teacher's academic optimism: the development and test of a new construct

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Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 821–835

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Teacher’s academic optimism: The developmentand test of a new construct

Anita Woolfolk Hoya,�, Wayne K. Hoya, Nan M. Kurzb

aSchool of Educational Policy and Leadership, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USAbUniversity of Bridgeport, 126 Carlson Hall, Bridgeport, CT 06604, USA

Received 25 March 2007; received in revised form 27 July 2007; accepted 14 August 2007

Abstract

The objective of this exploratory study of teacher beliefs was twofold: first, to determine whether the construct of

academic optimism could be defined and measured as an individual teacher characteristic as it has been at the collective

school level, and second, to identify sets of teacher beliefs and practices that were good predictors of academic optimism.

With a diverse sample of American elementary teachers, a second-order principal components analysis supported the

hypothesis that academic optimism was a general construct composed of efficacy, trust, and academic emphasis. In

addition, dispositional optimism, humanistic classroom management, student-centred beliefs and practices, and

organizational citizenship behaviour were individually and collectively related to the explanation of a teacher’s sense of

academic optimism, controlling for SES.

r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Academic optimism; Teacher efficacy; Teacher expectations for students; Teacher motivation; Teacher attitudes; Teacher

behaviour

1. Introduction

Teachers’ beliefs serve as cognitive filters toscreen thoughts and actions. We propose that onesuch belief is academic optimism, a latent constructthat has been related to student achievement. Todate, however, all of the research on academicoptimism has examined this construct as a propertyof the school made up of collective efficacy, trust inparents and students, and academic emphasis (Hoy,

ee front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

te.2007.08.004

ing author. Tel.: +1614 292 3774;

7900.

esses: [email protected] (A.W. Hoy),

u (W.K. Hoy), [email protected] (N.M. Kurz).

Tarter, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2006; McGuigan & Hoy,2006).

We suspect that academic optimism also may bean important individual teacher characteristic be-cause efficacy, trust, and academic emphasis haveparallel meanings at the individual teacher level.The construct of academic optimism is grounded inresearch in positive psychology. In recent demandsin America for accountability of schools, research-ers tend to focus on deficits and deficiencies. Thisstudy examines the positive qualities of optimismand teacher citizenship. The objectives of this studywere to test the construct of academic optimism atthe individual level and identify important predic-tors of teachers’ sense of academic optimism.

.

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ARTICLE IN PRESSA.W. Hoy et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 821–835822

Teachers’ beliefs about instruction and manage-ment, their commitment to the profession in theform of their individual citizenship within theschool, and the socioeconomic status of theirstudents were tested as predictors of teacheracademic optimism.

1.1. Theoretical perspectives

Positive psychology, the theoretical frame guidingthis study, explores and explains optimal environ-ments (Seligman, 2000, 2002). Analysing positiveemotions (especially optimism), traits, and institu-tions, positive psychologists identify situationswhere humans thrive and flourish. Such an environ-ment is precisely what most educators would likethe classroom to be. An optimistic classroom wouldemphasize the opportunities and possibilities(Wethington, 2003), resilience (Ryff & Singer,2003), altruism (Piliavin, 2003), and trust (Hoyet al., 2006). When looking at the classroomcontext, optimistic teachers focus on the positivequalities of students, classrooms, schools, andcommunities (Pajares, 2001). Optimism is theantithesis of helplessness. Optimism is a way toenlarge personal control (Seligman, 2006); it under-scores hope, responsibility, and a general positivedisposition to life.

1.1.1. Academic optimism

This study is not simply about the generaldisposition of optimism and optimistic teachers; itis about academic optimism, a teacher’s positivebelief that he or she can make a difference in theacademic performance of students by emphasizingacademics and learning, by trusting parents andstudents to cooperate in the process, and bybelieving in his or her own capacity to overcomedifficulties and react to failure with resilience andperseverance. Our earlier work was on the academicoptimism of schools (Hoy et al., 2006); it was acollective property of the culture of schools, and aspredicted, it was directly related to student achieve-ment in schools, controlling for socioeconomicstatus, priori achievement, and other demographiccharacteristics. We are theorizing in this study thatacademic optimism exists at the individual level justas it did at the school level.

In our attempt to conceptualize and measureteachers’ sense of academic optimism, we use thesame theoretical base for the individual that wasuseful for the school. In particular, we view a

teacher’s sense of academic optimism as a latentconstruct comprised of three highly related con-cepts—teacher sense of efficacy, teachers’ trust instudents and parents, and teachers’ focus oncreating a positive and challenging academic envir-onment for students.

Teachers’ sense of efficacy, defined as a teacher’s‘‘judgment of his or her capability to bring aboutdesired outcomes of student engagement and learn-ing, even among those students who may be difficultor unmotivated’’ (Tschannen-Moran, WoolfolkHoy, & Hoy, 1998, p. 202), is one of the few teachercharacteristics related to student achievement. Onereason may be that if teachers believe they are ableto affect student learning, then they set higherexpectations, exert greater effort, and persist in theface of difficulties. Social cognitive theory describesthe regulation of behaviours as part of complex,multifaceted, causal structures. Bandura (1997)theorizes that humans exercise control over theirlives through agentic actions. People act, reflect onthose actions, and change their behaviours accord-ingly. Through this process, classroom teachersproactively create mental plans to deal with eventsas they arise; in other words, they are agentic(Bandura, 2006), and in social cognitive theory,sense of efficacy plays a major role in humanagency.

Effective teachers must also be able to formtrusting relationships with their students andparents. A trusting relationship includes feelings ofbenevolence, reliability, competence, honesty, andopenness (Hoy & Tschannen-Moran, 2003). Ingeneral, teachers must trust that their studentspossess openness to learn, capability to graspconcepts, and honesty. Similar to teachers’ senseof efficacy, teachers set higher expectations forstudents they trust and rely on the students’ parentsfor support.

