Organizational Climate, Teacher Beliefs, and Professional Development: An Investigation of the Relationships

This study investigated teacher beliefs and organizational climate constructs of collective efficacy, faculty trust, academic emphasis, enabling bureaucracy, and mindfulness as antecedents for implemented professional development. Researchers previously combined collective efficacy, faculty trust, and academic emphasis into academic optimism. Using Conscious Discipline as professional development and book study as delivery, in this mixed methodology study, 489 teachers in 17 suburban elementary schools completed surveys measuring organizational climate constructs, teacher beliefs about classroom management, and self-reported degree of imlementation. Morning greeting and classroom walkthrough observations collected evidence of implementation. Sixteen focus group teachers from four elementary schools explained the degree of implementation. This study found that (a) Teacher and school demographic data correlated with organizational climate constructs; (b) Teacher beliefs and faculty mindfulness explained 65.7% of variance in self-reported degree of implementation; and (c) Socioeconomic status, book club participation, and teacher beliefs explained 77.1% of variance in observation degree of implementation.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

Department dc:contributor.department

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Crocker, Jeanne P.

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Twiford, Travis W.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Eller, John F.
• Singh, Kusum
• Roberts, James T.

• mindfulness
• enabling bureaucracy
• collective efficacy
• classroom management
• academic emphasis
• organizational climate
• teacher beliefs
• trust
• Career development

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-08312007-211502

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/28838