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ED 340 139 EA 023 594

AUTHOR Pallas, Aaron M.; And Others

TITLE An Analysis of How High School Staff Members Valueand Exchange Information on Student Performance.Report No. 23.

INSTITUTION Center for Research on Effective Schooling forDisAdvantaged StUdents, Baltimore, MD.

SPONS AGENCY Office of Educational Research and ImproVement (ED),Washington, DC.

PUB DATE Oct 91

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DESCRIPTORS *Academic Achievement; Disadvantaged; EducationalImprovement; High Schools; Informal Organization;*Information Dissemination; *Network Analysis;*School Personnel; *Student Behavior; UrbanSchools

IDENTIFIERS *Communication Patterns; *Informal Communications

ABSTRACTThe ways that high school staff value, use, and share

information about student background, performanca, and behavior arean essential component of school improvement, especially in decisionsinvolving the placement, instruction, and progress of disadvantagedstudents. Using survey data from seven high schools, the studysummarized in this report examined three key aspects of information.Specifically, the study assessed the degree to which school staffdeem information on students to be important, receive informationabout students, and share information about students with otherstaff. Findings show that school-to-school differences in theimporv.ance attached to information is small, but that differencesamong individuals in different positions in each school are morestriking. Most information on student academic performance andbehavior residing in these high schools is not exchanged among staff,and social service providers are more likely to receive several :ypesof information than other school staff. Time to communicate wihcolleagues is positively related to both receiving and sharinginformation. Because of time limitations in schools, substantialprogress in improving the production and exchange of information onstudents and their needs may be impeded. Included are 2 figures, 3tables, and 16 references. (Author/MLH)

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THE JOHNS HOPKINS ltINIVERSITY

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"PERMISSION TO REPRODIPOE THISMATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

IC THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."

An Analysis of How High School

Staff Members Value and Exchange

Information on Student Performance

Aaron M. Pallas, Gary Natriello

and

Carolyn Mehl

Report No. 23

October 1991

CENTER ,FOR RESEARCH ON EFFECTIVE SCHOOLINGFOR DISADVANTAGED STUDENTS (,

rsi 2P rim again

N tional Advisory Panel

Beatriz Arias, College of Education, Arizona State University

Mary Frances Berry, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania

Anthony S. Bryk, Department of Education, University of Chicago

Michael Charleston, Educational Policy Studies, Pennsylvania StateUniversity

Constance E. Clayton, Superintendent, Philadelphia Public Schools

Edmund Gordon (Chair), Department of Psychology, Yale University

Ronald D. Henderson, National Education Association

Vinetta Jones, Dern, Education and Urban Affairs, Morgan State University

Arturo Madrid, Director, Tomas Rivera Center

Hernan LaFontaine, Superintendent, Hartford Public Schools

Peter Stanley, Director, Education and Culture Program, Ford Foundation

Milian? Julius Wilson, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago

Center Liaison

Harold Himmelfarb, Office of Educaional Research and Improvement

An Analysis of How High School Staff Members

Value and Exchange Information on Student Performance

Aaron M. PallasMichigan State University

Gary NatrielloTeachers College, Columbia University

Carolyn RiehlTeachers College, Columbia University

Grant No. R117 R90002

Report No. 23

October 1991

Published by the Center for Research on Effective Schooling for Disadvantaged Students,supported as a national research and development center by funds from the Office of EducationalResearch and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. The opinions expressed in thispublication do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the OERI, and no officialendorsement should be inferred.

Center for Research on Effective Schooling for Disadvantaged StudentsThe Johns Hopkins University

3505 North Charles StreetBaltimore, Maryland 21218

The Center

The mission of the Center for Research on Effective Schooling for Disadvantaged Students(CDS) is to significantly improve the education of disadvantaged students at each level ofschooling through new knowledge and practices produced by thorough scientific study andevaluation. The Center conducts its research in four prognm areas: The Early and ElementaryEducation Program, The Middle Grades and High Schools Program, the Language MinorityProgram, and the School, Family, and Community Connections Program.

The Early and Elementary Education Program

This program is working to develop, evaluate, and disseminate instructional programscapable of bringing disadvantaged students to high levels of achievement, particularly in thefundamental areas of reading, writing, and mathematics. The goal is to expand the range ofeffective alternatives which school's may use under Chapter 1 and other compensatory educationfunding and to study issues of diiect relevance to federal, state, and local policy on education ofdisadvantaged students.

The Middle Grades and High Schools Program

This program is conducting research syntheses, survey analyses, and field studies in middleand high schools. The dime types of mojects move from basic research to useful practice.Syntheses compile and analyze existing knowledge about effective education of disadvantagedstudents. Survey analyses identify and describe current programs, practices, and trends in middleand high schools, and allow studies of their effects. Field studies art conducted in collaborationwith school staffs to develop and evaluate effective programs and practices.

The Language Minority Program

This program represents a collaborative effort. The University of California at SantaBarbara is focusing on the education of Mexican-American students in California and Texas;studies of dropout among children of recent immigrants are being conducted in San Diego andMiami by Johns Hopkins, and evaluations of learning strategies in schools serving Navajo,Cherokee, auciLumbee Indians are being conducted by the University of Northern Arizona. Thegoal of theprogram is to identify, develop, and evaluate effective programs for disadvantagedHispanic, American Indian, Southeast Asian, and other language minority children.

The School, Family, and Community Connections Program

This program is focusing on the key connections between schools and families and betweenschools and communities to build better educational programs for disadvantaged children andyouth. Initial work is seeking to provide a research base concerning the most effective ways forschools to interact with and assist parents of disadvantaged students and interact with thecommunity to produce effective community involvement.

Abstract

The ways in which high school staff value, use, and shalt information about students'

background, performance, and behavior are an essential component of school improvement,

especially in the process of making decisions about the placement, instruction, and progress of

disadvantaged students. This study, using survey data from seven urban high schools, examines

three key aspects of information: the degree to which school staff deem information on students

to be important, the degree to which school staff receive information about students, and the

extent to which school staff share information about students with other staff.

Findings of the study include the following: School-to-school differences in the importance

attached to information are small, but differences among individuals in different positions in

each school are more striking; most information on student academic performance and behavior

that resides in these high schools is not exchanged among the staff, and social service providers

are more likely to receive several types of information than other school staff. Time to

communicate with colleagues is positively related to both ieceiving information and sharing

information. Because such time is in short supply in schools, substantial progress in improving

the production and exchange of information on students and their needs may face a critical

barrier.

f;

Introduction

Different images of organization emphasize dif-ferent patterns or structures of information flow(Morgan, 1986), but virtually all definitions oforganization consider information flows, regardlessof their form, as central organizational processes.Students of organizations as far back as Weber(1947) have pointed to the collection and recordingof information as a key element in bureaucraticorganization.