Academic emphasis and academic press are usedinterchangeably to refer to teachers’ beliefs aboutacademic success and their focus on academic tasks.While previously investigated as a school variable,this study examines the academic emphasis ofindividual teachers. Academic emphasis shouldexpand the time students spend successfully andactively engaged in academic tasks, which relatespositively to student learning (Woolfolk, 2007).Academic emphasis captures the behavioural enact-ment of efficacy and trust.

Hence, the construct of academic optimismhas cognitive, affective, and behavioural aspects.

ARTICLE IN PRESSA.W. Hoy et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 821–835 823

Teacher’s sense of efficacy is an individual belief; itis cognitive. Teacher trust in students and parents isan affective response. Teacher academic emphasis isthe press for particular behaviours in the classroom.Consequently, a teacher’s sense of academic opti-mism paints a rich picture of human agency thatexplains teacher behaviour in terms of cognitive,affective, and behavioural dimensions.

The relationships between these three majordimensions of academic optimism have been gra-phically presented as a triadic set of interactionswith each element functionally dependent on theothers. Teacher trust in parents and studentsencourages a sense of teacher efficacy, and a senseof teacher efficacy reinforces and enhances the trust.Similarly, when the teacher trusts parents, he or shecan set high academic standards with the confidencethat they will not be undermined by parents, andhigh academic standards in turn reinforce theteacher’s trust. Finally, when a teacher believes sheor he has the capability to organize and executeactions for a positive effect on student achievement,the teacher emphasizes academic achievement, andacademic emphasis in turn reinforces a strong senseof teacher efficacy. In sum, all the elements ofacademic optimism are in transactional relation-ships with each other and interact to create anindividual sense of academic optimism in theclassroom. This postulated reciprocal causalitybetween each pair of elements is shown in Fig. 1.

In sum, we hypothesize that a teacher’s sense ofefficacy, trust in parents and students, and academicemphasis form a general concept called academic

Academic Empha

Teacher Trust

Fig. 1. Relationships of academic emphasis, teacher’s trust, and tea

optimism. This construct encompasses teachers’beliefs about themselves, their students, and theirinstruction. We theorize that the classroom contextas well as dispositional optimism, humanisticclassroom management, student-centred teachingstrategies, and individual citizenship are positivepredictors of academic optimism.

In Section 1.1.2, we describe the variables weexamined as possible predictors of academic opti-mism—classroom context (defined in terms ofstudent characteristics), teachers’ beliefs aboutclassroom management and about teaching, tea-chers’ citizenship behaviour, and teachers’ disposi-tional optimism.

1.1.2. Classroom context

The students in a classroom are a major contextin which teachers work. Three characteristics ofstudents, SES, ethnicity, and disability status, wereincluded in this study.

Students’ socioeconomic status: American childrenfrom higher socioeconomic socioeconomic status(SES) families show higher average levels ofachievement on test scores and stay in school longerthan children from lower-SES families (Boyle,Georgiades, Mustard, & Racine, 2007; Gutman,Sameroff, & Cole, 2003). Poor children are at leasttwice as likely as non-poor children to be keptback in school. The longer the child is in poverty,the stronger the impact on achievement. Forexample, even when we take into account parents’education, the chance that children will be retainedin grades or placed in special education increases by

sis

Teacher’s Sense ofEfficacy

cher’s sense of efficacy in reciprocal causality with each other.


2–3% for every year the children live in poverty(Ackerman & Brown, 2006; Bronfenbrenner,McClelland, Wethington, Moen, & Ceci, 1996;Sherman, 1994). Children born into poverty tendto be more frail and sick more often. They exhibitmore neurological problems and other conditionsleading to a shorter life expectancy, poor physicalhealth, homelessness, and multiple other disablingconditions (Hardman, Drew, & Egan, 2006).

Because SES is related to achievement in schooland because poverty presents so many obstacles toschool achievement, teachers with more low-SESstudents in their classes may be less optimistic abouttheir abilities to be successful. For example,Alvidrez and Weinstein (1999) found that teacherswere more likely to rate children from higher SES ashaving a higher IQ. These findings remained evenafter controlling for children’s actual IQ.

Students with IEP/504 plans: In the United Statesin 1975, the Education for All HandicappedChildren Act (Public Law 94–142) made a freeand appropriate education available to all students.Even though Public Law 94–142 has been revisedmany times in the last 30 years, the goal ofproviding all students with equal access to high-quality education remains the same. Today, the lawis called the Individuals with Disabilities EducationAct (IDEA). One of the provisions of IDEA is awritten plan for each eligible student, called anIndividualized Education Program (IEP). Otherstudents not qualifying for an IEP receive specialaccommodations based on Section 504 of theVocational Rehabilitation Act, which requiresschool officials and teachers to provide for reason-able accommodations or modifications as a meansto ‘‘create a fair and level playing field’’ (Hardmanet al., 2006, p. 48) for students who have conditionssuch as HIV, heart disease, or drug addiction, butare not covered by IDEA. For the purposes of thisstudy, students who have either IEP or 504 plans aredesignated ‘‘students with accommodations.’’

Even though the law mandates classrooms opentheir doors to provide high-quality education for allstudents, not all American teachers believe that theyhave the knowledge, skills, or dispositions to enactthe mandates (Kurz, Paul, Harriott-White, & Skon,2006). In 1996, Scruggs and Mastropieri reviewed28 survey studies (1958–1995) of teachers’ attitudestowards integrating disabled students into regulareducation classes. The conclusion of the review wasthat about 66% of respondents supported integra-tion, but not all the teachers were willing to

implement integration in their classrooms and onlyone-third believed that they had the training, time,or resources necessary for integration. Garriott,Miller, and Snyder (2003) found that even thoughmost of the preservice teachers they surveyed hadpositive attitudes towards inclusion, almost half ofthem thought that students with mild disabilitieswere best served in special education classrooms.Teachers have also expressed concern regardingwhether the time and attention needed for effectiveinstruction of students with significant disabilitieswould be provided at the expense of other studentsin their classes, and if disabled students wouldobtain the individual attention they need (Downing,Eichinger, & Williams, 1997; Garriott et al., 2003).Therefore, it is possible that teachers feel unpre-pared to succeed in their work with students withdisabilities and this challenge could affect teachers’academic optimism.

