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1.0 INDRODUCTION
A comparative analysis of four articles entitled below, describes about school climates in
the school as a learning organization. The four articles discuss briefly about issue in school
climate and how the researchers find the solution for that problems and so on. The feelings and
attitudes that are elicited by a schools environment are referred to as school climate (Loukas,A.
2007).
research methodology; sampling method; data analysis and the findings of each article was given
more emphasized. This is because a comparative analysis and evaluation process enables the
students to demonstrate the ability to critically analyze the research finding on school climate by
The article entitle The role of school organizational climate in occupational stress
among secondary school teachers in Tehran was written by Ghodsy Ahghar in 2008. The
General aim: to investigate the effect of the organizational climate in the school on the
occupational stress among secondary school teachers in Tehran. Specifi c objective: to determine
the rate of occupational stress in the population of secondary school teachers. Therefore, the
2. To what extent does the organizational climate in the school have infl uence on the
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Besides that, article that written by Ibtesam Halawah on 2006. This article was designed
to study the relationship between effective communication of high school principals and school
climate. According to the author, previous research on effective schools and instructional
leadership emphasizes the impact of principal leadership on creating safe and secure learning
environment and positive nurturing school climate. That is a main purpose why the researcher is
giving more concern to find the relationship between effective communication of high school
Furthermore, the article with the title Case studies of school community and climate:
Parker, Heather Grenville, and Joseph Flessa in 2011, describes success stories of students and
communities affected by poverty from a diverse sample of eleven elementary schools throughout
The objective of this case study is, to provide a close-to-the-ground description of the
attitudes, beliefs, practices, and policies of schools that are successfully working with students
and communities affected by poverty and to explore how this project contributes to the research
literature and to the practical understanding of how schools can best work with challenging
circumstances such as poverty by examining the school in terms of the community, climate, and
In 2008, Kenneth Stichter was also does investigation on school climate and come out
with the research topic entitle Students school climate perceptions as a measure of school
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district goal attainment. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether student survey
perception data collected every two years between 1999 and 2005 in one suburban district of
seven high schools could be used to effectively measure attainment of locally developed district-
wide goals. The goals focused on student academic achievement, student attendance and
communication, and recognition of staff, students, parents and community members, and quality
SAMPLING
In this study, the population was all secondary schools female teachers with the age
group 32 to 50 years old and obtained Master in Education with 10 years vocational experiences
in Tehran in 2007. Using a multi-stage random sampling method, a sample volume of 220 female
teachers was determined using the Cochran formula. The samples were selected using multi-
stage sampling using the Cochran formula. Two main instruments were used to measure the
study variables: a 27-item questionnaire on organizational climate (four scales: open, engaged,
disengaged and closed organizational climate, and a 53-item occupational stress questionnaire by
Vingerhoets, employing 11 scales: Skill Discretion, Decision Authority, Task Control, Work and
Time Pressure, Role Ambiguity, Physical Exertion, Hazardous Exposure, Job Insecurity, Lack of
Meaningfulness, Social Support from Supervisor and Social Support from Coworkers.
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The questionnaire comprises 53 questions in 11 dimensions and the responses are marked
on a five degree scale (very high, high, mean, low, very low) ranked respectively as 5, 4, 3, 2,
and 1. Every subscale score can be divided into a high or low score category using the mean
value as the criterion of distribution. The cut-off point of the percentile ranks amounts to 146.
b) Article 2: The relationship between effective communication of high school principal and
school climate.
Two instruments were used in this study. The first was the Evaluation of School Climate
which was designed to assess school climate by secondary students. The instrument consisted of
42 items into 8 categories: Teacher-Student Relations (12 items); Security and Maintenance (5
items); Student Academic Orientation (4 items); Student Behavioral Values (3 items); Guidance
Students Activities (3 items). And, each item was measured using a Likert scale that ranged from
"strongly disagree" (1 point) to "strongly agree" (5 points). The second instrument was designed
to measure communication effectiveness between school principals and teachers. This instrument
consisted of 16 Liker-type items that ranged from "strongly disagree" (1 point) to "strongly
participants.