Contemporary scholarship has also consideredcommunication patterns and structures within orga-nizations. For example, contingency theory hasconsidered the relationships between the uncertaintyconfronting organizations and the structural arra-ngements and consequent information processingpatterns in those organizations (Lawrence andLorsch, 1967; Galbraith, 1973). Political perspec-tives on organizations have considered the relation-ship between power and access to information inorganizations (Pfeffer, 1978). The view of organi-zations as loosely-coupled systems has examineddiscontinuities in the exchange of informationamong individuals in organizations (Wilensky,1967; Weick, 1976).

While much of this conceptual work has examinedthe structure of information flows in organizations,we know rather little about the specific content ofinformation embodied in these structures. In thisstudy, we examine a highly studied organization,the secondary school, and we consider patterns inthe demand for and exchange of specific infonna-tional content -- data on students -- by diverseorganizational actors, including top administrators,teachers, and other high school staff members.

Our goal is to understand the factors that determinewhy some school staff members believe that theyneed information on students to do their jobs well,and why others do not. We also strive to explainwhy some school staff receive and share varioustypes of information about students, and others donot.

In addition to our conceptual interest in understand-ing information-processing in organizations general-ly, we have a pragmatic interest in school improve-ment, and see information on student background,performance and behavior as an essential part ofany credible school improvement effort.

From the standpoint of contingency theory, schoolsneed to reduce the gap between the information thatis needed to serve students appropriately and the in-formation that is actually available. to serve students(Natriello, McDill and Pallas, 1990). Increasing theavailability of information on student academicperformance and behavior is one way to reduce thisgap, but when school staff lack such information,they are in a poor position to do so, Although mostteachers may experience a great deal of uncertaintyabout student performance and their own effective-ness (Lortie, 1975), the uncertainty gap is widest inurban high schools serving disadvantaged students,where school inputs vary greatly, the technology ofinstruction is weak and diffuse, and there are uncer-tain outputs as well.

In examining basic information flows in thehigh schools i. oived in this study we focus onthree key aspects of information, First, we considerthe degree to which school staff -- teachers, admin-istrators, counselors, and others -- deem informationon students to be important. Second, we examinethe degree to which school staff receive informationabout students. Third, we note the extent to whichschool staff share information about students withother staff.

These three aspects of student information are con-ceptually different, and may have different determi-nants. For example, the perceived importance ofinformation on students represents the ideal accessto information, while the receipt and sharing ofinformation represent the actual access to informa-tion. While the perceived importance of informa-tion is not directly affected by the capacity of theorganization to supply such information, clearly

the actual patterns of information exchange areaffected. Thus, both the receipt and sharing ofinformation on students should be more responsivethan the perceived importance of such informationto organizational and workplace condaions. More-over, the receipt of information may bc a passiveactivity, while the sharing of information may re-quire more active participation. Put d'ifferently, thereception of information has somewhat more to dowith the activities of others in the school than withthe activity of a focal respondent, whii ... the oppo-site is true for the sharing of information, althoughformal systems for the production and exchange ofinformation may mitigate such differences.

Perspectives on Information in Schools

In thinking about the determinants of the fxceivedimportance of and exchange of student informationin schools, we have identified several differentperspectives that suggest testable hypotheses.These include structural, political/symbolic, techno-logical, quality and opportunity perspectives oninform ation.

Structural. Organizations differ in the extent towhich they establish processes and resources tocollect and process :nformation (Scott, 1981).Although most high schools have similar formalstructures, they may have different information-pro-cessing systems and capacities. For example, somehigh schools have in place elaborate computerizedinformation systems that contain a great deal ofinformation on student academic performance andbehavior. Whether this information is accessible tostaff members is an empirical question, but certain-ly the presumption is that it is readily available.

Other high schools rely on paper files to which fewschool staff have access. Cognitive dissonancetheory would predict that staff in schools where stu-dent information was not available would come todefine information as less important to their day-to--day work, as they learned to perform their jobswithout the requisite information. As a result, wemay find differences among the schools in thestudy in both the perceived importance of informa-tion and the exchange of information.

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We also view differences among job positions aspart of a structural perspective on information inschools. Differing perspectives on organizationssuggest different predictions about the nature ofinformation exchange within high schools. A ratio-nal-bureaucratic view of organizations suggests thatinformation on students should be of central con-cern to high school teachers, administrators, coun-selors, and other staff. Students constitute thelargest group within high schools and the group towhom the activities of the high school are presum-ably directed. In this view, then, at least someimportance is attached to learning about students bythe staff members of these organizations. Classicalmanagement theory would suggest that informationshould largely flow from subordinates to superiors-- that is, from teachers to administrators.

A contrasting position is offered by the view oforganizations as loosely-coupled systems. Thisperspective argues that the formal structure of orga-nizations is unconnected to the technical core workactivity (Weick, 1976; March and Olsen, 1976). Inthis view, the formal organizational arrangementsof schools are decoupled from instructional activi-ties, and the "logic of confidence" replaces directcoordination and control (Meyer and Rowan, 1978).There is, then, no real need for information onstudents to be exchanged among teachers and ad-ministrators, and in particular no need for informa-tion to move up the school hierarchy from teachersto administrators. In fact, managers may have goodreasons not to know about the activities of thosefurther down in the hierarchy (Weick, 1976; Meyerand Rowan, 1978).

These two perspectives on the structure of highschools thus suggest competing hypotheses. Classi-cal management theory predicts that managers willplace a higher value on student information thantheir subordinates, and that lower-level staff willshare information with their superiors. In contrast,the loose-coupling perspective predicts that manag-ers will not value student information more thanteachers and other direct-service staff, and thatmanagers are no more likely to receive informationon students than are their subordinates.

Political/svmbolic. There has been much discussionof the role of information processes in shaping thedistribution of power and influei ice in organizations(Pfeffer, 1978). The covariation between access toinformation, on the one hand, and power and influ-ence, on the other, has largely been interpreted as"knowledge is power," or at least that ki:owledgemay lead to power.

