The role of organizational climate and culture in the school  (Page 6/17)

Assessment of school climate. A great variety of instruments have been developed to measure organizationalclimate. The first of these to gain wide acceptance was Halpin and Croft’s (1963) Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire (OCDQ, Form IV). This 64-item climate assessment tool is comprisedof 8 sub-scales relating teachers’behavior to that of the principal: (a) disengagement, (b) hindrance, (c) spirit, (d)intimacy, (e) aloofness, (f) production emphasis, (g) thrust, and (h) consideration. In examining the climates of 71 schools, Halpinand Croft found that their scores clustered into six major climatic types: (a) open, (b) autonomous, (c) controlled, (d) familiar, (e)paternal, and (f) closed.

Perhaps the most widely used school climate surveys are those published by the National Study of SchoolEvaluation (NSSE) (2005). One reason for the widespread popularity of these surveys is the fact that NSSE will also tabulate, analyze,and report on their results, saving the building level administrator or district staff from these time consuming, andsomewhat confusing, processes. Also, these surveys are available in both paper and on-line formats, allowing the school to choose themost appropriate technology for the participants being surveyed. Comparable forms exist for elementary school students, middleschool students, high school students, teachers, English-speaking parents, Spanish-speaking parents, and community members. Thesurveys are predominantly Likert scale-based, but also allow for minor amounts of open-ended input.

Another major set of climate assessment instruments comes from the National Association of Secondary SchoolPrincipals (NASSP). Their Comprehensive Assessment of School Environments (CASE) School Climate Surveys (1987) collect data onten sub-scales: (a) teacher-student relationships, (b) security and maintenance, (c) administration, (d) student academic orientation,(e) student behavioral values, (f) guidance, (g) student-peer relationships, (h) parent and community-school relationships, (i)instructional management, and (j) student activities. The information gathered through this instrument is supplemented byseparate satisfaction surveys for parents, teachers, and students. Much of the information on these satisfaction surveys is comparableacross groups (e.g., questions on student activities or school buildings, supplies, and upkeep), but some of it is unique to thespecific group being surveyed (e.g., parents and teachers report on their satisfaction with the administration of the school, whereasstudents report on their satisfaction with the teachers). As with the NSSE instrumentation, NASSP offers scoring and reportingservices for these surveys, including allowing the school to ask“what if”questions related to the six sub-scales, e.g.,“What would it take for any school to raise student satisfaction by 10%?”(NASSP, 2005).

Assessment of school culture. Unlike the assessment of school climate, which is generally accepted to be astraightforward quantitative process, assessment of school culture is far more complex. Two basic schools of thought exist regardingappropriate means of assessing school cultures. On one hand, Schein (1999) categorically refuted that culture can be assessed throughwritten questionnaires or surveys, asserting that the assessor would neither know what to ask nor be able to judge the reliabilityor validity of the responses. Rousseau (1990), on the other hand, allowed that such quantitative tools as Q-sorts and questionnairescan legitimately be utilized, in conjunction with structured interviews, to assess organizational culture.