Predicting Teachers' Sense of Efficacy and Job Satisfaction Using School Climate and Participatory Decision Making.

This study examined the relationship of teacher decisional participation and school climate to teachers' sense of efficacy and their job satisfaction. Data came from the National Educat on Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS-88) project, involving 1,035 schools with eighth grade students, and from the 1990 follow up of 1,296 schools. The final data set involved 9,987 teechers and 27,994 ratings of students. Results indicate that school climate has a noteworthy association with job satisfaction; however, the relationship between climate and sense of efficacy is limited. Climate was found to be composed of three elements: principal leadership, faculty collegiality, and student discipline. Each of these climate components had a relatively strong association with teachers' feelings of job satisfaction. Participation in decision making did not explain as much of the variance in job satisfaction as the climate variables, and accounted for very little of the variance in teachers' sense of efficacy. Results tentatively suggest that satisfaction mediates the relationship between perceptions of school climate and a sense of efficacy. (Contains 35 references.) (JDD) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** Predicting Teachers' Sense of Efficacy and Job Satisfaction using School Climate and Participatory Decision Making Dianne L. Taylor Louisiana State University Abbas Tashakkori Louisiana State University Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southwest Educational Research Association in San Antonio, TX, January 1994. U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION °hoe of Educatronal Research and unprovernent EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) f ' Thrs document has been reproduced as '''4, f pc e,ved Iron, the person or OrparuttrOn Orrgmhalmnd l' Mrnor changes have been made to rmprove Vs) reprOduf Iron quality * Porn1s 01 v.!* or oprnrons stted In1hisdOCu men! dO 001 neCessardy represent official OEMposmonorboIrcre ..:.L 2 vb BEST COPY AVAILABLE 'PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)" Teachers' participation in school-level decision making has gained the interest of researchers and policymakers alike because of the central position it holds in discussions of school restructuring (see Bacharach, Bamberger, Conley & Bauer, 1990; Taylor & Bogotch, 1992). Similarly, research interest in school effectiveness during the seventies and early eighties brought school climate to the fore as an imInrtant attribute of successful schools (Eubanks & Levine, 1983). Currently, the restructuring literature proposes that a school climate supportive of instructional innovation, combined with participatory decision making, will lead to a greater sense of professional efficacy among teachers and an improvement in teachers' feelings of satisfaction. Although these variables have-been the subject of much thoughtful speculation and some research, a strong relationship among them is still more a matter of speculation than empirical documentation. The present study considers the relationship of teacher decisional participation and school climate to teachers' sense of efficacy and their job satisfaction. Perspective Participation in decision making The literature does not offer a single, widely agreed upon meaning for decisional participation. The construct is complex and, therefore, difficult to define, leaving researchers uncertain about the impact on participating individuals or the institutions in which they work (Greenberg, 1975). Bacharach, Bamberger, Conley, and Bauer (1990) observe that our limited understanding of participation is particularly problematic in light of the current reform movement which places emphasis on bringing teachers into the decisional arena. Although there is not consensus concerning the meaning of participation, definitions are offered. From an education perspective, Conway (1984) theorizes that participation is the intersection of two discrete concepts; participation, or a shared action, and decision making, or the process of determining a choice. In one of the more comprehensive definitions available, Lowin (1968), an organizational researcher, describes participation as "a mode of urganizational operations in which decisions as to activities are arrived at by the very persons who are to execute those decisions" (p.