We also suspect, however, that the converse is true.Influence over key decisions in an organizationmay lead individuals to value information relevantto those decisions and to share and receive informa-tion to a greater extent. School staff may attemptto exert influence by communicating various typesof information. Information can have both instru-mental and symbolic value, as leaders try to controlthe defmition of reality in their work settings (Neu-mann, 1989). We therefore expect that influentialindividuals in the scol will place a high value onstudent information, and will be more likely bothto receive and share such information.

Technological. There has also been a great deal ofdiscussion of the role of technology in shapingvarious organization processes (Scott, 1981; Pfeffer,1978; Perrow, 1986). Although the schools in thecurrent study are in the same sector and thus pre-sumably utilizing the same technology of education,there are related diffemnces at the individual levelin what Dombusch and Scott (1975) refer to as task

conceptions. Some school staff see their responsi-bilities toward students as quite broad, extendingwell beyond the school walls; others carry a rela-tively narrow view of their charge. A broad con-ception of itsponsioility implies a more uncertainset of tasks that presumably require more informa-tion to carry out well. We therefore expect that abroad conception of the task of education andschools will be associated with a greater importanceattributed to information, and to an increased re-ceipt and sharing of student information.

Quality. An obvious, if often overlooked, aspect ofinformation that affects its role in all kinds of or-ganizations is the quality of information. Informa-tion is not monolithic; some information is accurateand other information is less reliable. We hypothe-size that information that is perceived to be inaccu-rate will be less likely to be valued and exchanged.

Opportunity. It is important to recognize that ex-changing information, both receiving and sharing,can only take place if there are opportunities for ex-change. One of the most important opportunityfactors is the availability of time to meet with otherschool staff. Thus, we expect that the mom thatschool staff meet with other staff members, themrire they will both share and receive informationon students. But since there is no direct theoreticallinkage between collaboration time aad the impor-tance of information, we do not consider time as apredictor of the value of information.

Methods and Prodedures

In the spring of 1990, we administered a half-hoursurvey on the use of student information in schoolsto staff in seven high schools in the Northeast thatserve predominantly disadvantaged populations.Representatives num each school chose the targetpopulation for their school, always incluting teach-ers, counselors and administrators; some fiddedschool safety workers, paraprofessionals, and thestaff of outside agencies working in the school.The response rates were exemplary. In five of the

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seven schools, the response rate exceeded 95%.Overall, the response rate fbr the survey was 87%.We received a total of 1106 completel question-naires.

The survey covered a wide range of issues involv-ing how information about students is used andvalued in high schools. In this paper, we focus onfactors that predict respondents' perceptions of theimportance of student information for their job

performance, and the determinants of the receiptand transmittal of various types of student informa-tion. We use as predictors school-to-school differ-ences, the respondent's job position, the respond-ent's influence over decisions made in the school,the respondent's conception of the task of theschool, the quality of information, and, in the casesof receiving and sharing information, the time avai-lable to meet with others in the school.

Independent Variables

School-to-School Differences. We representedaverage differences across the seven schools in thestudy with a set of six dummy variables. Theomitted category is School 2, which had the mostrespondents.

Job Position. We asked respondents to write intheir position or job title, and to list in which offic-es or departments they worked in their school.Based on these responses, we formed a set of cate-gories that describc positions on the basis of func-tion and hierarchy. In approximately descendingorder of hierarchy, these categories are:

Principal - coded 1 if respondent was buildingprincipal, and 0 otherwise.

Assistant Principal coded 1 if respondent was anassistant principal, and 0 otherwise.

Departmental Administrator - coded 1 if respon-dent was a departmental administrator (includingsubject area department heads and special programcoordinators) and 0 otherwise.

Guidance Counselor coded 1 if respondent wasa guidance counselor (including grade advisor,college advisor, career counselor/educator/specialist,crisis intervention teacher, and pregnancy preven-tion coordinator), and 0 otherwise.

Social Service Worker - coded 1 if respondent wasa social service worker (social worker, psychologist,substance abuse coordinator/specialist, child studyteam membcr, community-based organization sitesupervisor or staff) and 0 otherwise.

4

Teacher - coded 1 if respondent was a classroomteacher and 0 otherwise.

Instructional Paraprofessional - coded 1 if re-spondent was an instructional paraprofessional(including teachers' aide/assistant, educational assis-tant/associate, and laboratory specialist/assistant),and 0 otherwise.

These categories are not mutually exclusive, as arespondent might be both a classroom teacher anda departmental administrator. They also do notrepresent the hierarchy of the school in the strictreporting sense since, for example, teachers do notreport to guidance counselors or social servicepersonnel.

Influence over school policy. We asked respondentsto report how much Mfluence they have over deci-sions in the following areas in their schools: orga-nizing the curriculum; developing an instructionalapproach; allocating supplies and materials; refer-ring students to special services; developing studentschedules; and developing new programs to meetstudent needs. For each arca, respondents indicatedeither major influence (coded 4), moderate influ-ence (coded 3), minor influence (coded 2), or noinfluence (coded 1). We constructed a measure ofinfluence that used the mean of these six responses.The alpha reliability of this scale is .80. The over-all mean was approximately 2.0, indicating that therespondents on average reported minor influenceover school decisions.

onception of the Task of the School. We askedrespondents to report their opmions about the roleof teachers and schools in teaching and learning,using a 5-point Likert-type set ranging from"Strongly Agree" to "Strongly Disagree." Fromthese, we formed a scale scored as the mean of thesix items. The items, which assess the extent towhich respondents feel teachers and schools shouldbe responsive to student needs, are:

"A teacher's main responsibility is to present theschool curriculum in a professional manner, it is upto the students to decide how much work they willput into school";

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"What students learn in school is determined moreby their own efforts than by what teachers andother staff do";

"It does little good to learn about student prob-lems outside of the school because you can't doanything about them anyway";

"Schools should be concerned with what happensto students inside the school, and not with students'problems outside of school";

"It is more important to provide a positive learningenvironment than to try to respond to individualstudent needs" (scoring is reversed); and

"Teachers should try to individualize the instruc-tion they provide to their students".

The alpha reliability of the scale is .66.