Student ethnicity: In the United States, the vastmajority of teachers are white, whereas almost 40%of students represent minority populations (Nieto,2005). Thus, the possibility exists for misunder-standings and cultural clashes in the classroomwhen teachers and their students do not share acommon cultural heritage. Findings regardingteachers’ confidence in their knowledge of or abilityto work with diverse populations are not clear.Some preservice teachers with limited experience indiverse settings report little or no confidence(Causey, Thomas, & Armento, 2000), whereasothers indicate clear confidence (Gilbert, 1997).But this optimism about abilities to serve diversepopulations may not be based on an understandingof diverse students and settings (Causey et al., 2000;Taylor & Sobel, 2001). Prior experience (or sharedgroup membership) with people of diverse back-grounds tends to increase confidence (Bakari, 2003;Causey et al., 2000; Taylor & Sobel, 2001). Tiezziand Cross (1997) found that preservice teacherstended to characterize White children as ‘‘smartestand easiest to teach’’ (p. 120). Saft and Pianta (2001)found that similar teacher/student ethnic back-ground resulted in stronger, more supportiverelationships and fewer teacher referrals to specialeducation services. These finding suggest thatteachers may be less optimistic about their abilitiesto succeed with students from diverse backgrounds.

1.1.3. Classroom management: custodial to humanistic

In 1967, Willower, Eidell, and Hoy conceptua-lized teachers’ beliefs about classroom management


along a continuum from custodial to humanistic.Custodial teachers’ ‘‘view students as irresponsibleand undisciplined individuals who must be con-trolled by punitive sanctions’’ (Hoy, 2001, p. 425).Custodial teachers tend to embrace traditionalteaching methods. Teachers prejudge students basedon their appearance, family background, andbehaviour, which could lead to pessimistic judg-ments for some students.

Humanistic teachers, on the other hand, seetheir classroom as one that fosters interpersonalrelationships. Teachers encourage students to be-come self-disciplined and self-regulated (Hoy,2001). The teachers are concerned with the causesof the misbehaviour rather than simply insuringthat students conform to classroom rules andprocedures. As Hoy notes, ‘‘A humanistic orienta-tion is marked by optimism, openness, flexibility,understanding, and increased student self-determi-nation’’ (p. 426). Humanistic teachers embraceinstructional patterns consistent with student-centred classrooms, in part, because they trust theirstudents.

1.1.4. Student-centred teaching beliefs and practices

Teachers’ instructional choices tend to mirrortheir beliefs about how students learn best. Student-centred, constructivist teachers concern themselveswith the process of learning, in particular howlearning occurs. Because student-centred teachersconcern themselves with the process of learning,they do not use criterion assessment measures as theprimary mode of ensuring students are learning.They believe that all students can learn and adaptinstructional plans based on the needs of thestudents.

There are several interpretations of what con-structivist teaching involves, but, ‘‘most agree that itinvolves a dramatic change in the focus of teaching,putting the students’ own efforts to understand atthe centre of the educational enterprise’’ (Prawat,1992, p. 357). Student ownership does not meanthat the teacher abandons responsibility for instruc-tion, but it does mean that teachers are attuned totheir students’ interests, abilities, knowledge, andneeds. Almost by definition, teachers who believe incentring their teaching on their students must trusttheir students to cooperate in the teaching–learningprocess. These teachers also must trust their ownabilities to support student learning. Thus, student-centred teachers also might be optimistic about theirown teaching and their students’ learning.

1.1.5. Individual citizenship behaviour

Individual citizenship behaviour describes volun-tary and discretionary behaviour of teachers thatexceeds the formal expectations of the job. Asteacher professionals, one would expect that some,if not many, teachers would be committed to servestudents and go beyond the job requirements to helpstudents achieve. Citizenship behaviour refers ateacher’s willingness to ‘‘go the extra mile’’ to ensurethat students succeed. Such teachers help studentson their own time, make it easy for parents to workwith them, and use class time efficiently. The notionof individual citizenship behaviour is similar to theconstruct of organizational citizenship in whichteachers are conscientious about their teaching,altruistic in their behaviour, courteous, and com-mitted to the civic virtue of helping others (DiPaola& Hoy, 2005b). Moreover, at the school level theconcept is related to school achievement (DiPaola &Hoy, 2005a) as well as academic press andorganizational trust (DiPaola & Hoy, 2005b).Teachers are serious, give high priority to profes-sional matters, and use their talents to help theirstudents and school achieve. We expect thatindividual citizenship behaviour of teachers ispositively related to efficacy, trust, and academicemphasis and hence to academic optimism.

1.1.6. Dispositional optimism

Optimism has been conceived and studied as apersonal disposition—a tendency to believe that onewill generally experience good outcomes in life andavoid bad outcomes (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi,2000). Much of the research in this tradition inpsychology and medicine has used the Life Orienta-

tion Test (LOT), developed by Scheier and Carver(1985) as a measure of dispositional optimism(Andersson, 1996; Vautier, Raufaste, & Cariou,2003). Andersson’s meta-analytic review of 56studies using the LOT found that optimism ishighly significantly associated with measures ofcoping and stress, reports of psychological symp-toms such as depression, self-reports of negativeaffect as well as health and recovery from disease.Thus it appears that optimism is a measurablepersonal characteristic.

1.2. Hypotheses

Based on the theory and research just reviewed,we summarize the empirical purpose of this study inthe form of a set of hypotheses.


H.1. Teacher self-efficacy, teacher’s trust in parentsand students, and teacher academic emphasis forma more general construct called academic optimism.

