School Faculty as a High-Performing Learning Community: Normative Data from 132 Schools.

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41

Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC.

Educational Improvement; Elementary Secondary Education; Norms; Questionnaires; Reliability; Rural Urban Differences; School Culture; School Surveys; Self Evaluation (Groups); Teacher Attitudes; Validity

A faculty's commitment to continuous learning and improvement is a critical dimension in defining schools as high-performing learning communities. When planning an improvement effort, a school's staff needs a conceptual framework that outlines the dimensions of school improvement. The AEL Continuous School Improvement Questionnaire (CSIQ) is a self-report inventory that asks professional staff to rate their school on six major dimensions: learning culture; connections among school, family, and community; shared leadership; shared goals for learning; purposeful student assessment; and effective teaching. Extensive pilot and field testing have shown the CSIQ to be a reliable and valid measure of faculty commitment to continuous learning and improvement. This paper reports normative CSIQ data from 3,821 staff in 132 schools in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia that took part in field testing. Within the sample was a subgroup of 11 schools identified as continuously improving or high-performing schools. These schools were labeled "Known" schools. Schools were categorized by grade level and by Johnson Code indicating rural/urban locale. CSIQ scores were highly reliable. School's grade-level had a slight to modest effect, with elementary schools and those containing elementary grades having higher total and subscale scores. CSIQ scores had no relationship to extent of rurality. Educators in "Known" schools almost always scored higher than their counterparts in schools of the same type. (Contains 15 statistical data tables.) (SV)

2003

ED467544