Texas public high schools induct beginning science teachers each year; yet, little is known about how schools induct beginning teachers. The three studies included in this dissertation use a mixed methods approach to explore data collected by the Policy Research Initiative in Science Education (PRISE) Research Group during the 2007-2008 academic year. The first study focused on principals' perceptions of teacher induction. A content analysis of interviews collected from 50 principals examined principals' perceptions of teacher induction. Analyses indicated that high school principals had an overwhelmingly narrow focus of mentoring and provided mentor teachers with little support or training. Findings indicated that induction activities for beginning teachers were front-loaded before the school year began and were left in the hands of unprepared mentors during the school year. Further analyses indicated that the primary purpose of mentoring and induction for beginning teachers in Texas high schools revolved around orientation to campus policies and procedures. Beginning teachers' instructional needs appeared to be an afterthought. The second study explored beginning high school science teachers' evaluations of their induction experiences. Beginning teachers identified the best school-level induction supports received and recommended improvements for school-level induction. Teachers identified mentoring as one of the best received supports, yet also made recommendations for more structure in the mentoring experience. A comparison of beginning teachers' responses with teacher turnover found that: (a) Stayers (i.e., teachers retained at a campus) were most likely to report that they received induction support from other science teachers; (b) Movers (i.e., teachers who transferred to another campus) less frequently reported working conditions as a positive induction support; and (c) Leavers, (i.e., teachers not retained in the profession) most frequently did not identify induction support from the school. The final study compared principals' perceptions of induction and beginning teacher Movers and Leavers' evaluations of their induction experiences. Findings from this study indicated that principals were aware of induction components that were considered helpful by both Movers and Leavers. However, principals did not acknowledge what Movers and Leavers recommended for improvements to current induction practices. The final chapter provides a summary of all three studies. Recommendations are made for improving induction practices for high school science teachers. In particular, high school principals should discard their current "hands-off" approach to teacher induction and become more active in their induction experiences. Additionally, types of induction practices should increase to include more than mentoring. Moreover, policy makers should reform mentoring policies so that current practices, which have a narrow focus on school policies and procedures, are abandoned.

In today's technological environment, there is constant competition for audience readership and viewership between various media outlets. News media provides a great deal of information to the general public through television, print, and web sources, especially in terms of agriculture. This study aimed to discover audience perceptions of two different natural disasters by examining the effects of photographic inclusion in print news articles including agricultural perceptions and content recall. Additionally, differences between self-perceived milk industry advocacy and a milk campaign story are also examined. Newspaper articles about the effects of the 2010-2011 drought in Texas and the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene were also used. Students in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University were surveyed in online pre and posttests. Student responses displayed a moderate relationship between photos and article content in regards to the Hurricane Irene article. A significant relationship was present between self-perceived non-advocates and their outlook on milk consumption and the dairy industry with the inclusion of photographs. There were differences seen between students who have family who work in agriculture, claim membership in an agriculture association, live on a farm or ranch, and were members of FFA as they viewed the drought article to be more positive than those who did not have these agricultural backgrounds. Furthermore, student responses show a relationship between the milk industry article in the pretest (photos included) and posttest (photos not included) by viewing the photos as positive, humorous, and shocking. This study found student perceptions of the two news articles related to the drought as well as the tropical storm to be the same regardless of photographic presence. This leads the researcher to conclude that photos had no effect on the overall perceptions of the news stories. However, students who received photographs did see a relationship between the photos associated with the flood article and the content presented in the story. This effect was not seen with the photographs of the drought story. Since the photos associated with the flood story were the original photos printed with the news story, it is probable to conclude that students properly associated photographic elements with that of the story's content.

