School effectiveness research is strongly shaped by the search for school characteristics that influence student performance. In an attempt to integrate previous research on school effectiveness with special regard to children in disadvantaged positions, Hoy and his colleagues introduced the concept of academic optimism (Hoy et al., 2006). In their original elaboration, academic optimism is a construct that consists of three dimensions that have a reciprocal relationship: (1) collective efficacy, (2) trust and (3) academic emphasis (McGuigan & Hoy, 2006). Collective efficacy includes the shared perception of teachers that the team's efforts have a positive effect on their students (Goddard, Hoy, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2004). Trust is the willingness of the team to be vulnerable towards students and parents, based on the confidence that the latter will respond positively (Hoy & Tschannen-Moran, 2003). Academic emphasis encompasses the school’s focus on each student’s academic success (Hoy, 2012). 

Empirical studies have repeatedly found a strong positive correlation between academic optimism and student cognitive performance, (Boonen, Pinxten, Van Damme, & Onghena, 2014; Hoy, 2012; Hoy et al., 2006; McGuigan & Hoy, 2006; Mitchell, Mendiola, Schumacker, & Lowery, 2016; Straková et al., 2018; Wu & Lin, 2018). While, the strength of the concept ‘academic optimism’ is beyond dispute, questions of how the concept can be deepened and whether it is valid across educational contexts remain. For instance,  teacher academic optimism, as an individual quality of teachers, in addition to the collective counterpart was distinguished and added to the framework along the way (Woolfolk Hoy, Hoy, & Kurz, 2008). Teacher academic optimism can be described as an individual teacher’s positive attitude about their ability to teach, to build trusting relationships with students and their parents, and to promote academic emphasis (Beard, Hoy, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2010; Wu & Lin, 2018). Schools with a strong culture of academic optimism tend to have teachers with a strong sense of academic optimism (Hong, 2017; Wu & Lin, 2018), but so far little is known about the  interaction and coherence of teacher level academic optimism and school level academic optimism. A critical and comprehensive review of the concepts does raise conceptual questions that address the need to refine and revalidate the school and teacher academic optimism questionnaires. In particular we also question whether academic optimism can be viewed as a general characteristic that applies indiscriminately to all students and all school contexts. It is known for instance teachers have different expectations with regard to students with lower SES or migration background (Pit-ten Cate & Glock, 2018; Thys & Van Houtte, 2016; Wang, Rubie-Davies, & Meissel, 2018), and tend to perceive their relationships with these students as of inferior quality (Belfi, Gielen, De Fraine, Verschueren, & Meredith, 2015). Teachers also estimate less involvement of parents with low SES or migration background (Clycq, Nouwen, & Vandenbroucke, 2014), which makes it uncertain whether trust in students and their parents can be captured with one concept. And Straková et al. (2018) found that school academic optimism as a construct seemed to be less valid in more individualistic school contexts, where teachers work less together. 

Given the above considerations, the present study is guided by three questions: (1) how can we optimize school and teacher academic optimism for secondary schools with a wide diversity of students? (2) How can we operationalize this optimized conceptualization of academic optimism? And (3) how are these two constructs related to each other?  

Different steps were undertaken to refine and validate the school and teacher academic optimism-scales. First, an extended literature review led to a more profound conceptualization of both constructs. Trust in students and parents (one of the underlying dimensions) was redivided into two concepts, to allow nuance and comparison. Other adjustments were made at item- and scale level to maximize conceptual similarities (content validity). This resulted in 53 items, 28 to grasp teacher academic optimism (4 scales) and 25 to measure school academic optimism (4 scales). All items are scored at the same 7-point Likert scale, ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (7). To capture whether respondents understand the items as intended (cognitive validity), a thinking aloud procedure with teachers (n = 5) from secondary schools was conducted and led to some more refinements. Subsequently, a pilot study (n = 106) provided data to further improve the questionnaire. Exploratory Factor Analyses was conducted and Cronbach's alpha was rated to test the scales and reduce or reorganize items, if needed, to optimize construct validity and reliability. For teacher academic optimism this led to the creation of two new scales, as there seemed to be two kinds of trust in students and parents: trust in students or parents as such, but also trust in the learning orientation of students and parents. And so, the questionnaire for teacher academic optimism consists of 29 items, subdivided into 6 scales: teacher efficacy, teacher trust in students, teacher trust in students’ learning orientation, teacher trust in parents, teacher trust in parents’ learning orientation and teacher academic emphasis. The questionnaire for school academic optimism consists of 19 items, subdivided into 4 scales: collective efficacy, faculty trust in students, faculty trust in parents and academic emphasis. Cronbach’s alpha showed acceptable (

Preliminary results indicate a good model fit for both the teacher and the school academic optimism construct. The 6-factor CFA model for teacher academic optimism fitted well with the observed data. RMSEA (.062) and CFI (.911) are respectively well below the cut-off value of .08 and above the cut-off value of .90, which indicates an acceptable fit. The 4-factor CFA-model for school academic optimism had a good fit too. To further improve this model fit error covariances were added between items 2 and 3 for collective efficacy, item 4 for faculty trust in students and item 4 for faculty trust in parents, and items 2 and 3 for collective academic emphasis. Fit indices RMSEA (.075) and CFI (.932) support the model. Almost all factor loadings were of acceptable to meaningful strength. For teacher academic optimism 16 items were above .70, 12 items between .50 and .70, and only one item had a factor loading of .45, narrowly missing the proposed .50 cut-off value. School academic optimism has a similar image: 12 items were above .70, five items between .50 and .70, and two items only slightly missing the proposed .50 cut-off value with factor loadings of .49 and .47. Subsequently, the correlation matrix mainly shows average correlations, indicating the relatedness but also the difference between the factors. In summary, construct validity for both teacher and school academic optimism is shown. Furthermore, the examination of the internal consistency demonstrates the reliability of all the scales, as Cronbach’s alpha goes from .73 to .90. A more in-depth understanding and validated questionnaire of academic optimism is offered, as well as an analysis of the relationship between teacher and school academic optimism to evaluate the complementarity of both concepts. More results will be discussed in the presentation.

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