The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between Louisiana public secondary school teachers' primary learning type and teaching area; and the influence of learning type and teaching area on the teacher's perception of school climate. A total of 293 Louisiana public secondary school teachers participated in the study. An instrument with three parts was used to collect data for this study: demographics, Learning Type Measure and Organizational Health Inventory. Over two-thirds of the respondents were female. Mean age was 43 years and mean teaching experience was 16.41 years. Over three-fourths of respondents were white while over 50% had only a bachelor's degree. Almost half (49%) of respondents were type 3 (common sense) learners. Almost 60% of career and technical teachers had a dominant type 3 (common sense) learning type while about one-third of academic teachers were dominant type 3 (common sense) learners.
The mean school health score was 535.04 (SD = 139.34). The mean school climate score was above average. School health index scores ranged from 116.16 to 848.84. No statistically significant differences were found in mean school climate scores among the four learning types. No statistically significant differences were found in mean school climate scores by teaching area. No statistically significant correlations were found between school climate scores and various demographic characteristics (gender, age, ethnicity, and years teaching experience).
Differences in school climate scores were analyzed by various school factors including school size, type of schedule, and years on current schedule. Statistically significant differences exist in teachers' school climate scores by type of schedule and number of years on current schedule. Teachers on a traditional six period schedule have higher perceptions of school climate than those on traditional seven period schedules, seven period A-B/flex, or four-by-four block schedules. In addition, teachers on the current schedule type for less than one year were found to have a higher perception of school climate. The findings are in contrast to previous studies on type of schedule and number of years on schedule. Further research is recommended to determine why this occurred.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-1113102-161933 |
| Date | 15 November 2002 |
| Creators | Beard, Tracy Andries |
| Contributors | Joe W. Kotrlik, Betty C. Harrison, James W. Stockard, Jr., Donna H. Redmann, Michael F. Burnett |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-1113102-161933/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University Libraries in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. |
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