Quality of information. We asked respondents theiropinions on how accurately different types of stu-dent information reflect student performance orbehavior. Possible responses included "very accu-rately," coded 4, "accurately," coded 3, "somewhataccurately," coded 2, "not at all accurately," coded1, and "I don't know," coded missing. This ques-tion was asked in regard to the following 15 typesof student information: standardized tests; teacher--made tests or quizzes; graded homework; writtenessays; group projects; individual projects; laborato-ry assignments; oral presentations; participation orbehavior in class', talking to teachers; talking tocounselors; talking to administrators; talking toparents; talking to students; and observing studentsoutside the classroom. The analysis predicting theimportance of information uses a generalized as-sessment of the accuracy of student information,relying on the mean of eight of these items. Thealpha reliability of the scale is .85. The analysesof the determinants of sharing and receiving infor-mation employ as a predictor the respondent'srating of the accuracy of the specific type of infor-mation at issue.Collaboration Time. We asked respondents howmuch time per month, on average, they spent meet-ing with other school staff on school matters (in-

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eluding lesson planning, curriculum development,guidance and counseling, evaluation of programs,and other collaborative work). The six responseoptions, which ranged from "less than 15 minutes"to "10 hours or more," were coded as fractions ofhours.

Dependent Variables

Importance of Information. We asked respondentshow important it was for them to have variouskinds of information about individual students to dotheir jobs properly. Respondents rated the impor-tance of 18 different types of information, includingcontact information, such as address and phonenumber, information on past academic performance,such as previous grades, GPA, rank in class; infor-mation on family conditions, such as family prob-lems, single-parent family, and economic status;and teacher evaluations of a student. Respondentsrated each of these 18 types of information as eitherextremely, very, somewhat, seldom, or never im-portant. These five categories were coded 1 to 5,with "never important" coded 1 and "extremely im-portant" coded 5. For this paper, we form a mea-sure of importance that represents the average ofthese 18 responses. The mean of the importancevariable is 3.69, indicating that respondents viewinformation about students as somewhat to veryimportant for doing their jobs properly. The alphareliability of this scale is .93.

Recei t and Sharing of Information. We askedrespondents whether they exchanged various typesof information on student academic performanceand behavior with other staff in the school. Ourquestions covered twelve different types of informa-tion, including formal, recorded information (stu-dent files, standardized test scores, and studentattendance), classroom performance indicators (per-formance on teacher-made tests, homework, essays,projects, laboratory assignments, and oral presenta-tions), and informal information (informal discus-sions with teachers, counselors, administrators,parents, or students; observing students in the class-room; and observing students outside the class-room). For each type of information, respondents

reported whether they (1) share this with otherstaff, (2) receive this from other staff, (3) bothshare with and receive from other staff, or (4) nei-ther share with nor receive from other staff. Weconstructed two variables for each type of infor-

Determinants of the Perceived Importanceof Information

We have already seen that respondents in the sevenhigh schools deem information on students, onaverage, somewhat or very important for doingtheir work. The relationships between the per-ceived importance of information on students andvariables suggested by various perspectives oninformation in organizations are presented in TableI. This table presents the results of regressionanalyses in which the dependent variable is theperceived importance of information and indepen-dent variables represent effects suggested by vari-ous perspectives on information in organizations.

The results in Table l show that school-to-schooldifferences in the importance attached to informa-tion are small and generally not significant. Onlyin School 5 do respondents attribute significantlyless importance to information on students, relativeto the reference group, School 2.

Differences in the importance attached to informa-tion on students arc more striking among individu-als in different positions than among individualsin different schools. Guidance personnel andsocial services personnel report significantly greaterimportance attached to information on students thanthose in the other occupational groups, and depart-mental administrators tend to do so as well (p<.06).The failure of teachers to place as high a value onstudent information as these other staff membersmay be explained by their tendency to conceive ofthe task of schools as being less responsive to the

Results

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mation, based on these response categories. Thereceipt variables are coded l if the respondentreported receiving a particular type of informationfrom others, and 0 otherwise. The sharing variablesarc coded l if the respondent reported sharing aparticular type of information with others, and 0otherwise.

needs of students and their tendency to perceiveinformation on students as less accurate than thosein other positions.

The political perspective provides a useful comple-ment to the analysis of the impact of ale structureof positions in understanding the importance at-tached to information. The zero-order associationsbetween job position and influence over schoolpolicy reveal that assistant principals perceive them-selves as having the most influence over schoolpolicies, followed by departmental administrators,principals, guidance counselors, teachers, socialservice providers, and paraprofessionals. Thus,there is a rough correspondence between the struc-ture of positions and the influence exercised byincumbents of those positions. The ranking ofassistant principals and departmental administratorsas more influential than principals is probably ex-plained by the inclusion of areas such as "referringstudents to special services" and "developing stu-dent schedules" in the items measuring influenceover decisions. Even controlling for the effects ofstructural positions, Table l shows that respon-dents with more influence over key decisions in aschool are more likely to deem information impor-tant for performing their job.

Insert Table 1 Here

The technological perspective was represented in

our analyses by the conception of the task of theschool, more specifically by the degree to whichthe task of the school was seen by respondents asresponding to student needs. Assistant principals,departmental administrators, guidancr.: counselors,and social service providers were more likely tohave this conception of the task of the school thanwere principals, teachers, and paraprofessionals. Asmight be expected, Table 1 reveals that individualswho viewed the mission of the school as beingmore responsive to student needs perceived infor-mation on students as being more important forperforming their job than individuals who viewedthe mission of the school as being less responsive.

Finally, the quality of infonaation perspective wasrepresented by the perceived accuracy of informa-tion on students. As we anticipated, Table 1 showsthat when intiividuals perceived information onstudents as being more accurate they also perceivedit to be more important.

Determinants of the Receipt and Sharing ofInformation

The proportion of respondents who reported trans-mitting and receiving these various types of infor-mation on student academic performance and be-havior is displayed in Figure 1. This figure shows,for each of the twelve types of information, theproportion sharing such information with otherstaff, and the proportion receiving it from otherstaff.

IP

Insert Figure 1 Here

The overall import of this figure is unmistakeable:most information on student academic performanceand behavior that resides in these high schools isnot exchanged among the staff. Informal informa-tion is much more likely to be shared among staffthan ar ..! more formal types of information or class-room academic performance data. The one excep-tion to this is the sharing and receiving of student

7

attendance information. Teachers are the majorproviders of attendance data, and these data areoften fe: back to them for record-keeping purposes.

Although there are statistically significant differ-encPs across schools in the extent to which varioustypes of information about students are shared orreceived, most of the variation is within schools,not between them. Put differently, the proportionof respondents indicating that they receive or trans-mit various types of student information is relative-ly similar across schools. Figure 2, which showsthe proportion of respondents who report transmit-ting and receiving performance on teacher-madetests, documents this. In this figure, the sevenschools in t sample are arrayed in ascendingorder according to the proportion of respondentswho reported receiving information on students'performance on teacher-made tests. Although thisproportion ranges from 33% in School 1 to 52% inSchool 4, the chart implies a pattern of greatersimilarity than difference across the seven schools.

