Authoritative schools: A test of a model to resolve the school effectiveness debate

Longitudinal Measurement Invariance of the Authoritative School Climate Survey

This study evaluated the longitudinal psychometric properties of the Authoritative School Climate Survey (ASCS) using a statewide sample of middle and high schools across 8 years. Multilevel confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the longitudinal measurement invariance of three scales on the ASCS: disciplinary structure, teacher respect for students, and students’ willingness to seek help. These scales demonstrated strong factorial invariance across all time points for both middle and high schools. Results support the use of these scales in evaluating longitudinal change in school climate.

Longitudinal development of adolescent academic engagement following the Wenchuan earthquake: Domain-specific trajectories

Recent studies have examined academic engagement trajectories, but many focused on the overall academic engagement of adolescents, and few assessed specific engagement dimensions of adolescents with trauma experiences. The current study recruited 342 adolescents who had experienced an earthquake to examine their behavioral and psychological engagement trajectories. Participants were asked to complete self-report questionnaires at 3.5, 4.5, and 5.5 years after the Wenchuan earthquake in China. The results identified two types of behavioral engagement trajectories (high–stable and decreasing), and two types of psychological engagement trajectories (high–stable and increasing). The behavioral engagement trajectories showed strong agreement with the psychological engagement trajectories. We also found that gratitude could prevent behavioral engagement from decreasing over time, and that social support facilitated increase of psychological engagement. The findings suggested that the developmental paths of behavioral and psychological engagement were both heterogeneous among adolescents following an earthquake, and gratitude and social support played different roles in predicting engagement trajectories.

Does School Climate Mean the Same Thing in the United States as in Mexico? A Focus on Measurement Invariance

School climate is an important construct for guiding violence prevention efforts in U.S. schools, but there has been less consideration of this concept in its neighboring country Mexico, which has a higher prevalence of violence. The U.S. Department of Education outlined a three-domain conceptualization of school climate (i.e., safe and supportive schools model) that includes engagement, safety, and the school environment. To examine the applicability of this school climate model in Mexico, the present study tested its measurement invariance across middle school students in the United States ( n = 15,099) and Mexico ( n = 2,211). Findings supported full invariance for engagement and modified-safety scales indicating that factor loadings and intercepts contributed almost equally to factor means, and scale scores were comparable across groups. Partial invariance was found for the environment scales. Results of a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) consisting of all 13 school climate scales indicated significantly positive associations among all scales in the U.S. sample and among most scales in the Mexico sample. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Profiles of Student Perceptions of School Climate: Relations with Risk Behaviors and Academic Outcomes

School climate has been linked to a variety of positive student outcomes, but there may be important within-school differences among students in their experiences of school climate. This study examined within-school heterogeneity among 47,631 high school student ratings of their school climate through multilevel latent class modeling. Student profiles across 323 schools were generated on the basis of multiple indicators of school climate: disciplinary structure, academic expectations, student willingness to seek help, respect for students, affective and cognitive engagement, prevalence of teasing and bullying, general victimization, bullying victimization, and bullying perpetration. Analyses identified four meaningfully different student profile types that were labeled positive climate, medium climate-low bullying, medium climate-high bullying, and negative climate. Contrasts among these profile types on external criteria revealed meaningful differences for race, grade-level, parent education level, educational aspirations, and frequency of risk behaviors.

Authoritative School Climate and High School Student Risk Behavior: A Cross-sectional Multi-level Analysis of Student Self-Reports

Many adolescents engage in risk behaviors such as substance use and aggression that jeopardize their healthy development. This study tested the hypothesis that an authoritative school climate characterized by strict but fair discipline and supportive teacher-student relationships is conducive to lower risk behavior for high school students. Multilevel logistic regression models were used to analyze cross-sectional, student-report survey data from a statewide sample of 47,888 students (50.6 % female) in 319 high schools. The students included ninth (26.6 %), tenth (25.5 %), eleventh (24.1 %) and twelfth (23.8 %) grade with a racial/ethnic breakdown of 52.2 % White, 18.0 % Black, 13.1 % Hispanic, 5.9 % Asian, and 10.8 % reporting another or two or more race/ethnicities. Schools with an authoritative school climate had lower levels of student-reported alcohol and marijuana use; bullying, fighting, and weapon carrying at school; interest in gang membership; and suicidal thoughts and behavior. These results controlled for demographic variables of student gender, race, grade, and parent education level as well as school size, percentage of minority students, and percentage of low income students. Overall, these findings add new evidence that an authoritative school climate is associated with positive student outcomes.

Measurement and structural relations of an authoritative school climate model: A multi-level latent variable investigation

This study tested a conceptual model of school climate in which two key elements of an authoritative school, structure and support variables, are associated with student engagement in school and lower levels of peer aggression. Multilevel multivariate structural modeling was conducted in a statewide sample of 48,027 students in 323 public high schools who completed the Authoritative School Climate Survey. As hypothesized, two measures of structure (Disciplinary Structure and Academic Expectations) and two measures of support (Respect for Students and Willingness to Seek Help) were associated with higher student engagement (Affective Engagement and Cognitive Engagement) and lower peer aggression (Prevalence of Teasing and Bullying) on both student and school levels of analysis, controlling for the effects of school demographics (school size, percentage of minority students, and percentage of low income students). These results support the extension of authoritative school climate model to high school and guide further research on the conditions for a positive school climate.

Estilos de liderança de professores: aplicando o modelo de estilos parentais

Professores orientam os comportamentos das crianças estabelecendo diferentes climas emocionais no uso das estratégias educativas em sala de aula. Esse trabalho busca delinear uma análise dos estilos de liderança de professores aplicando o modelo de estilos parentais. Inicialmente, foi feita uma análise de literatura realizando uma busca nas bases de dados: Scielo, Science Direct e Scopus, utilizando os descritores: teachers' leadership styles, teachers' teaching styles e school leadership. Com essa busca constatou-se que existem diversas definições, formas de análise e variáveis estudadas, conforme a teoria adotada. Posteriormente, foi realizada a análise da relação professor-aluno aplicando o modelo de estilos parentais, que apresenta uma análise do sistema das relações a partir de duas dimensões: responsividade e exigência. Assim, foram categorizados quatro estilos de liderança: autoritário, permissivo, negligente e participativo. Conclui-se que o modelo de estilo parental fornece uma boa base teórica para pautar a análise dos estilos de liderança de professores.