Exploring Relationships between AVID Professional Development, Teacher Leadership, and School Cultur

1
Exploring Relationships between AVID Professional
Development, Teacher Leadership, and School
Culture and Climate

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2
Purposes of the Study

• Reexamine the relationship between professional
  development and teacher leadership (Huerta, Watt
  Alkans 2008 study).
• Examine relationships between professional
  development and teachers perceptions of whether
  AVID has had an impact on each their school
  culture and climate.

3
Background of Study

• Gender and Leadership
• Culture and climate
• Professional Development
• Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID)

4
Methods

• 3,016 AVID teachers surveyed in 2008.
• 42 states and four foreign countries represented
• Highest percentage of respondents from California
  (28) and Texas (18).

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Data Sources and Variables

• Survey Included Items
• Teachers demographics (9)
• Professional development (7)
• Leadership activities (16)
• Perceptions of their schools culture and climate
  (44)

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Measures

• Professional Development (2 measures)
• of AVID Summer Institutes attended
• Additional training received from AVID district
  or regional directors
• Teacher Leadership
• 16-item teacher leadership scale
• 1 not yet, 2 rarely, 3 sometimes, 4
  often

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Culture Index

• Bulach and Berrys (2001) Measure of School
  Culture and Climate
• Group Openness (8 items)
• Group Cooperation (8 items)
• Group Atmosphere (6 items)
• Extent that item characterizes your school 1
  rarely to 4 very frequently

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Climate Index

• Organizational Climate Index by Hoy, Smith,
  Sweetland (2002)
• Collegial Leadership (7 items)
• Achievement Press (8 items)
• Professional Teacher Behavior (7 items)
• Extent that item characterizes your school 1
  rarely to 4 very frequently

9
Other Variables Considered

• Total number of years teaching
• Total number of years teaching at ones current
  school
• Gender
• Level of education

10
Population Characteristics

• Teachers were female (74)
• White (65) 13 Hispanic, 14 African American,
  4 were Asian or Pacific Islander, and 4 were
  either Native American or some other ethnicity
• 50 had a bachelors degree as highest degree
  49 had completed a masters degree

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Findings Teacher Leadership and Professional
Development

• In an attempt to replicate Huerta, Watt,
  Alkans (2008) finding, a one-way analysis of
  variance with a Scheffe pairwise comparison was
  run.
• The ANOVA yielded a statistically significant
  difference in teacher leadership means among the
  groups.
• Teacher leadership increases with each Summer
  Institute that a teacher attends.

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Findings Teacher Leadership and Professional
Development

• Teachers exhibit significant gains in teacher
  leadership once they have attended their first
  SI, but something of a plateau in teacher
  leadership gains occurs after the second SI.

13
Additional PD Activities

• Teacher leadership increases as teachers attend
  more trainings and activities.
• Teacher leadership does not increase
  significantly unless a teacher has attended at
  least two of the additional activities led by
  their district or regional director (RD/DD).

14
Level of Education and Gender

• Teachers who had a masters degree exhibited
  significantly greater levels of teacher
  leadership than did those teachers who only had a
  bachelors degree
• Females exhibited significantly greater levels of
  teacher leadership than did males

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Exploring Culture, Climate, and AVID
Implementation

• Is there a correlation between a schools
  culture/climate and the of years a school has
  been implementing AVID?
• No. Simply having AVID at a school is not a
  guarantee of improved culture and climate.
• Is there a relationship between a schools
  culture/climate and AVIDs level of
  certification?
• Yes. Proper program implementation is associated
  with more favorable culture/climate.

16
Professional Development and AVIDs Impact on
Culture/Climate

• When grouped by the of SIs previously attended
  
• There was a statistically significant difference
  in teachers perceptions of AVIDs impact for
  each of the culture and climate areas.
• Teachers who had not attended an AVID SI tended
  to rate AVIDs impact as slightly higher than
  those who had already attended a previous SI.

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Conclusions

• Culture items dealing with group openness
  received the highest responses from teachers
  indicating that AVID provides a venue for sharing
  ideas, values and beliefs among stakeholders
  (Fullan, 2004 Rooney, 2005)

18
Conclusions

• Those who have not yet started teaching the AVID
  elective had higher responses to the culture and
  climate items, perhaps due to the anticipated
  impact AVID would have on school improvement.
• AVID implementation is not always embraced by all
  stakeholders and therefore AVID teachers often
  are faced with resistance in the first few years
  of implementation.