Insert Figure 2 Here

Even these modest differences across schools mayreflect school-to-school differences in the experi-ences, values, and positions held by respondents.The sample consists of a diverse set of respondentswhose positions, working conditions, and attitudestoward teaching and student information differ, andthese varying attributes of respondents likely aredistributed unequaPy across the sample schools.Consequently, some of what we have identified asschool-io-school differences may really reflectdifferences in the types of staff represented in thesample.

We am primarily interested in the direct effects ofstructural, political, technological, quality and op-portunity factors on the sharing and receiving ofinformation on student academic performance andtrhavior. To examine the simultaneous influenceof these factors, we regress individuals' reports of

the sharing or receiving of different types of stu-dent information on (1) a vector of dummy vari-ables reflecting differenezs across schools, (2) avector of positional variables representing differenc-

es in job function and hierarchical position, (3)influence over school policy, (4) collaboration time,(5) attitudes toward school responsiveness, and (6)the perceived quality of the information. Theseanalyses resulted in a total of 24 regression equa-tions (predic!,ng the receipt of the 12 types ofstudent information and the sharing of these typesof information).

Although each of these regressions contributes toour understanding of student information exchangeamong school staff, we report only a subset in

detail. In particular, we examine the receipt andsharing of standardized test scores, teacher-madetests, oral presentations, and informal discussions.This subset of the infonnation types includes exam-ples of several types of information, includingformal school records (i.e., standardized testscores); objective classroom perfonnance (perfor-mance on teacher-made tests); less formal class-room performance (oral presentations); and infor-mal information on student performance and behav-ior (i.e., informal discussions with teachers, coun-selors, administrators, parents, or students).

Table 2 reports regressions predicting the receipt ofstandardized test scores, performance on teacher-m-ade tests, oral presentations, and informal discus-sions with others. The patterning of results is rela-tively consistent across these four different types ofinformation, as similarities outweigh the differenc-es. Once differences in the mix of jobs performedby respondents and in their working conditions aretaken into account, school-to-school differences arerelatively small. Staff in School 7 are somewhatmore likely to report the receipt of various types ofinformation than staff in the other schools; this istrue for teacher-made tests and oral presentationsin Table 2, and for five of the other eight types ofinformation that are not reported. With this oneexception, however, whether a staff member re-ceives information is more dependent on what hap-pens within a given school than the particularschool in which the staff member works.

8

Insert Table 2 Here

Table 2 also shows how the receipt of informationdiffers for individuals with different job positionsin the school. These positions are arrayed along acontinuum of hierarchy, with the principal at thetop and irrtnictional paraprofessionals at the bot-tom. Positions also differ in the extent and waysin which they involve individual students, whichmay structure the way information flows to variousstaff in schools. Table 2 clearly shows that thereis no evidence that individuals in aigher positionsin the hierarchy receive more information on stu-dent performance and behavior than individualswho are lower in the organizational authority struc-ture. The principal, for example, may receive asmuch information as individuals with more directcontact with students, but the estimates are impre-cise (there are only six principals in the sample).

Social service providers are much more likely toreceive several types of information than otherschool staff. Comparing social service staff toassistant principals, for example, we observe thatsocial service staff are 35 percentage points (.384 -.038) more likely to receive information on stu-dents' performance on teacher-made tests than areassistant principals. This is perhaps the most ex-treme difference represented in these comparisons,but in fact social service siaff are significantly morelikely to receive each of the four types of informa-tion represented in Table 2, as well as more likelyto receive s sil ''e remaining eight types ofinformation ut r1.41, . ir th.; table.

Table 2 also suggests that teachers are more likelyto receive certain types of information than otherschool staff. The pattern is that teachers are morelikely to receive informal information and formalstudent performance data (i.e., standardized testscores and student attendance data) from others, butthey are not more likely to receive information onclassroom performance from others. This is consis-tent with the image of the isolated classroom teach-

er who produces information about students' class-room performance for his or her own use, but doesnot receive parallel information from other teachersor other school staff.

If we divide the job positions roughly into directservice providers and others, there is a tendency forthose school staff whose primary responsibilitiesinvolve direct contact with students to receive more;..ofonnation on student academic performance andbchavic- ut the relationship is not terribly strong.While social service providers receive a wide rangeof information on students, teachers receive a nar-rower range, and guidance staff report receivingabove-average amounts only of informal discussionand student attendance data. The discrepancy be-tween the information received by guidance staffand social service staff is intriguing, since thesefunctions are superficially quite similar. It may bethat guidance caseloads are much heavier thansocial service caseloads, and that social service staffhave more time to make use of a wider range ofstudent information.

While position in the school hierarchy was largelyunrelatei to the receipt of student information,those respondents who report a great deal of influ-ence over school policy are substantially morelikely to receive diverse kinds of information onstudents. Influence is significantly related to thelikelihood of information receipt for each of thefour types of information reported in Table 2, andfor seven of the eight remaining types of informa-tion.

The effects of influence are among the largest weobserve for any predictor. Everything else beingequal, a respondent reporting moderate influenceover school policy is seven to 14 percentage pointsmore likely to receive information than onc report-ing only minor influence over school. policy.

We examined the effects of two other attitudinalfactors on the receipt of information. First, weconsidered respondents' attitudes toward schoolresponsiveness, the extent to which they saw theschool in an activist role rosponding to students°proNems and needs. Attitudes toward respoitsive-

1 5

9

ness were largely unrelated to the likelihood ofreceiving student information. Second, we exam-ined whether the respondents' perceptions of thequality of information affected the kinds of infor-mation about students they receive. We found noevidence that the perceived ouality of informationinfluenced the extent to which respondents receivedinformation about student academic performanceand behavior from other school staff. The onlystatistically reliable finding hero, a negative rela-tionship between the perceived quality of informa-tion and the receipt of informal discussions, isuninterpretable.

Time spent meeting with others may be an especial-ly important structural feature of the workplacethat determines access to various types of informa-tion. The amount of time per month that respon-dents reported collaborating with other school staffwas directly related to the likelihood of receivingvarious types of information. Table 2 shows thateach hour of collaboration increased the likelihoodof receiving information by about one percentagepoint. Thus, an individual who met with otherschool staff for 10 hours per month is aiut 10percentage points more likely to receive informa-tion on standardized test performance, for example,than one who met with other school staff for justone hour per month. This pattern holds generallyfor the other types of ;.iformation not reported inTable 2.