Abstract Political behavior in organization is undeniable, while studies of organizational politics lasting for recent decades had accumulated abundant understanding in this area. However, there are still many arguments against this complex subject needed further research. The purpose of the research is 1) to test and verify the input model of Organizational Politics Perception Model¡C 2) to test the effectiveness and reliability and solve the controversy of dimensions of POPS ¡C 3) to further refine the input model by type analysis and try to explain the cause of Organizational Politics Perceptions¡C For research procedure and sample: Participants were 973 and drawn from Hospital¡Bprivate and public service firms¡Btraditional manufacturing and high-technical firms¡CThe research method is descriptive statistics analysis¡B reliability analysis¡Bfactor analysis¡Bregression analysis¡Bone-way ANOVA and cluster analysis¡C

The purpose of this study is to reveal the perceptions of teachers, learners, teacher trainers and administrators on teachers

ABSTRACT Most of the organizational politics derive either from achieving the organizational goal by organizational members, or from the purpose of maximizing self-interests. Therefore, Perceptions of Organizational Politics (POPs) might influence the perception of need satisfaction or outcome and affect job involvement and job performance. The purpose of the study is to understand the relationship among POPs, job involvement and job performance. Through empirical survey, there are several outcomes as follows: 1. Females have more political perceptions of organizational policy and practice than males do. 2. Members under 35 years old have more perceptions of supervisors¡¦ political behavior and have more perceptions of coworkers¡¦ and cliques¡¦ political behavior than members over 35 years old do. 3. Single members¡¦ POPs is higher than married members¡¦. 4. Non-managers¡¦ POPs and perceptions of coworkers¡¦ and cliques¡¦ political behavior are higher than managers. 5. The higher the managers¡¦ level, the higher the job involvement. 6. The dimensions of POPs are negatively relative to job involvement. 7. By controlling sex, marriage, age, education, service seniority, and position to examine the relationship between POPs and job performance. 7.1 Females, single, under 35 years old, college and above, seniority and managers have higher perceptions of supervisors¡¦ political behavior and lower job performance, task performance, and contextual performance. 7.2 Females, college and above, seniority, and managers have higher political perceptions of organizational policy and practice, and higher job performance. 7.3 Males, under 35 years old, college and above, less years spent on the job, non-managers have higher political perceptions of organizational policy and practice and higher task performance. 7.4 Females, seniority, and managers have higher political perceptions of organizational policy and practice and higher contextual performance. 8. As an interference variable, job involvement doesn¡¦t significantly interfere the relationship between POPs and job performance.

Members¡¦ political behaviors in organizations often influence the decision of Human Resources on members¡¦ salary or promotion. After perceiving organizational politics that might alter their expected job reward and performances, in the short run, employees might react negatively and lead to behaviors such as reduction of job involvement, dissatisfaction, job anxiety, as well as absentness. In the long run, there will be increasing turnover. The purpose of this study is to understand the relationship among Perception of Organizational Politics (POPs), Turnover Intention and Job Satisfaction. Through empirical survey data analysis, the findings are as follows: 1.There is no relationship between gender and turnover intention. 2.Members¡¦ age is negatively correlated with their turnover intention. 3.The turnover intentions of college & university graduates are lower than those with less education. 4.Members who are single have a higher turnover intention, compared with those of married members. 5.Members with longer tenure have a lower turnover intention. 6.Managers¡¦ turnover intention is lower than those with non-manager positions. 7.Members with higher POPs also tends to have higher turnover intentions. 8.Members with higher POPs have lower job satisfaction. 9.Job Satisfaction serves as an intervening variable, partially mediates the relationship between members¡¦ POPs and their turnover intentions.

Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 19-21).

