Joseph W. Licata

Organizational Health and Robust School Vision

This article reports a significant positive relationship between teachers’ perceptions of organizational health and the relative robustness of their school vision. Subsequent regression analysis indicated that academic emphasis and institutional integrity were the school health themes that characterized the overall association with robust school vision.

Structural Coupling, Robustness and Effectiveness of Schools

Explores the relationships between teacher perceptions of the structural coupling in their schools and their perceptions of school robustness and effectiveness in a research study of 73 participating schools. Pearson product‐moment correlations of mean scores from each school produced significant relationships, suggesting that teacher perceptions of relatively tight coupling of goal direction/vision and work supervision structures, and relatively loose coupling of manipulative control structures, are associated with their positive perceptions of school robustness and effectiveness as well as student achievement and attendance.

Student Brinkmanship and the School as a Social System.

Student and teacher attitudes toward student brinkmanship, behavior that challenges the authority system of the school while avoiding negative sanctions, were examined in this study, and possible consequences of student brinkmanship for the schools social system were discussed.

Principal Vision, Teacher Sense of Autonomy, and Environmental Robustness.

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to report the testing of hypotheses about principal vision generated from Blumberg and Greenfield’s (1986) qualitative studies of effective principals. Relationships among teachers’ views of their principals’ vision, teachers’ sense of autonomy, and the robustness of the principal role are examined and discussed.

The School and Environmental Robustness: An Initial Inquiry.

Employing the Robustness Semantic Differential (RSD) scale for the concept My School as the dependent variable in a series of exploratory multiple regression analyses and using factor scores from 15-factor, 6-factor, and 3-factor versions of the Learning Environment Inventory (LEI) and item scores from the Principal Performance Description Survey (PPDS) as four separate sets of independent variables with 188 secondary students responding, robustness was found to be positively related to perceptions of clear goal direction, cohesiveness, a lack of academic competitiveness, diversity, an absence of feelings of alienation, and favorable interpersonal relationships between students as well as the frequency with which a school principal is seen at school activities and seen watching over students at school activities. The RSD was employed as the dependent variable, and the My School Inventory (MSI)-a 5-factor adaption of the LEI for use with elementary students-and the items from the elementary school version ...

Towards Measurement of School Vision

Drawing on Blumberg and Greenfield′s studies of effective principals, offers an operational definition of school vision, based on teachers′ perceptions of that vision. The instrument developed consists of three subscales: (1) vision exchange – the principal′s effectiveness in exchanging his/her vision with the school community; (2) vision internalization – the principal′s effectiveness in getting others to internalize this vision, and; (3) vision sacrifice – the principal′s effectiveness in encouraging others to sacrifice for this vision. In an effort to validate the School Vision Inventory (SVI), three hypotheses were tested. The perceived robustness of the principal′s role was significantly correlated with two subscales of the SVI: exchange and sacrifice. Significant correlations were also found between teachers′ perceptions of the principal′s supervisory expertise and vision exchange and sacrifice. Finally, there were higher mean principal vision scores in schools where teachers perceived progress bein...

Toward an Operational Definition of the Logic of Confidence.

AbstractThe logic of confidence construct argues that educators can be trusted to perform their defined work activities without a need for close supervision. This article describes an effort to operationalize the logic of confidence construct using item development, factor analysis, and tests of reliability and validity. Data were collected from teachers in both public school (n = 315) and higher education organizations (n = 265). A three-subscale measure emerged applicable to public school and higher education subsamples. Alpha coefficients of .85 for public school teachers and .91 for higher education faculty were obtained. Significant correlations were reported for specific subsamples among teacher logic of confidence, status obeisance, professional zone of acceptance, and autonomy.

Improving Sehool-Community Relationships—How Receptive Are Principals, Teachers?

Following up the study by McCleary and Hines, this writer speculates about the perceptions of principals and teachers con cerning citizen in volvement and pro fessional auton omy.

Collective Bargaining in the Sunshine: An Analysis of Executive Attitudes and Organizational Position and Size

A total of 1,356 Ohio school leaders (551 superintendents, 322 school board presidents, 342 teacher association presidents, and 141 Parent Teacher Association presidents) completed questionnaires focus ing on attitudes about community involvement in collec tive bargaining with teachers. A factor analysis of 15 items from the questionnaire suggested a three subscale structure: items reflective of attitudes about community input, about conversion of inputs into political deci sions, and about informational output. The first factor, input, accounted for over two-thirds of the test variance; conversion accounted for sixteen percent, and output, eleven percent. Re-examining earlier findings and using these new subscales as variables, analyses of variance suggested that the more directly involved school leaders are with collective bargaining, the more negative their attitudes about community involvement. School leaders from districts with enrollments under

Learner Perceptions of a Clinical Training Component for School Administrators

Viewing school administrators as learners, the purpose of this investigation was to assess the relationship between learner perceptions of differential training systems and role and performance in school administration. The findings suggest that school administrators view problem solving as an important descriptor of role and performance and that clinical training experiences may be at least as relevant or more relevant to the process of school problem solving and administration than more traditional training experiences. A perceived inverse relationship between the relative hinderance (paperwork) level of instructional media and relevance to practice was noted. School administrators saw other administrators and their professional staff as being at least as relevant to performance in a clinical setting as the training components instructional staff.