Collaborating to change the psychological culture of the school: Effects on teachers of a goal theory approach.

This dissertation uses a multiple manuscript format. First, a quantitative study examines the impact on teachers of a comprehensive project designed to change the goal stresses within two schools. Second, a qualitative study of a sample of project participants explores the nature of the changes in their professional beliefs and practices. Over a three year period, researchers and practitioners collaborated to bring about school-wide change. Using motivational theory, policies and practices in an elementary school and a middle school were examined and changed in order to move away from an emphasis on competition and relative ability (ability goals) and toward an emphasis on learning, mastery, understanding, and intellectual development (task goals). Surveys were given to teachers in the participating schools and in comparison schools prior to, and at the conclusion of the project. One hundred and eleven teachers completed surveys at both data collection points. The first study examines the effects of these changes on teachers' pedagogical beliefs, goals for their students, instructional practices, and perceptions of the school culture, all conceptualized in terms of task and ability goals. Elementary teachers showed more positive change than middle schoolteachers. Teachers highly involved in the change process exhibited more positive change than less involved teachers. The implications for school reform are discussed. For the second study, interviews were conducted with a total of 23 demonstration teachers following analyses that had determined which teachers had changed the most and which the least over time in their beliefs and instructional practices. An examination of emergent themes suggested that teachers' direct and intense involvement in examining school culture results in a more critical view of how students come to experience that culture. Middle school teachers and elementary school teachers provided contrasting stories of school culture that paralleled the findings of the first study. The conclusion focuses on the importance of the psychological environment in influencing where teachers and schools are headed. The policy implications of a motivational approach to school reform are discussed.PhDEducationEducational administrationEducational psychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/129502/2/9513510.pd