H.2. The classroom context (student socioeconomicstatus, number of students with accommodations,and number of students from ethnic and racialminorities) is related to academic optimism.

H.3. Humanistic classroom management beliefs ofteachers are positively related to individual aca-demic optimism.

H.4. Student-centred teaching beliefs and practicesare positively related to individual academic opti-mism.

H.5. Individual citizenship behaviour of the teacheris positively related to individual academic opti-mism.

H.6. Academic optimism is positively related to thegeneral personal disposition of optimism.

We also hypothesize that:

H.7. Classroom context, humanistic management,student-centred teaching, citizenship behaviour, anddispositional optimism together form a linearcombination that promotes even a stronger senseof academic optimism.

In brief, teachers who believe in the potential ofall students, make management and instructionaldecisions aligned with these expectations, and arecommitted to the success of their students will bemore academically optimistic.

2. Methods

This study examined teachers’ academic opti-mism, specifically whether academic optimism couldbe construed as an individual teacher belief, and, ifso, what teacher characteristics might predictacademic optimism. To address these two generalissues, we created a questionnaire using existingitems from some established measures assessingteachers’ sense of efficacy, trust in students andparents, academic emphasis, beliefs about manage-ment and teaching, individual citizenship behaviour,and a set of demographic questions about teachersand their classrooms.

2.1. Sample and participants

The names and addresses of the 2045 schools inOhio with 3rd and/or 4th grade classes wereacquired from the Ohio Department of Education’sdatabase. We then selected a random sample of 350schools, which included approximately 17.1% of theschools with 3rd and/or 4th grade classrooms in thestate. From this initial group, a total of 220 schoolsagreed to allow their teachers to participate. One3rd and one 4th grade teacher were selected atrandom from each school to receive a questionnaireassessing the variables in the study for a total of 351teachers (some schools had only 3rd or 4th gradeteachers). Questionnaires were sent via US mail.When teachers completed the survey instrument,they returned two items: the anonymous question-naire in one envelope and a postcard with anidentification number indicating that their ques-tionnaire was returned. Thus we protected theteachers’ anonymity and could not associate theirnames with their responses. Also, we were able toidentify non-responders so that they could becontacted and asked again to participate, asdescribed next.

Teachers who did not complete questionnaireswere sent a reminder postcard after 20 days, then anentirely new packet with the questionnaire 14 dayslater, and then a second reminder postcard 28 dayslater. Using all these procedures, a total of 187teachers returned useable questionnaires, afterremoving the questionnaires of teachers who leftmore than 33% of the items blank and those whowere no longer teaching. Finally, the remainingnon-responders received a questionnaire 2 monthslater to allow us to compare non-responders withresponders (18 returned useable questionnaires).There were no significant differences on any of thevariables between the 187 teachers who respondedto the first mailings and the 18 who returnedquestionnaires after the 2-month period, so wemerged all 205 teachers for the study.

2.2. Instruments and measured variables

Teachers completed anonymous 71-item surveysassessing academic optimism (teacher efficacy, trust,and academic emphasis), beliefs about instructionand management, individual citizenship, and demo-graphic questions about their background and theirclassroom characteristics. The items assessing trust,academic emphasis, and individual citizenship were

ARTICLE IN PRESSA.W. Hoy et al. / Teaching and Teach

adapted from measures of school-level variables.Because the unit of analysis for this study was theteacher, we reworded the trust, academic emphasis,and individual citizenship items to focus on theindividual teacher (e.g., ‘‘I trusty’’ rather than‘‘The teachers in this school trusty’’) and refinedthem in a preliminary pilot study.

Classroom context: The classroom context vari-ables were SES (students qualifying for free/reducedlunch), students with accommodations, and stu-dents from racial and ethnic groups. Note that SESis the percentage of students on free/reduced lunch;hence, the higher the score, the lower the SES.

Each of these variables was based on teacherreports of the number of students in each categoryin the teacher’s classroom and was computed as apercentage based on the total number of students ina classroom—also reported by the teacher.

Teacher’s sense of academic optimism: We theo-rized that academic optimism at the teacher levelwould be made up of teachers’ sense of efficacy,their trust in students and parents, and theiracademic emphasis.

Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs were measuredusing the short form of the Teacher Sense of

Efficacy Scale (TSES) (Tschannen-Moran & Wool-folk Hoy, 2001). This measure consists of 12 items,assessed along a 9-point continuum with anchors at1—Nothing, 3—Very Little, 5—Some Influence,7—Quite A Bit, and 9—A Great Deal, and is scoredsuch that the higher the score, the greater theefficacy. The scale includes three 4-item subscales:Efficacy for Instructional Strategies, Efficacy for

Classroom Management, and Efficacy for Student

Engagement. In previous research, reliabilities forthe full scale have ranged from .92 to .95, and forthe subscales from .86 to .90. Sample items includethe following:

Efficacy for Instructional Strategies

�
To what extent can you provide an alternativeexplanation or example when students are con-fused? � How well can you implement alternative teaching
strategies in your classroom?

Efficacy for Classroom Management

�
How much can you do to control disruptivebehaviour in the classroom? � How much can you do to get students to follow
classroom rules?

Efficacy for Student Engagement

er Education 24 (2008) 821–835 827

�
How much can you do to motivate students whoshow low interest in schoolwork? � How much can you do to help your students
value school work?

a-Reliabilities in this study were TSES totalscale ¼ .92; subscales for management, instruction,and engagement ¼ .82, .89, and .80, respectively.Both the long and short versions of the TSES areavailable at http://www.coe.ohio-state.edu/ahoy/researchinstruments.htm.

To measure teachers’ trust in students andparents, we used one subtest from the Omnibus

T-Scale (OTS: Hoy & Tschannen-Moran, 2003), thefaculty trust in clients subtest. In particular, thissubtest focused on teachers’ trust in both studentsand parents. For the purpose of this study, itemswere reworded to facilitate looking at an individualteacher’s trust. A sample item is, ‘‘I trust mystudents.’’ See Appendix for all the items.

