Exploring the Perceived Effectiveness of the School Administration: Studying the Enhancement of Organizational Practices.

摘要

Principals are facing complex educational scenarios such as an increasing diversity of minority groups in schools, adjustments in regulations, and higher academic standards that press school leaders to update or obtain professional skills. Administrators should be aware that current professional skills may not be sufficient to comply with new educational demands and may be in need of developing suitable abilities to effectively function. Determining best organizational supportive practices is a means to improve teacher job satisfaction (Bogler & Nir, 2012). The previous study performed by Austin ISD (2014) with quantitative data showed an improved teacher job satisfaction at Memorial Elementary over a four year period; nevertheless, research called for a complementary method such as a qualitative case study (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2011) to understand the perspectives of teachers and administrators about how administrative supportive practices were effectively identified, implemented, and sustained (Bogler & Nir, 2012) at Memorial Elementary that helped improve job satisfaction (AISD, 2014). The present research efforts into the practices that enable an increase in job satisfaction at Memorial Elementary could have offered the foundation for suggestions to support other school leaders. Eleven educators were selected for the research efforts to explore behaviors and investigate life occurrences of participants at Memorial Elementary; nine teachers and two administrators will be interviewed to share perspectives. The results included: a) teachers perceived that everyday administrative practices and planned administrative practices were vastly used to identify and plan tailored implementation of supportive practices; b) educators felt gratitude and confidence, being valued and empowered thanks to supportive practices performed by the school administrator; and c) consistency and flexibility were praxes practiced by the administration that helped sustain the administrative supportive practices. A future quantitative study may be required to study the relationship between the job satisfaction of members and the number of years of experience as educators.