Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the way in which low-performing schools and their district define, acquire, use, and diffuse research-based evidence. Design/methodology/approach: The mixed methods case study builds upon the prior research on research evidence and social networks, drawing on social network analyses, survey data and…

Purpose: This paper aims to describe a construct validation study of the Change Facilitator Style Questionnaire (CFSQ), an instrument designed to measure the leadership style of school principals as change facilitators. Design/methodology/approach: Participants included 614 K-12 teachers across the state of Florida involved in the Enhancing…

Purpose: This study aims to develop and validate a measure of a specific attitude toward teachers' absenteeism that predicts this behavior more accurately than other general measures of job attitudes. Design/methodology/approach: Participants were 443 teachers from 21 secondary schools in Israel. In the first phase, the teachers answered…

Purpose: Teachers' continuing professional development (CPD) should improve teacher quality and teaching practices, though teachers vary in the extent to which they participate in CPD activities. Because beliefs influence working and learning, and teachers' beliefs about learning and teaching influence their instructional decisions, this study…

Purpose: This research aims to add to the literature on Academic Optimism, a composite measure composed of teacher perceptions of trust in students, academic press, and collective efficacy by exploring a similar set of constructs from the student perceptive. The relationships between student trust in teachers, student perceptions of academic…

Purpose: The paper aims to investigate the mediating effect of teacher empowerment on the relationship between teachers' perception of their school support and their intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from a sample of 2,565 teachers affiliated with 153 Israeli elementary schools. A path…

Purpose: The article aims to investigate the relationships between different dimensions of organizational ethics and different withdrawal symptoms--lateness, absence, and intent to leave work. Design/methodology/approach: Participants were 1,016 school teachers from 35 high schools in Israel. A joint model of Glimmix procedure of SAS was used for…

Purpose: This study aims to examine the relations between teachers' perception of parental involvement and teacher satisfaction. It further aims to investigate how this relationship may be moderated by interpersonal personality traits. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire was conducted; participants were 572 classroom teachers who teach at…

Purpose: The prevailing theory of action underlying accountability is that holding schools and students accountable will increase educational output. While accountability's theory of action intuitively seemed plausible, at the point of No Child Left Behind's national implementation, little empirical research was available to either support or…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of different dimensions of instructional leadership on student learning in Hong Kong secondary schools, whose broader institutional contexts are critically characterized by high accountability policy environments. Design/methodology/approach: This study utilizes standardized test scores…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how US school leaders make sense of external mandates, and the way in which their understanding of state and district accountability policies affects their work. It is posited that school leaders' responses to external accountability are likely to reflect a complex interaction between their…

Purpose: In light of limited sustainability of past collaborative-learning-centered initiatives over time, the purpose of this paper is to explore the determinants considered by both teachers and principals to influence the sustainability of a collective-learning-from-success (CLS) initiative in 12 urban elementary schools.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between academic optimism (AO) and elementary reading achievement (RA). Design/methodology/approach: Using correlation and hierarchical linear regression, the authors examined school-level effects of AO on fifth grade reading achievement in 29 elementary schools in Alabama.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among academic optimism, community engagement, and student achievement in urban elementary schools across one district. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from all 35 urban elementary schools across one district in Virginia, USA. Correlation, multiple regression, and…

Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to identify the successful leadership practices of head teachers for school improvement at secondary level in Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach: The study was descriptive (survey type) in nature. It was conducted on a sample of 351 secondary school head teachers, 702 elementary and secondary school…