas explored. The only major similarity between two schools was in the leadership and leader qualities under organization and administration area. The effective school characteristics of the school with high levels of placement ratio in &Ouml / SS, in all six areas explored were added to the conceptual framework drawn at the beginning of the study.

本研究旨在探討桃園市高中職校長學術樂觀與教師教學成效的現況，藉由分析不同背景變項與學校變項之教師在知覺校長學術樂觀與教師教學成效的差異情形；進而探討校長學術樂觀對教師教學成效，最後根據研究提出結論。 為達上述研究目的，本研究採用問卷調查法，以桃園市33所公私立高中職之教師兼主任、教師兼組長(含科主任)、教師兼導師與專任教師為研究對象，採隨機抽樣方式，寄發問卷440份，回收有效問卷412份，有效回收率為93.6 ％。問卷所得資料採用IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0統計軟體進行資料分析，獲得以下結論： 一、高中職現職教師在年齡與任教年資的差異上，顯現出對校長學術樂觀有不同之知覺傾向 二、高中職兼任導師之現職教師對校長學術樂觀知覺較低 三、公立高中職之現職教師對校長學術樂觀知覺呈現正相關 四、高中職現職教師在年齡與任教年資的差異上，顯現出對教師教學成效有不同之知覺傾向 五、高中職兼任導師之現職教師對教師教學成效知覺較低 六、高中職之現職教師對校長學術樂觀與教師教學成效具中度顯著關係，但在「班級氣氛」層面呈現低度顯著 七、高中職現職教師在「校長學術樂觀」的「信任教師、學生、家長」與「重視學生學習」對「教師教學成效」具有較高之預測力 / This study was designed to investigate the current status of high school principal’s academic optimism, teacher’s teaching effectiveness and their relationship in Taoyuan. Base on the result of analyzing the difference of teaching effectiveness of teachers from different backgrounds and different schools, and of school principal’s academic optimism, and on the result of exploring the influence of principal’s academic optimism on the effectiveness of teacher’s teaching, the conclusion is made. To achieve the above purpose, the research uses the questionnaire survey procedure, the grand total provides 440 questionnaires randomly to teachers who are in different positions, either homeroom teachers, full time teachers, section chief or directors in 33 public or private high schools in Taoyuan, recycling effective questionnaires 412, the effective questionnaire recycling a rate 93.6%. The data obtained from questionnaires has been analyzed by using IBM SPSS Statistics 20.00 obtain the following a conclusion: 1. When high school teachers’ age and the length of teaching year vary, their perception of principal’s academic optimism differs. 2. High school teachers’ perception of principal’s academic optimism is weak if they are homeroom teachers. 3. Public high school teachers have stronger perception of principal’s academic optimism. 4. Teachers with different ages and different length of teaching years have different perception of teaching effectiveness. 5. Current teachers who are homeroom teachers have weak perception of teaching effectiveness. 6. Academic optimism of high school principals is moderate significantly correlated to teachers’ teaching effectiveness, but weak correlated to classroom climate. 7. Two parts of measurement of principal’s academic optimism, faculty trust in students and parents and the school’s academic emphasis are highly predictable to teacher’s teaching effectiveness of current high school teachers.

No description available.