Sampling was chosen at Abu Dhabi District, United Arab Emirates (UAE). There were 23
high schools in Abu Dubai District (11 for males and 12 for females). Six schools were selected
randomly (three males and three females) to participate in this study. Around 90 students from
each school participated in this study by responding to the climate school survey. The total was
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555 students, whereby 293 males and 262 females. The average age of students was 17. 2 years.
For the second instrument, around 35 teachers from each school of the six schools with a total of
315, whereby107 males and 208 females participated in this study by responding to the
principal's communication effectiveness survey. The average experience in teaching for these
c) Article 3: Case studies of school community and climate: Success narrative of schools in
challenging circumstances.
This study used a qualitative methodology to explore success stories in schools affected
by poverty such as the case study method; use of narrative telling and the appreciative inquiry
method. The researcher prepared for data collection before each visit, including the use of
triangulate themes and categories, theoretical propositions via follow-up researcher meetings,
The sample of this case study included six small schools from urban areas which
approximately 140 students per school, three large schools from the same urban area that
involves about 650 students per school, one suburban school, and one rural school. The schools
selected by the Federation for participation in their project were identified from a list provided
by the Ministry of Education, which used Statistics Canada data about schools neighborhoods to
determine high incidence of poverty. The researchers used two lead researchers, with the
assistance of two graduate students, visited 11 school sites, two times each, during the 2007-2008
school years. During these visits key teachers, administrators, parents, and community groups
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were interviewed and different programmatic policies and practices were described. Specifically,
22 full days of focus groups with over 100 teachers, administrators, parents, and
community partners.
Kenneth Stichter was gathered data from archived biennial surveys of students between
1999 and 2005. Factor analysis was used to reduce the data from each survey cycle into
composite variables. Component items for each factor scale were then analyzed over the four
survey cycles. The archived data for this study were drawn from one suburban Southern
California high school district with six comprehensive high schools and one continuation high
school serving a diverse student population of 13,000 plus students. Approximately 40% were
Hispanic/Latino, 35% White, and 11% Asian when the survey data were gathered.
The district used item analysis from biennially administered student surveys as one
source of data to evaluate attainment of four of the seven district goals. During this time period
there were no changes in the questionnaire that consisted of 50 five-point Likert-type items
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Yes, most of the time; Yes, some of the time; No, seldom; No, not at all; Does not apply.
Respondent results for each survey cycle represented cross-sectional survey data.
In the research study of Ghodsy Ahghar, the descriptive statistics were performed. Then, a
multivariate regression analysis using a stepwise method was applied to study the effect of
organizational climate on the occupational stress of the teachers. The cut off points of 0.1 and
0.05 were used when entering and removing variables from the model.
But, the article on examining the relationship between effective communication of high
school principal and school climate, the researcher used reliability of the two instruments to
assess through calculating both internal and split-half reliability. For the climate school survey,
the internal reliability for each of the seven categories in the survey was also calculated. An
analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare schools and an independent t-test was used
On the other hand, the study Parker, D.C., Grenville, H. & Flessa, J. (2011), used a
bottom-up approach to analyze the data by culling all sources, reading and coding the issues,
coding the issue-relevant meanings as patterns, and then collapsing the codes into themes.
Finally, the collective cases were compared to provide further insight to issues. This study was a
qualitative study, not a comparative study. Thus, the researchers acknowledge that the practices
used in these case studies may or may not be different from that elsewhere in schools with
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Still, it is important to consider that the narratives presented in this paper both represent the
phenomenon of success in the schools studied and gives storied practice to those termed
Besides that, Stichter, K. (2008) used 5 steps to procedure the data analysis. There are
district goals and use of students survey data; possible school climate factors imbedded within
the questionnaire items; factor analysis; tracking the performance of factor scale items and
According to the findings on ghodsy Ahghars article, an inverse relationship was noted
between the open or engaged climate and teachers occupational stress, meaning that an increase
in the level of the open or engaged climate would bring about a decrease in occupational stress.