The items on the trust instrument are scored usinga 6-point scale from ‘‘strongly disagree’’ (1) to‘‘strongly agree’’ (6); the higher the score, thegreater the trust. In previous research, the reliabilityfor the Omnibus Trust Scale ranged from .90 to .98.The a-reliability for the individual level teacher trustscale in this study was .83.

To measure academic emphasis, we used onesubtest from the Organizational Climate Index

(OCI) created by Hoy, Sweetland, and Smith(2002) that specifically focused on ‘‘achievementpress’’ (otherwise known as academic emphasis).For this study, items were reworded to facilitatelooking at the academic emphasis from an indivi-dual teachers’ perspective. An example item is, ‘‘Mystudents respect their classmates who get goodgrades.’’ See the Appendix for all the items. Theseitems are scored on a 6-point scale from ‘‘stronglydisagree’’ (1) to ‘‘strongly agree’’ (6); the higherthe score, the greater the academic emphasis. Thea-reliability of the academic emphasis measure inthis study was .60. This was the lowest reliability forany of the measures.

Beliefs about management: To measure teachers’beliefs about classroom management, a 10-itemform (Capa, 2005) of the Pupil Control Ideology

(PCI) was used (Hoy, 2001; Willower, Eidell, &Hoy, 1967). This instrument conceptualizes tea-chers’ beliefs about management along a continuumfrom custodial to humanistic. We scored the itemson the PCI on a 6-point scale from ‘‘strongly

http://www.coe.ohio-state.edu/ahoy/researchinstruments.htm

http://www.coe.ohio-state.edu/ahoy/researchinstruments.htm


disagree’’ (6) to ‘‘strongly agree’’ (1) so that thehigher the score, the more humanistic the manage-ment style. The reliability of the PCI in this studywas .65. An example item is ‘‘Pupils are usually notcapable of solving their problems through logicalreasoning.’’ See the Appendix for all the items.

Instructional beliefs and practices: To assessteachers’ instructional beliefs and practices, we usedthe 7-item Constructivist Teaching subscale of theTeacher’s Belief Survey (TBS: Woolley, Benjamin, &Woolley, 2004). The items on the TBS are on a 6-point scale from ‘‘strongly disagree’’ (1) to ‘‘stronglyagree’’ (6) and scored such that the higher the score,the more student-centred. A sample item from thesubscale is ‘‘I make it a priority in my classroom togive students time to work together when I am notdirecting them.’’ See the Appendix for all the items.The reliability of the scale for the present samplewas .72.

Citizenship behaviour: To measure a teacher’scitizenship behaviour, the Organizational Citizen-

ship Behaviour Scale (OCB: DiPaola & Hoy, 2005a,2005b; DiPaola & Tschannen-Moran, 2001) wasmodified to access teacher-level beliefs. The items onthe instrument reflect a teacher’s willingness to ‘‘gothe extra mile’’ to ensure that students’ succeed. Anexample item is ‘‘I help students during my owntime.’’ In addition, we added the 3 items from theTBS (Woolley et al., 2004) Constructivist Parentscale. These items are consistent with the individualcitizenship construct of going the extra mile forstudents. An example item is, ‘‘I make it easy forparents to contact me at school or home.’’ All theitems are on a 6-point scale from ‘‘stronglydisagree’’ (1) to ‘‘strongly agree’’ (6) and scoredsuch that the higher the score, the greater thecitizenship.

As a measure of organizational level citizenship,the OCB has a consistently high reliability (.86–.93),and the construct validity was supported in 3separate factor analyses (DiPaola & Hoy, 2005a,2005b). Reliability in this study adapted the OCB tothe individual teacher level and added parent itemsfrom the TBS was .69. See the Appendix for all theitems.

Dispositional optimism: To measure optimism as apersonal disposition, we used the Life Orientation

Test (Scheier & Carver, 1985). This scale has 8 itemsincluding 4 optimism items (e.g., ‘‘I am optimisticabout my future’’) and 4 pessimism items (e.g., ‘‘Ihardly ever expect things to go my way’’). Based ona factor analysis, we retained 3 optimism and 3

pessimism items (see Appendix for the items). Theitems are on a 6-point scale from ‘‘stronglydisagree’’ (1) to ‘‘strongly agree’’ (6) and scoredsuch that the higher the score, the greater thegreater the optimism. The a-reliability for the 6-itemscale was .84.

3. Results

Demographic information gathered with thequestionnaire is summarized in Table 1. The meansfor sense of efficacy, academic emphasis, individualcitizenship, trust, pupil control, and student-centredteaching are reported as item means for therespective scales. All scales except sense of efficacyhave items ranging from 1 to 6. Items for sense ofefficacy range from 1 to 9.

Participants’ years of teaching experience rangedfrom 1 to 55 years with a mean of 17.4 years. Asnoted in Table 2, this is slightly more experiencedthan the state average for teachers of 14 years, butlikely was skewed by the teacher with 55 years ofexperience. Almost 70% of the teachers in the studyhad advanced degrees compared with 49% in thestate. The students in these teachers’ classroomswere fairly representative of Ohio students in termsof SES (sample ¼ 31% low SES, state ¼ 30%),minority background (sample ¼ 22%, state ¼22.7%), and students with accommodations (sample¼ 15%; state ¼ 13.5%).The teachers in this study self-identified their

schools as urban (26.6%), suburban (36.2%), orrural (37.2%). The percentages represent a relativelyequal distribution of sample participants acrossschool settings. In addition, teachers reported anaverage of 21.7 students in their classroom(SD ¼ 3.72). Most teachers taught multiple sub-jects: 87.2% taught language arts, 80.5% taughtmathematics, 88.7% taught social studies, and49.7% taught other subjects. Thus, the data samplerepresented a wide range of teacher experience andclassroom contexts.