Receiving and sharing information are independentactivities, and while we might expect to see somegeneral similarities in the patterning of the determi-nants of sharing and receiving information, we alsoexpect to see some differences. For example,teachers, in particular, produce a great deal If infor-mation on students, and may be more like' y there-fore to share information with others than a receiveit. Similarly, a school's routine for disseminatingdaily attendance data may structure who receivesattendance information, while not constraining theability of individual teachers or other staff to sharethat attendance data with other staff. As we notedin the introduction, individuals may have morecontrol over the sharing of information with othersthan over the receipt of information from others.

We explore these conjectures in Table 3, whichdisplays regression equations predicting the sharingof various types of information. As in Table 2, wereport the determinants of sharing standardivx1 testscores, performance on teacher-made tests, oralpmsentations, and informal discussions with teach-ers, counselors, administrators, parents, or students.We use the same variables to predict the sharing ofinformation that we used to predict the receipt ofinformation.

Insert Table 3 Here

As with the receipt of information, school-to-schooldifferences are not large. There does seem to bemore sharing and receiving of information inSchools 4 and 7, but the differences among theschools are not large on average. One frit 7e line ofresearch we hope to pursue is examining whetherthere are school policies and practices in place inthese schools that facilitate the sharing of hforma-don among school staff.

Atiliough the diffemnces among schools are rela-tively consistent for the receipt and sharing ofinformation, the various job positions have quitedifferent effects on the receipt and sharing of infor-mation, respectively. Social service staff were muchmore likely to receive a wide range informationthan other school staff, but they are not more likelyto share most of that information with other schoolstaff. Social service providers received formalrecords, classroom performance data, and informalinformation, but they are likely to share just infor-mal discussions and classroom observations. Incontrast, guidance staff were more likely to receiveonly informal information on student performanceand behavior, but they provide both informal (infor-mal discussions and out-of-class observations) andformal (student files, attendance, and standardizedtest scores) information to other school staff.

Teachers (and to a lesser extent, instructional para-professionals) are the primary producers of data on

10

student classroom performance and behavior, andthey are also the primary transmitters of those data.The flow of classroom performance information isfascinating; teachers produce classroom perfor-mance data, and they share them with other staff,but apparently not with other teachers, who mighthave the greatest needs for student performanceinformatien. In fact, Table 2 indicates that theprimary recipients of teacher-produced classroomperformance information an social service provid-ers.

As with the receipt of information, there is noevidence that high school administrators are morelikely to transmit information about student aca-demic performance and behavior to other staffmembers. This is consistent with the relationshipsbetween position and the importance attached toinformation reported in Table 1 that show thatprincipals and other administrators do not findstudent information substantially more important forcarrying out their jobs than do other staff members.

As wns true for the receipt of information, however,respondents with greater influence over schoolpolicy are more likely to transmit student informa-tion than those reporting less influence over schoolpolicy. Influence is not restricted solely to schoolmanagers; the correlation between perceived influ-ence over school policy and having a managerialposition (i.e., principal, assistant principal or depart-mental administrator) is only about .25. Thus, thro-ughout the school hierarchy, those individuals whoreport more control over their work am more likelyto share various types of information on studentacademic per.3rmance and behavior. This patternis observed for all four of the infonnati4m typesreported in 'fable 3, as well as seven of the eightother types of information.

We might expect staff members' personal beliefsand attitudes to be more predictive of the sharingof information than the receipt of information. Forexample, teachers may receive their students' stan-dardized test scores whether they believe them tobe accurate reflections of student performance ornot. But such teachers may decide to transmit toother school staff only thuse measures of student

16

performance and behavior that they believe to beaccurate. In fact, there is some evidence that sup-ports this interpretation. As Table 3 shows, theextent to which respondents believe that standard-ized test scores and oral presentations accuratelyindicate student academic performance and behavioraffects whether or not they share such informationwith othcr school staff. This is truc for five of thccight types of information which wc aren't report-ing as well. Thc results indicate that a respondentwho believes that standardized tests and oral pre-sentations are very accurate is nearly 25 percentagepoints more likely to share that information withothers than a respondent who believes that theseforms of information are not at all accurate.

The pattern is not as consistent for attitudes towardresponsiveness. Our implicit conception of respon-siveness invol yes strategies for solving an informa-tion problem: thc matching of school educationaland social services to student nccds. Wc hypothe-sized that staff who saw a broad, activist role forthe school would value infoniujon and wouldshare it wOh others. As we saw in Table I, suchrespondents did value information more highly thanrespondents with a narrower view of the school'smission. But their is scant evidence that thesesame respondents an1 more likely to share informa-

tion on studcnt acadcmic performance and behaviorwith other staff members. Table 3 documcnts thatstaff who believe that schools should be responsiveare more likely to share informal discussions, butno more likely to tranrmit standardized testscores,teacher-made tests, or oral presentations. The onlyother types of information predicted by attitudestoward responsiveness are observations outside ofthe classroom and student attendance data. Thesearc thc types of information that have the mostbearing on students' lives and problems outsidc ofschool, so it may be that responsiveness pertainsprimarily to respondents' perceptions of theschool's responsibility for studcnts' problems out-side of school.

Thc othcr structural workplace condition, time spentcollaborating with other staff, is related to the shar-ing of several types of student information. Table3 shows that respondents who meet more frequentlywith othcr school staff arc more likely to sharestandardized test scores, oral presentations, andinformal discussions. Our examination of the entirerange of student information shows that increasedcollaboration timc affects the sharing of formal andinformal information, but has no effect on the shar-ing of most classroom-level performance data col-lected by teachers.

Discussion

Our results can beconsidercd from the six perspec-tives discussed at thc outset. The structural per-spective calls our attcntion to school-to-school andpositional differences. Thc differences among theseven schools in our study were relatively small in

tcrms of all three dependent variables. This oc-curred despite what appear to be some substantialdifferences in the degree to which the leaders of theseven schools have invested in information process-ing technology. Schaol I had no computer-basedrecord systems and poorly developed manual sys-tems. Even basic contact information such as stu-dent addresses and phone numbers was difficult toobtain. In contrast, thc leaders in School 6 had

17

invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in acomputerized student data base and a network ofworkstations at which such data could be accessed.

Thc other five schools fell somewhere betweenthese two extremes. Yet these differences were notreflected in thc importance that school staff accord-cd to information or in the volume of informationabout studcnts exchanged among school staff.