In other words, the rate of occupational stress among teachers can be predicted using the scores
on the organizational climate in the school. This predictability is highest for the open climate and
gradually decreases through the engaged and disengaged to the closed climate. The results of this
study show that the closed organizational climate brings about job alienation, job dissatisfaction,
between principals and teachers in schools were found to be positively associated with principal's
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communication effectiveness. Better climate school was expected in schools where effective
But, Parker, D.C., Grenville, H. & Flessa, J. (2011), found that positive school climate,
community, and a culture of leadership have created through: (a) teaching excellence and high-
quality collaboration amongst teachers; (b) parental engagement along with community
partnership; and (c) shared leadership amongst administrators and teachers. Although this study
focused on schools affected by challenging circumstances such as poverty, this is not to say these
findings are limited to such schools. Researchers also found that to build positive community,
climate, and a culture of leadership, schools in challenging circumstances had at their core:
excellent teaching and high-quality collaboration amongst teachers; parental engagement along
with community partnerships; and shared leadership amongst administrators and teachers.
The finding of Kenneth Sticther shows that, Factors and their component variables in this
study suggest student attitudes about their high school experience are rooted in academic, overall
experience, communication, and environmental encounters. As such, the factors reflect school
climate constructs consistent with research. However, the findings presented here reflect, in part,
the results of efforts on the part of the district to address the intent of the district goals, then one
conclusion is that over time there was an improvement in student perceptions on matters related
According to Hoy, W.K. & Miskel C.G. (2012) school climate is relatively enduring
quality of the school environment that is experienced by participants, affects their behaviours and
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behaviour that make them different from one another; that is, they have unique climates much as
individuals have different personalities, whereby this statement was indirectly mentioned by
Furthermore, according to the author, school climates emerge from routine organizational
practices by formal and informal activities. This comments also supported by the research of
Ghodsy Ahghar, whereby occupational stress influences by the organizational climate. And then,
Hoy, W.K. & Miskel C.G. (2012) also were revealed that the organizational climate of a school is
statement was describes on these articles, where school principals behaviour, students
perception and school community perception take into account in order to become effective
schools.
conditions like poverty also mentioned by Darlene Ciuffetelli Parker and his colleagues. The
author believes that a climate of citizenship positively influences school effectiveness and
students achievement. Actually, all the researchers agreed that changing the climate of a school is
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IMPROVEMENT
School climate can be defined as the feelings that students and staff have about the school
environment over a period of time (Peterson, R.L & Skiba, R. (2000). The National School
Climate Council (2007) defines school climate as norms, values, and expectations that support
people feeling socially, emotionally and physically safe (National Education Association, 2013).
School climate is a product of the interpersonal relationships among students, families, teachers,
properties of the work environment, based on the collective perception of the people who live
and work in the environment and demonstrated to influence their motivation and behaviour.
Climate also addresses other positive or negative feeling regarding the school
environment. A positive school climate exists when all students feel comfortable, wanted, valued,
accepted, and secure in an environment where they can interact with caring people they trust. A
positive school climate affects everyone associated with the school: students, staff, parents, and
the community. It is the belief system or culture that underlies the day-to-day operation of a
school. According to Kappan, P.H. (2008) A positive school climate contributes towards:
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The school climate reform is most important for students who are at risk for dropping out
of school by recognizing the social, emotional, ethical, and civic as well as intellectual needs and
aspects of learning and teaching; promoting student engagement and leadership; promoting
intrinsic motivation to learn and work together to create a safer, more supportive, engaging,
A positive school climate is recognized as an important target for school reform and
improving behavioral, academic, and mental health outcomes for students (Thapa et al., 2012).
Specifically, schools with positive climates tend to have less student discipline problems (Cohen
& Geier, 2010) and aggressive and violent behavior (Gregory et al., 2010), and fewer high school
suspensions (Lee et al., 2011). Research has also shown associations between school climate and
lower levels of alcohol and drug use (LaRusso et al., 2008), bullying (Meyer-Adams & Conner,
In addition to reducing students exposure to risk factors, school climate can promote
positive youth development. For example, a favorable school climate has been linked with higher
student academic motivation and engagement (Eccles et al., 1993), as well as elevated
psychological well-being (Ruus et al., 2007; Shochet et al., 2006). Not surprisingly, schools
promoting engaging learning environments tend to have fewer student absences (Gottfredson et
al., 2005) and improvements in academic achievement across grade levels (Brand et al., 2003;
Stewart, 2008).