3.1. The construct of academic optimism

To test the first hypothesis that teachers’ sense ofefficacy, trust in parents and students, and academicemphasis form a general construct called academicoptimism, we performed a second-order principalcomponents analysis using the teachers’ meanstandardized scores for trust, academic emphasis,and total teacher efficacy, As expected we found one

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Table 2

Study sample and state-wide teacher and student characteristics

Teacher/student characteristic Study State

Teacher years of experience 17.4 14

Teachers with advanced degrees (%) 69.5 48.6

Students from low SES homes (%) 31 30

Students with minority backgrounds (%) 22 22.7

Students with accommodations (%) 15 13.5

Table 1

Descriptive statistics for teacher and classroom variables

Variablea Minimum Maximum Mean Standard deviation

Teacher variables

Sense of efficacy 5.08 9.00 7.55 .92

Academic emphasis 2.33 5.80 4.05 .66

Individual citizenship 2.14 6.00 5.10 .58

Trust 1.83 5.83 4.28 .77

Humanistic management 2.60 5.70 4.12 .61

Student-centred teaching 2.67 5.90 4.41 .64

Experience 0 55 17.46 10.60

Classroom variables

Class size 10 35 21.74 3.72

Free/reduced lunch 0 35 3.14 5.39

Minority students 0 35 4.75 1.19

Students with Accommodations 0 15 3.26 2.81

aNote: All study variables are reported as item means for the given scales. Sense of efficacy items range from 1 to 9. Academic emphasis,

trust, individual citizenship, humanistic management, and student-centred teaching items range from 1 to 6.

A.W. Hoy et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 821–835 829

strong factor, which we labelled academic optimism,accounting for 67% of the variance. The three scalesloaded .86, .85, and .73, respectively, on the firstcomponent (academic optimism). Thus, our theorythat efficacy, trust, and academic emphasis wouldform a second-order latent construct of individualteacher academic optimism was supported. There-fore, in subsequent analyses, we used the factorscore as our measure of academic optimism.

3.2. Predictors of academic optimism

To examine predictors of academic optimism atthe teacher level, we computed both zero-ordercorrelations and then analysed the data using 2multiple regressions.

Zero-order correlations: To test the hypothesesthat classroom context, humanistic classroom be-liefs, student-centred teaching beliefs, and indivi-dual citizenship are related to teachers’ academicoptimism, we calculated zero-order correlationsbetween all the variables. In terms of classroomcontext variables, SES of students in the teacher’s

class (defined by the percent qualifying for free/reduced lunch) and percentage of students fromminority backgrounds both were significantly nega-tively related to academic optimism (r ¼ �.43po.01 for SES and r ¼ �.21 po.01 for minority),but percentage of students with accommodations inthe class was not related to optimism. Three of theteacher beliefs and practices predictor variableswere significantly related to teacher’s sense ofacademic optimism, as predicted: for PCI (r ¼ .45po.01) the more humanistic, the more optimistic;for student-centred teaching (r ¼ .45 po.01) themore student-centred, the more optimistic; and forindividual citizenship (r ¼ .33 po.01) the greaterthe citizenship behaviour, the more optimistic. Asexpected, there was a significant relationship be-tween dispositional optimism and academic opti-mism (r ¼ .30, po.01). Finally, neither teacheryears of experience nor highest degree attainedwas related to teacher academic optimism.

Multiple regression analyses: As shown in Table 3,a multiple regression analysis evaluated how well theclassroom context variables predicted teachers’ levelof academic optimism. The linear combination ofclassroom context variables was significantly relatedto teachers’ level of academic optimism, F (3,191) ¼15.04, po.01. The multiple correlation coefficientwas .44, indicating that approximately 18% of thevariance in the sample can be accounted for by thelinear combination of the classroom context vari-ables. Also in Table 3, the relative strength ofthe individual predictors is presented. Only oneof the three classroom context variables had an

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Table 3

Regression of academic optimism on classroom variables

Model Unstandardized b Standardized b t Sig.

(Constant) .638 4.969 .000

Minority .142 .041 .520 .604

Students with accommodations �.436 �.054 �.813 .417

Socioeconomic status (SES)a �1.495 �.450 �5.623 .000

R ¼ .44 (po.01), Adjusted R2¼ .181.

aNote: SES is the percent of students on free/reduced lunch; hence, the higher the score, the lower the SES.

Table 4

Regression of academic optimism on SES and teacher belief variables

Model r Unstandardized b Standardized b t Sig.

(Constant) �2.529 �2.962 .004

Citizenship behaviour .33** .262 .155 2.302 .023

Humanistic management .45** .309 .190 2.747 .007

SESa �.43** �1.029 �.309 �4.888 .000

Student-centred teaching .45** .357 .264 3.793 .000

Dispositional optimism .30** .199 .147 2.193 .030

R ¼ .664 (po.01), adjusted R2¼ .423.

aNote: SES is the percentage of students on free/reduced lunch; hence, the higher the score, the lower the SES.

A.W. Hoy et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 821–835830

independent effect on teachers’ academic optimism;the percent of students qualifying for free or reducedlunch (b ¼ �.450, po.01) was significantly related toacademic optimism, controlling for all the othervariables in the regression. Thus Hypothesis 2received some support; the context variables ex-plained 18% of the variance in academic optimism.

Because SES was the only classroom contextvariable that had an independent effect on academicoptimism, it was retained as a control variable in themultiple regression analysis of teacher variablespredicting academic optimism. As shown in Table4, and consistent with our hypotheses, each of theteacher variables was significantly related to aca-demic optimism controlling for each of the otherpredictors as well as student SES: for Humanisticmanagement (b ¼ .19, po.01), for student-centredteaching (b ¼ .26 po.01), for individual citizenship(b ¼ .15 po.01), and dispositional optimism(b ¼ .15 po.01). Finally, the predictor variablestogether with SES had a multiple R of .67, whichexplained 42% of the variance in academic optimism.