There are several possible explanations as to whythc information processing capacity of the schoolsin the study may not have differed substantiallydespite the apparent differences in the available

infrastructum. First, access to the informationresources may have been limited to a small numberof staff, either those with positions that required itor those with an inclination to take advantage of it.Second, much of the information on students isgathered by teachers, and their access to informa-tion on students, at least their own students, may beaffected more by their daily contact with studentsand less by the availability of school-level infor-mation resources. Third, the presence of elaboratecomputerized infonnation systems in a school doesnot compel staff members to make use of such asystem, and in fact may make data less accessiblethan before. In any case the rather small diffeitnc-es among schools suggests that changing the flowand utilization patterns for information in schoolsmay mquire substantial changes in the schoolsthemselves.

Unlike school-to-school differences, or, analysis ofpositional differences found substantial variation.Guidance counselors, social service providers, and,to a lesser extent, departmental administratorsdeemed information more important than others inthe school; social service providers and teacherswere more likely to mceive information; and teach-ers and counselors were more likey to share infor-mation. The patterns of differences by positionpermit at least two interpretations.

One interpretation would offer confirmation for theloose-coupling interretation by emphasizing theseeming disconnection of higher administrators,particularly principals, from information on studentsand their performance. This interpretation wouldsupport the findings of Meyer and Rowan (1978)in their analysis of the Bay Area study of elementa-ry schools which portrays principals as rather dis-connected from the central work of the school.

An alternative interpretation would support themore classical structural perspective by emphasizingthat those in the middle levels of the hierarchy,guidance staff and social service providers, areactively participating in the exchange of informa-tion on students with teachers. Recall that it isthese same middle level staff who view the task ofthe school as being more responsive to students and

12

their needs. It may be that top management, con-fronted with other responsibilities such as commu-nicating with the external environment (i.e., thecentral district office and the community), must relyupon middle level administrators within the schoolto attend to an analysis of student needs, to theextent that such an analysis actually occurs.

It is difficult to know, though, whether to conceiveof guidance and social service staffas managers orline workers. Although teachers do not report tothese staff, they typically are viewed as havingspecial expertise, and command expert authority.School systems frequently defer to the judgmentsof guidance and social service staff. Yet theirexpertise does not extend to the management ofinstruction, and in fact their work is rarely closelycoordinated with instructional activity.

It also is unclear whether guidance and social ser-vice staff should be seen as divorced from thetechnical core activity of secondxy schools. Wetend to think of the core activity of schools asinstruction. The com activity of secondary schools,however, is the transformation of raw student inputsinto graduates, a socially constructed classificationwith commonly agreed-upon characteristics, knowl-edge, skills, and values. While instruction clearlyis an important part of this definition of the techni-cal core, instructional support may be an equallyvalid component. In this view, social service staffwhose primary task is to keep students in schoolcould be even more central to the technical corethan teachers.

High schools are complex organizations with dif-fuse goals, and there may in fact be multiple tech-nical core activities. It may be that the high rate ofthe receipt of student information by mid-level staffand teachers indicates that both are doing the workof the technical core. But it is important to notethat this does not imply that these multiple coreactivities are coordinated in any way, or that theyhave anything to do with one another. More ex-plicit information about who is providing whatinformation to whom might shed light on the coor-dination issue.

lb

Our uncertainty about how to chara,terize guidanceand social service staff makes it difficult to judgcwhether or not the finding that such staff value andexchange information on students lends support tothe loose-coupling perspective. In any case it isimportant to try to understand the role of thesemid-level personnel in the flow of information, andfuture msearch should examine their activities moreclosely.

The political perspective draws our attention to theparticipation of respondents in school decisionmaking activities. The influence of individuals inschool decisions was positively and strongly relatedto the importance they attached to information onstudents and to the receipt and sharing of suchinformation. This was true even when we con-trolled for the effects of formal position. This posi-tive relationship is encouraging not only because itsuggests that decisions are being influenced bythose who are most well informed, but also becauseit suggests at least the possibility that influencingsharing may lead to increased interest in informa-tion on students and their needs. Of course, therelaCvely superior position of those with influencein the information exchange process says nothingabout whether enough information or enough goodinformation is being exchanged to result in betterdecisions.

The technological perspective calls our attention tothe conceptions of the task of the school held byrespondents. Although conceiving of the task ofthe school as beidg More responsive to students andtheir needs does lead school staff to deem informa-tion on students more important for doing their jobseffectively, it does not affect either receiving orsharing information. It may be that receivinginformation is determined by the actions of othersand that sharing information on students requiresothers with a similar task conception with whomthe information can be shared for good effect.

The quality of information perspective suggests thatthe accuracy of the information on students shouldaffect both the degree to which it is deemed impor-tant and the exchange of such information. Infor-mation percel' to be more accurate is deemed

13

1 9

more important and is somewhat more likely to beshared. Of course, the perception of accuracy mayhave little to do with the actual accuracy of theinformation.

The opportunity perspective suggests that workingconditions must allow individuals an opportunity touse information. Our analyses revealed that timeto communicate with colleagues is positively relatedto both receiving information and sharing infor-mation. Since such time is notoriously in shortsupply in schools, substantial progress in improvingthe production and exchange of information onstudents and their needs may face a critical barrier.

The major limitation of this study is that the dataare cross-sectional. For example, the importancethat respondents attribute to information on studentsmay be as much a reflection of the availability ofsuch information as a determinant of availability.Our data cannot di sentanglc the complicated, possi-bly reciprocal relationships among informationexchange, structural features of the workplace, andorganizational cultur,.. The assumptions that wehave made about causal ordering are, we think,defensible for the purposes of this exploratorystudy, but a longitudinal picture tracking changeand stability in information flows and other aspectsof secondary schoo' culture and structure is sorelyneeded. Ordy a longitudinal study can hope toprovide a basis for judging how difficult it mightbe to change information flows and exchange pat-terns through the introduction of new policic,programs, and procedures.

The patterns reported here provide some new in-sights into the operafon of schools and suggestadditional questions to be addressed to increase ourunderstanding of the ways 'which schools processinformation about their core task, the education ofstudents. Although we have argued that studentsand their needs represent the core concern ofschools, it is useful to keep in mind that our resultsmight have been quite different had we focused onother kinds of information (e.g., information onschool budgets). Indeed, this may be where someof the respondents in our study are concentratingtheir time and attention.

Our data show that different school staff mustconstruct their conceptions of students and life inhigh schools based on differing types of studentinformation. For example, our results imply thatsocial service providers have the most completeinformation on students' academic performance andbehavior, while top-level managers are less likely

14

to receive information on students' classroom per-formance. Part of the kcy to understanding howsecondary schools work is discovering how differ-ences in access to information on the core technicalactivities of such schools might account for differ-ences in organizational and professional cultureswithin schools.

