Thea Peetsma

How to Improve Teaching Practices The Role of Teacher Motivation, Organizational Factors, and Leadership Practices

Purpose: Although it is expected that building schoolwide capacity for teacher learning will improve teaching practices, there is little systematic evidence to support this claim. This study aimed to examine the relative impact of transformational leadership practices, school organizational conditions, teacher motivational factors, and teacher learning on teaching practices. Research Design: Data were collected from a survey of 502 teachers from 32 elementary schools in the Netherlands. A structural model was tested on the within-school covariance matrix and a chi-square test taking into account nonindependence of observations. Findings: Results suggest that teachers’ engagement in professional learning activities, in particular experimenting and reflection, is a powerful predictor for teaching practices. Teachers’ sense of self-efficacy appeared to be the most important motivational factor for explaining teacher learning and teaching practices. Motivational factors also mediate the effects of school organizational conditions and leadership practices on teacher learning and teaching practices. Finally, transformational leadership practices stimulate teachers’ professional learning and motivation and improve school organizational conditions. Conclusions: For school leaders, to foster teacher learning and improve teaching practices a combination of transformational leadership behaviors is required. Further research is needed to examine the relative effects of transformational leadership dimensions on school organizational conditions, teacher motivation, and professional learning in schools. Finally, conditions for school improvement were examined at one point in time. Longitudinal studies to school improvement are required to model changes in schools’ capacities and growth and their subsequent effects on teaching practices.

Child negative emotionality and parenting from infancy to preschool: a meta-analytic review.

This meta-analytic review (k = 62 studies; N = 7,613 mother-child dyads) shows that effect sizes for the association between child negative emotionality and parenting were generally small and were moderated by sample and measurement characteristics. The association between more child negative emotionality and less supportive parenting was relatively strong in lower socioeconomic status families, reversed in higher socioeconomic status families, and limited to studies with relatively high percentages of participants from ethnic minorities and studies using parent report to assess negative emotionality. Higher levels of child negative emotionality were associated with more restrictive control in samples with less than 75% 1st-born children, as well as in infants and preschoolers, and in studies using parent report or composite measures to assess both negative emotionality and restrictive parenting. Finally, more child negative emotionality was associated with less inductive control.

Relations between adolescents’ self-evaluations, time perspectives, motivation for school and their achievement in different countries and at different ages

The present study focused on the relations between the self-efficacy, social self-concept, time perspectives, school investment and academic achievement of students in four different European countries and in different adolescence periods. A total of 1623 students completed questionnaires. The relations between the concepts proved not to be specific to the Western or to the former Communist bloc countries studied. The expected general decline in investment and academic achievement over the adolescence period showed up in all four countries studied. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, this decline could not be explained by growing influences of either social self-concept or time perspectives regarding personal development on their investment. In fact, the effects of social self-concept were strongest for the youngest adolescence group. Students’ social self-concept was the best predictor for their investment, while self-efficacy proved to predict academic achievement best in all adolescence periods.RésuméLa présente étude est centrée sur les relations entre efficacité de soi, concept social de soi, perspectives futures, investissement scolaire et performance scolaire, pris à différentes périodes de l’adolescence et provenant de quatre pays européens différents. En tout, 1623 élèves ont rempli les questionnaires. Les relations entre les concepts se sont révélées n’être pas spécifiques à un type de pays, en l’occurrence un pays occidental ou un ex-pays de l’Est. La diminution escomptée en termes d’investissement et de performance au cours de l’adolescence se manifeste dans tous les pays. Du point de vue du développement personnel en lien avec l’investissement consenti, ce déclin n’a cependant pu être expliqué, comme nous nous y attendions, par les influences croissantes ni du concept social de soi ni des perspectives futures. Le concept social de soi joue même le rôle le plus important auprès des plus jeunes adolescents. Pour prédire leur investissement, cet aspect s’est révélé le meilleur indicateur tandis que l’efficacité de soi est le meilleur indicateur pour prédire la performance de toutes les périodes de l’adolescence.

Building school-wide capacity for improvement: the role of leadership, school organizational conditions, and teacher factors

Education policies for greater accountability of schools assume that schools are capable of building their capacity for continuous improvement. While policy-makers, scholars, and practitioners acknowledge the importance of building school-wide capacity for continuous improvement, empirical evidence to this effect remains thin. In this study, we examine the extent to which school improvement capacity develops over time in a sample of elementary schools in The Netherlands. Leadership practices, school organizational conditions, teacher motivation, and teacher learning were used to measure school-wide capacity for improvement. Mixed-model analysis of longitudinal data from 1,010 teachers of 32 Dutch elementary schools showed that schools are capable of building school-wide capacity, and that sustaining a high level of capacity seemed to be more difficult. The findings suggest that improving leadership may be an important first step in the process of building school-wide capacity.

Inclusive education and students without special educational needs

Background: In the debate on inclusive education, students without special educational needs (SEN) are an important topic. However, there is a lot unknown about differences between these typical students in inclusive and non-inclusive classes. For example, the neutral results that are often found in earlier research could be caused by positive effects for some students, and negative effects for others. Purpose: This study investigated whether there is a relation between inclusive education and the academic achievement and socio-emotional functioning of typical students, and, more importantly, whether inclusive education affects the achievement and socio-emotional functioning of more and less intelligent typical students differently. Furthermore, we investigated whether differences occur by type of SEN of the included students. Here, we made a distinction between students with behavioural, cognitive and other problems. Sample: A representative sample of 27,745 students without SEN in Dutch primary education from a large cohort study in the Netherlands was used. Design and methods: Language and arithmetic tests were used to assess academic achievement. For socio-emotional functioning, both teacher and student questionnaires were used. A non-verbal IQ test was used to assess student intelligence. Based on the number of students with diagnosed SEN, the students without SEN were divided into several groups: typical students with no, a few and more than a few students with (certain types of) SEN in their class. Multi-level regression analyses were used to compare these groups. Results: For academic achievement, no differences were found between students without SEN in inclusive and non-inclusive classes. In this, we found no differences between intelligent and less intelligent typical students. For socio-emotional functioning, some differences were found, but the practical importance of these differences is unclear, since the effect sizes were small. The functioning of typical students does not meaningfully differ by type of SEN of the included students. Conclusions: The findings of this study are interesting in the light of the ongoing inclusion debate. Arguments against inclusive education often concern an assumed adverse effect on typical students. As in this study, hardly any differences were found between typical students in inclusive and non-inclusive primary school classes, this research strengthens the scientific evidence in support of inclusive education.