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A positive school climate also has benefits for teachers and educational staff (Bradshaw,
Waasdorp et al., 2010). Research shows that when educators feel supported by their adminis-
tration, they report higher levels of commitment and more collegiality (Singh & Billingsley,
1998). Likewise, schools where educators openly communicate with one another, feel supported
by their peers and administration, and establish strong student-educator relationships tend to
have better student academic and behavioral outcomes. Positive school climate is strongly
correlated and/or predictive of high quality teaching and student academic achievement (Cohen,
J. 2010).
Students at the school believe they can learn and are willing to learn; Collaborative decision
making: Parents, students, and staff are actively involved in the decisions; affecting the school.;
Equity and fairness: Students are treated equally regardless of ethnicity, gender, and disability;
General school climate: There is a positive quality of all interactions and feelings of trust and
respect within the school community; Order and discipline: Students display appropriate
behavior in the school setting; Parent involvement: Parents participate frequently in school
schools and one that is positively associated with academic success. Eight factors characterizing
Other researchers suggest academically effective schools are distinguished by their culture.
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These schools are characterized by a structure, process, and a climate of values and norms that
focus on promoting successful teaching and learning. Educators who work in the schools can
play an active role in creating a positive school climate, one indicator of an effective school.
The nature of the school environment has been shown to have a strong influence on the
way students develop and learn. Many studies have documented the association of school climate
with improved student outcomes. For example, it is more likely that students will have higher
achievement, more positive self concepts, improved behavior, and higher aspirations when the
climate of the school is positive. In some cases, the link between school climate and student
outcomes is relatively direct. In other cases, school climate may have a more indirect effect, such
as promoting a positive sense of belonging, participation in school tasks and activities, and
various outcomes. The outcomes of a positive school climate are especially encouraging given
the many unalterable factors associated with risk of school failure. Although educators cannot
level, changes in the learning environment can improve a students chances for success. In
addition, instruments are available to assess student, staff, parent, and community perceptions of
school climate. From this feedback, responsive interventions can be shaped, developed, and
implemented.
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positive school climate is a prerequisite condition that facilitates a successful work or learning
experience. When high expectations are in place, order and discipline are clear, rules are
consistent and fair, caring and sensitivity characterize relationships between staff and students,
Then, there is a high probability that student achievement and behavior will improve. In
schools with positive school climate, suspension rates are lower, attendance rates are higher, and
students and parents have higher levels of satisfaction. School climate are useful terms
for the intangibles that can affect learning. As such, they deserve serious
In schools with strong school climates, teachers relationships with their students
families are usually familiar and comfortable. Families and schools hold common expectations
and values for students learning and development, which prevents misunderstanding between
school and family life. A second important component of school climate is support for students
autonomy and self-regulation, which is essential to their psychological wellness and incorporates
multiple skills that students need to further their own welfare. Moreover, Effective school
climates reflect routines and practices that strengthen students goals for learning and provide
multiple opportunities for students to make decisions about their schooling. It also helps to
National School Climate Council (2007) reported that a sustainable, positive school
climate fosters youth development and learning necessary for a productive, contributing and
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satisfying life in a democratic society. Positive school climate also promotes student learning.
Positive school climate powerfully affects student motivation to learn. For example, activities
like community service-learning and student councils value student engagement and enhance the
process and construct their own knowledge of social and government systems. And, to the extent
that students feel safe, cared for, appropriately supported and lovingly pushed to learn,
8.0 CONCLUSION
order and discipline, parental involvement, staff dedication to student learning, high expectations
for academic performance and behavior, caring relationships, and respectful interactions between
students, staff, parents, and community members. School climate is associated with a variety of
student outcomes including achievement, absenteeism, self-concept, and behavior. Educators can
play a critical role in promoting a positive school climate. Investing time and effort in creating a
positive school climate is a preventive approach that will result in healthy academic
environments and positive outcomes for students and staff. Thus, it would seem appropriate to
assess climate simultaneously in investigating the impact of the organization on the well-being of
members. Making a climate change in organization is one of the core fundamental steps to
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