Developing Constructs to Distinguish Between Schools

• In Event: Roundtable Session 116
  In Roundtable Session: Mechanisms to Improve School Learning Environments

Abstract

Probing school-wide characteristics, structured interviews with principals or leading staff members at 24 democratic and traditional Israeli schools were used to identify variables which allow comparison between aspects of schools' cultures. Using SEM, these variables were clustered into 4 constructs which successfully distinguished between the schools in our sample. In addition, 37 teachers at the same schools responded to a questionnaire based on achievement goal theory to assess their perceptions of their schools’ goals emphases and their own instructional goals emphases. Regression between teachers' responses and school-wide construct indicated a relation between teachers’ instructional performance emphases, their perception of their schools’ performance emphases, and the school-wide constructs.

Authors

• Dana Vedder-Weiss, Weizmann Institute of Science

• David L. Fortus, Weizmann Institute of Science