3.3. Serendipitous findings

Two other relationships were explored. Teachers’sense of academic optimism was positively relatedto the teachers’ estimates of how their students

would perform on the state achievement/proficiencytests (r ¼ .24, po.01). Therefore, when teacherspossessed a sense of academic optimism, theybelieved that their students would score higher onthe state examinations, which suggests that aca-demic optimism may be related to student achieve-ment (Hoy et al., 2006; McGuigan & Hoy, 2006).

A significant relationship was found between thelocation of the school (urban, rural, or suburban)and teachers’ sense of academic optimism (r ¼ .17,po.05). Urban teachers tended to respond withlower levels of academic optimism than rural andsuburban teachers, but the correlation is so small asto suggest little practical significance.

4. Discussion

This study is the first to examine academicoptimism at the teacher level. Our findings suggestthat the construct is potentially important andworthy of further study. We now summarize theimplications of what we found and describe ques-tions for future research.

4.1. Implications: defining academic optimism

Our first hypothesis was supported. In particular,the principal components analysis demonstrated the


utility of our theory; teacher’s sense of efficacy,teacher trust in parents and students, and individualacademic emphasis combined, as hypothesized, toform a single, strong second-order factor—teacher’sacademic optimism. The findings at the individuallevel were the same as those at the school level (Hoyet al., 2006). Recall that teacher efficacy is acognitive aspect of academic optimism, the thinkingand believing side; teacher trust in students andparents is the affective and emotional side of thegeneral construct; and teacher academic emphasis isthe behavioural side, that is, the enactment of thecognitive and affective into actions.

Academic optimism was related both to theteacher’s dispositional optimism and to predictionsabout student performance on the yearly achieve-ment testing. Although these relationships were notsurprising, they provide some corroboration for thevalidity of the construct. It would have beendisconcerting if academic optimism were not relatedto dispositional optimism, but clearly there is moreto being an academically optimistic teacher thansimply having a positive attitude toward life.Dispositional optimism is only a small part ofacademic optimism; in fact, of the four teachervariables, dispositional optimism had the weakestrelationship with academic optimism.

Being predisposed to optimism does not guaran-tee high academic optimism. Rather, the profile ofthe academically optimistic teacher is one whomanages students in humanistic and trusting ways,involves students in planning and evaluating theirown work, uses informal assessments, welcomesparents in the classroom, and goes the extra miles togive time, energy, and help to students. In brief,academic optimism describes teachers who areengaged, committed, energetic, resilient, and con-scientious in the pursuit of student achievement.They do so through cooperation and connectionsrather than with pressures and punishments.

The predicted relations between classroom con-text variables and academic optimism were onlypartial supported, but nonetheless, the findings areencouraging. In our regression analysis, the onlyclassroom context variable related to academicoptimism was socioeconomic status of the students;the higher the SES of students, the higher theacademic optimism of teachers. The finding againunderscores the negative power of SES; in this casea modest influence, but a negative force to beovercome nonetheless. Neither the number ofstudents from ethnic and racial minorities nor the

number of students with accommodations (studentswith disabilities) was related to academic optimism;the culprit in reducing academic optimism is likelypoverty and not ethnic or racial factors or studentdisabilities. Further evidence of this conclusion isthe negative correlation between urbanicity ofschools and academic optimism; the more urbanthe school, the lower the academic optimism of theteachers.

The four teacher variables—dispositional opti-mism, humanistic classroom management, student-centred teaching, and teacher citizenship beha-viour—that we selected to predict academic opti-mism of teachers were all significant predictors. Ofcourse, the strength of the correlations could havebeen exaggerated by the fact that all the variableswere measured with the same instrument. Never-theless, the findings were supported by both simplecorrelational analysis and multiple regression ana-lysis. Each of the teacher variables, holding constantthe effects of SES and all of the others, made asignificant contribution to the variance in teacheracademic optimism. Moreover, after entering SESin the regression equation, the four teacher variablescombined to explain a substantial portion of thevariance (about one-third) in academic optimism.Dispositional optimism, humanistic classroom man-agement beliefs, student-centred teaching beliefsand practices, and teacher citizenship behaviourssupport academic optimism.

4.2. Directions for future research

The traditional view of achievement in schools isthat success is a function of talent and motivation;the talented and motivated are high achievers.Seligman (2006) offers a third factor of success—optimism. He argues that optimism matters as muchas talent or motivation in achievement. Further,optimism can be learned and developed. Clearly,learned optimism is an individual variable (Selig-man, 2006) and so is the academic optimism ofteachers. We anticipate that many of the conclu-sions about individual learned optimism can beapplied to academic optimism of teachers. Further,we theorize that optimism begets optimism, andthat teacher academic optimism begets studentacademic optimism. Of course, this is a hypothesisin need of empirical testing.

Our measure of academic emphasis at theindividual level, an element of a teacher’s academicoptimism, needs more development and refinement;


its reliability was only .60 compared with efficacy(.92) and trust (.83). In the next iteration of themeasurement of academic optimism, we need towrite additional items for teacher academic empha-sis that are consistent with the concept and improvethe reliability of its measure. Then, we will be readyto do a confirmatory factor analysis of the latentconstruct of academic optimism. Further, if futurefindings continue to track those at the school level,we should find that academic optimism of theteacher is an important force in promoting highstudent achievement, a finding that would beconsistent with Seligman’s emphasis on the positiveand possible rather on the negative and deficits. Theconnections between student achievement and bothindividual and collective academic optimism areobvious areas for further study.

We have found five predictors of academicoptimism that explain about two-thirds of thevariance, which leaves another one-third to beexplained. What other student or teacher variablesmight be added to this set to explain even more ofthe variation in academic optimism? For example,to what extent are student characteristics such asability or engagement related to teachers’ academicoptimism. It is possible that teachers are moreoptimistic when working with motivated and ablestudents. What about teacher personality character-istics such as openness, tolerance, conscientiousness,and extroversion related to academic optimism? Isteacher grade-level related to teacher academicoptimism? What elements of the teacher’s prepara-tion programme provide a foundation for buildingteacher academic optimism? We have barelyscratched the surface in this exploratory first thrust.