The purpose of this research study was to (a) analyze perceptions of parent involvement across raters (i.e., seventh grade students versus their parents) and across ethnicity (i.e., African American versus European American), and (b) examine how perceptions of parent involvement are related to academic achievement. A subsample of archival survey data collected in one central Florida school district was analyzed for the current study. Findings revealed a positive but weak relationship between students' and parents' perceptions of parent involvement regardless of ethnicity. Significant differences were found in the perceived levels of involvement by ethnicity, even when controlling for SES. In general, there was a positive but weak relationship between perceptions of parent involvement and student academic achievement regardless of ethnicity and while controlling for SES. It is suggested that the weak relationships between parent involvement and student achievement found in this study may be due to the types of items used in the surveys, which focused on limited aspects of parent involvement (e.g., PTA membership and help with homework). Further research exploring how the construct of home-school collaboration is best operationalized among diverse groups of families is needed.

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Dans un contexte de rareté et volatilité des hauts potentiels, attirer et retenir les "Knowledge workers" est devenu un enjeu de taille pour les entreprises en concurrence. Cette recherche tente d'apporter une lecture spécifique de l'approche "Competency-based pay" (Lawler, 1994 ; Ledford, 1995 ; Zingheim & Schuster, 2007) qui met l'accent sur le rôle stratégique de la structure de rémunération globale (Le Berre, 1993 ; Igalens & Roussel, 1996 ; Peretti, 2000), et le redéploiement efficace de ses composants, et ses modalités d'évaluation et de gestion comme des variables d'action susceptibles de répondre aux espérances des Knowledge workers, dans l'objectif de développer leur engagement organisationnel (Meyer & Allen, 1991 ; Meyer & Parfyonova, 2010). Une étude quantitative est menée auprès de 313 cadres informaticiens de la région parisienne qui renseigne sur leurs prétentions salariales les plus à même d'avoir un pouvoir attractif et prédictif sur leur engagement organisationnel. Il en ressort, l'attractivité perçue à l'égard aussi bien de la rémunération de la performance, individuelle et collective, en réponse à leurs attentes multidimensionnelles; du package de la rémunération flexible constitué d'un large éventail de choix entre les différents composants de la rémunération globale; et de la rémunération du développement personnel et professionnel monnayant leurs investissements consentis au travail. Néanmoins, même si la rémunération irréversible perçue comme un droit acquis s'avère comme peu attrayante en raison des critères d'évaluation inadéquats; il n'en demeure moins vrai qu'une rémunération au mérite se basant sur les compétences déployées et les performances réalisées, est la variable d'action à revisiter par l'entreprise française. Sachant que les Knowledge workers ont constamment le regard porté sur l'équité professionnelle, la reconnaissance du mérite individuel, la valorisation des contributions collectives, la satisfaction du besoin d'accomplissement personnel et professionnel devraient sans tarder inspirer des stratégies de rétention mieux adaptées à ces profils rares et volatiles. / Attracting and holding «Knowledge workers" in the current context of potential scarcity and volatility has become a major challenge for companies in perpetual competition. This research attempts to provide a specific reading of the "Competency-based pay" approach (Lawler, 1994; Ledford, 1995; Zingheim & Schuster, 2007) which focuses on the strategic role of overall compensation structure (Le Berre, 1993; Igalens & Roussel, 1996; Peretti, 2000) and the effective redeployment of its components. This work also examines its methods of assessment and management as action variables likely to meet the expectations of Knowledge workers, with the ultimate objective of developing organizational commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1991; Meyer & Parfyonova, 2010). A quantitative study was conducted among 313 IT managers in the Paris region, the results of which indicate that salary is the variable most likely to have an attractive power and to be predictive of organizational commitment. It appears that in response to multidimensional expectations, flexible remuneration packages increase perceived attractiveness of individual and collective pay for performance. This can be manifested in a wide range of choices between different total compensation components, and includes compensation for personal and professional development resulting from investment at work. “Permanent compensation” is seen as an acquired right, yet is comparatively unattractive because of inadequate evaluation criteria, thus, merit pay based on deployed skills and performance is the variable that French companies need to reexamine. Knowing that Knowledge workers constantly seek employment equity and recognition of individual merit and collective contributions, strategies suited to satisfying the personal and professional needs of these rare and volatile individuals should immediately be enacted.