Future-Time Perspective: Analysis of a Facet-Designed Questionnaire

Summary: Future-time perspective for adolescents and young adults is directed towards several objects and may extend into the far or the near future. Differences in this perspective can affect moti...

The presence of several students with special educational needs in inclusive education and the functioning of students with special educational needs

Current research gives some indications about how inclusive education affects students with special educational needs (SEN), but there are too many different results to draw unequivocal conclusions. It is therefore important to focus on specific factors that could influence outcomes of inclusive education. In this study, we investigated whether there are differences between students with SEN who are included alone and students with SEN who are included in a class with other SEN students. A distinction was made between students with behavioural, cognitive and other problems. Data on 1839 primary school students with SEN in a Dutch cohort‐study were used. For the academic achievement of students with different types of SEN, it did not seem to matter whether they were the only student with SEN in their class, or whether they had a few or more classmates with SEN. For most measures of socio‐emotional functioning, no differences were found. For some other measures, however, differences were found. Because the results were not unequivocal, it would be important to try to replicate these findings in future research.

The Dutch policy of integration put to the test: differences in academic and psychosocial development of pupils in special and mainstream education

After several failed attempts to rein in the growth of special education, the Dutch government made a start in 1991 with a policy to accommodate pupils with problems in regular education and to put a stop to the growth of special education. This paper examines a large-scale study conducted by our research group at the University of Amsterdam which attempted to answer the question whether pupils with problems are better off in special education where there are more resources and they can get more attention than in mainstream schools. It was expected that the pupils in special education would do better due to the specialist care and individual attention. However, with a few exceptions, few differences were found when comparable at-risk pupils in regular schools were compared with their counterparts in both types of special schools. There was a conspicuously large measure of variability in both regular and special education. All school types had both at-risk pupils who were doing well from an academic and/or psychosocial perspective and pupils whose progress left much to be desired. There is little evidence to support the idea that at-risk pupils make less progress, in either their academic or psychosocial development, in regular schools compared with pupils in special schools. The general assumption that at-risk pupils will do better in special education does not seem to account for its attractiveness. Contrary to the policy theory, the dual system, as it exists in The Netherlands, does not appear to be an obstacle to the provision of adequate care for pupils with special educational needs. However, the policy to equip regular schools to accommodate this category of pupils appears not to be realized as simply as that. It has not proved possible to demonstrate the effects of the varying levels of specialist help provided by regular schools on the development of at-risk pupils.

Changing classroom practices: the role of school-wide capacity for sustainable improvement

– Elementary schools have been confronted with large-scale educational reforms as strategies to improve the educational quality. While building school-wide capacity for improvement is considered critical for changing teachers’ classroom practices, there is still little empirical evidence for link between enhanced school capacity for improvement and instructional change. In this study, the authors examined the impact of school improvement capacity on changes in teachers’ classroom practices over a period of time. Leadership practices, school organizational conditions, teacher motivation and teacher learning were used to measure school-wide capacity for improvement. The paper aims to discuss these issues. , – Mixed-model analysis of longitudinal data over a four years (2005-2008) period of time from 862 teachers of 32 Dutch elementary schools were used to test the impact of school improvement capacity on changing teachers’ instructional practices. , – The results showed that organizational-level conditions and teacher-level conditions play an important, but different role in changing teachers’ classroom practices. Whereas teacher factors mainly affect changes in teachers’ classroom practices, organizational factors are of significant importance to enhance teacher motivation and teacher learning. , – More longitudinal research is needed to gain better insight into the opportunities and limits of building school-wide capacity to stimulate instructional change. , – By encouraging teachers to question their own beliefs, facilitating opportunities for teachers to work together to solve problems, and through the promotion of shared decision making, school leaders can reinforce the personal and social identification of teachers with the organization. As a consequence, teachers will feel increasingly committed and are more willing to change their classroom practices. Additionally, school leaders can use the findings from this study and the related instrument as a tool for school self-evaluation. , – This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the nature of changes in conditions for school improvement and its influence on changes in teachers’ instructional practices over a period of time.

Does Classroom Composition Make a Difference: Effects on Developments in Motivation, Sense of Classroom Belonging, and Achievement in Upper Primary School.

The present study investigated the effects of socioeconomic and ethnic classroom composition on developments in students’ motivation, sense of classroom belonging, and achievement. A sample of 722 primary school students completed questionnaires from 3rd to 6th grade. Latent growth curve analyses revealed that the reading comprehension scores of students with a low socioeconomic status (SES) were lower for each measurement in more socioeconomically disadvantaged classes, whereas these scores were higher in classes with more ethnic minority students. In practice, these effects may often cancel each other out. Furthermore, in classes with a high share of low-SES or ethnic minority students, students of all backgrounds showed more positive developments in motivation. These findings contradict commonly held fears that disadvantaged students “bring down” other students in the classroom. The results furthermore highlight the importance of studying longitudinal developments.