REFERENCES

Dombusch, Sanford M. and W. Richard Scott. (1975). Evaluation and the Exercise of Authority. San Francis-

co: Joswy-Bass.

Galbraith, J. (1973). Designing Complex Organizations. Rr .g, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Lawrence, Paul R. and Jay W. Lorsch. (1967). Organizat, a and Environment: Managing Differentiation

and Integration. Boston: Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University.

Lortie, Daniel. (1975). Schoolteacht.. : A Sociological Study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

March, James G. and Johan P. Olsen (eds.) (1976). Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations. Bergen, Norway:

Universitetsforlagei

Meyer, John W. and Brian Rowan. (1978). "The structure of educational orgauzations," pp. 78-109 in Mar-

shall W. Meyer (ed.), Environments and Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Morgan, Gareth.(1986). Images of Organization. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Natriello, Gary., Edward L. McDill, and Aaron M. Pallas. (1990) Schooling Disadvantaged Students: Racing

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Pfeffer, Jeffrey. (1978). Organizational Design. Arlington Heights, IL: AHM Publishing Corp.

Pfeffer, Jeffrey.-(T9.81). Power in Organizations. Boston: Pitman.

Scott, W. Richard. (1981). Organizations: Rational, Natural, and Open Systems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pren-

tice-Hall.

Weber, Max. (1947) The essentials of bureaucratic organization: ideal-type construction. (Trans. A.M. Hen-

derson and Talcott Parsons, ed. Talcott Parsons), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947.

Weick, Karl E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarter-

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Wilensky, Harold L. (1967). Organizational Intelligence. New Yc-k: Basic Books.

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21

Percentage RespondingPositively

0 f)

Figure 1. Proportion of Respondents Who Report Transmitting and Receiving Various Typesof Information on Student Academic Performance and Behavior

III I Transmit Ms Typo of Info I Receive This Typo ofinto

32 33

...

B.

Std. test Teacher- Homework Essays Protects Lab Oral Observing informal Obeerving Student Studentscoffs Ms& tests assigns. presents. In class discuss. out of class flies attend.

Type of Information

PercentageResponding

Positively

Figure 2. Proportion of Respondents Who Report Transmitting andReceiving Performance on Teacher-Made Tests, by School

111 I Transmit This 0 I MK. Ivo This

52 52

School 1 School 6 School 5 School 2 School 3 School 7 School 4

17

2 4

*p<.05

*itp.01

Table 1. Determinants of the Importance of Information

PREDICTOR

School

School 1 .159 .073

School 3 -.054 -.022

School 6 -.005 -.002

School 5 -.203* -.123

School 6 -.104 -.060

School 7 .050 .026

Job Position

Principal .259 .038

Assistant .191 .069Principal

Departmental .204 .086Administrator

Guidance .439** 206Staff

Social .553** .172Service Staff

Teacher .106 .080

Instructional .073 .024Paraprofessional

Influence ovr .108* .124School Policy

Attitudes toward .138** .137Responsivenoss

Quality of .307** .237Information

ADJ. R2 .217

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Table 2. Determinants of the Receipt of Information

RECEIPT OF:

Standardised Teacher-made Oral InformalTest Scores Tosts Presentations Discussions

PREDICTOR

School

b P b P b 0b 0

School 1 -.163* -.097 -.020 -.012 .061 .039 .009 .006

School 3 -.029 -.015 -.005 -.003 .092 .050 -.052 -.031

School 4 .065 .044 .105 .072 .131* .097 -.044 -.034

School 5 -.114* -.087 -.079 -.061 -.021 -.017 -.075 -.065

School 6 -.044 -.034 .005 .004 .004 .003 -.117* -.100

School 7 .037 .024 .141* .091 .265** 18i .014 .010

Job Position

Principal .196 .031 .306 .047 .165 .026 .282 .054

Assistant .056 .024 .038 .016 .048 .022 .096 .047

Principal

Departmental .016 .009 -.041 -.022 -.168* -.097 .216** .129

Administrator

Guidance .004 .002 .079 .044 .019 .011 .152* .097

Staff

Social .333** .l21 .384** .136 .275** .111 .290** .134

Zervice Staff

Tcacher .100* .095 -.007 -.007 -.022 -.022 176** .190

Instructional .044 .019 .148 .067 .163 .076 .151 .071

Paraprofess'l.

Influence oval' .090** .130 .142** .204 .140** .214 .074** .122

School Policy

4. *.

Collaboralion .011** .100 .007 .070 .011** .106 .008* .085

Time

Attitudes toward .041 .055 .010 .013 .038 .054 .007 .011

Responsiveness

Quality of .022 .032 .003 .005 .019 .032 -.075** .110

Information

ADJ. R2.059 .064 .115 .069

p<.05**p<.01

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Table 3. Determinants of the Sharing of Information

SHARING OF:

Standardised Teacher-mad Oral InformalTest Scores Tests Presentations DiscussionsPREDICTOR

School

b0 b

.1)b

0 b0

School 1 .028 .;$17 .082 .050 .091 .060 .017 .012School 3 -.042 -.022 .146* .016 .188** .104 -.112 -.070School s .135" .091 199** .136 .156** .119 -.005 -.004School 5 -.070 -.054 -.002 -.002 .032 .027 .003 .003School 6 .020 .016 .071 .056 -.003 -.003 -.025 -.023School 7 .112 .074 .151* .098 .188** .137 .101 .079

Job Position

Principal .276 .044 -.257 -.040 -.040 -.006 .189 .039Assistant .080 .035 -.075 -.032 .104 .050 .064 .034Principal

Departmental .043 .024 -.105 -.056 -.094 -.056 .044 .028Administrator

Guidance .318** .180 -.0 3 -.035 .008 .004 .196** .133Staff

Social .102 .037 .049 .018 .129 .054 .312** .153Service Staff

Teacher .097* .092 .232** .220 .166** .174 .162** .187Instructional .108 .048 .144 .066 .241** .116 .075 .037Paraprofass'l.

Influence ovor .101** .148 .101** .146 .059* .093 .096** .168School Policy

Collaboration .010* .090 .004 .036 .008* .083 .011** .124Time

Attitudes toward .051 .069 .028 .038 .020 .030 .070** .109Responsiveness

Quality of .079** .114 .027 .039 .076** .132 .018 .028Information

ADJ. R2 .101 .067 .067 .108

p<.05**p<.01

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