This research has focused on the teacher, but theteacher functions in the context of the broaderschool social system. We expect that the factorsrelated to teachers’ academic optimism are anamalgam of personal, class, and school levelinfluences. For example, academic optimism islikely both affected by and affects the collectiveacademic optimism of the school. To what extentdoes collective academic optimism of a schoolinfluence teacher academic optimism? Optimisticnorms in a school should reinforce individualtendencies to be optimistic just as a pessimisticfaculty would dampen individual teacher’s opti-mism. Other school characteristics may well berelated to optimism at both the individual andcollective levels. For example, principals whodevelop structures and procedures to enable the

teachers to do their jobs influence the collectiveacademic optimism of the school (McGuigan &Hoy, 2006). We expect similar consequences at theindividual level. Moreover, professional learningcommunities could either support or undermine thedevelopment of academic optimism. What are theeffects of accountability requirements, such as theNo Child Behind Act in the United States, oncollective and individual optimism? In this era oftesting and accountability, some schools have morereasons for optimism in the form of higher testscores—perhaps school performance affects indivi-dual teacher’s optimism. These are only a fewresearch questions generated by the construct ofacademic optimism. In the school context, it wouldbe useful to examine both individual and collectivevariables simultaneously and that would requireresearch designs that make use of hierarchical linearand structural equation modelling.

This was an exploratory study of a new constructin one state of the United States. Future researchshould study teachers in other cultural and geo-graphic settings to determine if the concept ofacademic optimism is useful in different contexts.The instruments used to assess dispositional opti-mism in this study have been administered in manydifferent cultural groups, and some differencesidentified. For example, in one study, AsianAmerican college students were found to be morepessimistic than Caucasian Americans (Chang,1996), whereas Ji, Zhang, Usborne, and Guan(2004) found Chinese students in Beijing to be moreoptimistic than European Canadian students. Weurge researchers to use the instruments from thisstudy in a variety of contexts. We expect similarresults in most industrialized countries, but ofcourse, that is an empirical question.

Finally, it might be informative to identifyindividuals and schools that demonstrate differentlevels of academic optimism, and then do casestudies to explore other important influences in thedevelopment and enactment of academic optimism.Thick, rich descriptions of individual and schoolacademic optimism should enhance our under-standing of the construct and provide usefulpictures of practice for teachers and administrators.

5. Conclusion

Academic optimism is a rich picture of humanagency that explains teachers’ judgments in terms ofcognitive, affective, and behavioural dimensions.


Results of this exploratory study of individual teachersare consistent with earlier findings at the school level.

Efficacy, trust, and academic emphasis are keyelements in the general construct of academicoptimism. We have identified four teacher vari-ables—dispositional optimism, humanistic class-room management, student-centred teaching, andteacher citizenship behaviour—that are associatedwith the development of teacher’s academic opti-mism. This research, however, is simply a beginningin the effort to refine the concept and to identify itspossible sources. Academic optimism attempts tonurture what is best in teachers to enhance studentlearning. We believe that there is real value inpromoting promise, with its strength and resilience,rather than focusing on failure, with its weaknessand helplessness (Hoy et al., 2006).

Appendix A. Measures

Trust in Students and Parents

1.
I trust my students. 2. I trust the parents’ of my students. 3. My students’ parents are reliable in their
commitments.
4. I believe my students are competent learners. 5. I think that most of my students’ parents do a
good job raising their children.
6. I believe what my students’ parents tell me.
Academic Emphasis

1.
My students respect their classmates who getgood grades.
2.
My students are cooperative during classroominstruction.
3.
My students seek extra work so they can getgood grades.
4.
Students in my classroom can achieve the goalsthat I set for them.
5.
My students’ parents press for classroom im-provement.
6.
My students’ parents exert pressure to maintainhigh academic standards.
Life Orientation Test (Dispositional Optimism)

1.
I always look on the bright side of things. 2. I am optimistic about my future. 3. I hardly ever expect things to go my way.
(reversed)

4.
Things never work out the way I want them to.(reversed)
5.
Overall, I expect more good things to happen tome than bad.
6.
I rarely count on good things happening to me.(reversed)
Student-centred Beliefs and Practice

1.
I believe that expanding on students’ ideas is aneffective way to build my curriculum.
2.
I prefer to cluster students’ desks or use tables sothey can work together.
3.
I invite students to create many of my bulletinboards.
4.
I involve students in evaluating their own workand setting their own goals.
5.
I make it a priority in my classroom to givestudents time to work together when I am notdirecting them.
6.
I prefer to assess students informally throughobservations and conferences.
7.
I often create thematic units based on thestudents’ interests and ideas.
Beliefs about Classroom Management

1.
Too much pupil time is spent on guidance andactivities and too little on academic preparation.
2.
Pupils can be trusted to work together withoutsupervision. (reversed)
3.
Pupils often misbehave in order to make theteacher look bad.
4.
If a pupil uses an obscene or profane languagein school, it must be considered a moral offence.
5.
Being friendly with pupils often leads them tobecome too familiar.
6.
Student governments are a good ‘‘safety valve’’ butshould not have much influence on school policy.
7.
It is often necessary to remind pupils that theirstatus in school differs from that of teachers.
8.
Pupils cannot perceive the difference betweendemocracy and anarchy in the classroom.
9.
It is more important for pupils to learn to obeyrules than they make their own decisions.
10.
A few pupils are just young hoodlums andshould be treated accordingly.
Individual Citizenship Behaviour

1.
I serve on committees in this school. 2. I help students during my own time.


3.
I volunteer to mentor and assist new teachers. 4. I schedule personal appointments other than
school day.
5. I am rarely absent. 6. I make it easy for parents to contact me at school
or home.
7. I invite parents to volunteer in or visit my
classroom almost any time.

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teacher's academic optimism: the development and test of a new construct

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