How does accountability influence teachers’ organisational citizenship behaviour

Author(s):

Eyvind Elstad(presenting / submitting)Knut-Andreas Christopherseb Are Turmo

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

11. Educational Effectiveness and Quality Assurance

Format:

Poster

Session Information

11 SES 05.5 PS, General Poster Exhibition

General Poster Session during Lunch

Time:

2012-09-19

12:30-14:00

Room:

FCEE - Poster Exhibition Area

Chair:

Contribution

Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) involves discretionary behaviour advantageous to the organisation that goes beyond existing role expectations.

It is important that teachers are motivated to make an effort, above and beyond the minimum requirements, during the course of their professional practice. Therefore, the present study will explore the strength of accountability, and how accountability influences the nature of exchanges in the school organisation and the impact on OCB. Although OCB has generated much scholarly attention over the last three decades, research on organisational citizenship behaviour has mainly been neglected in educational research. However, some researchers use this approach in organisational studies of schools and have investigated several aspects of factors influencing OCB. The purpose of this article is to explore the link between the strength of accountability and teachers’ OCB within three different management systems in which teachers are working: (1) a system of assessment-based accountability; (2) a system of the gradual introduction of accountability devices; and (3) a system with no tests or examinations.

Method

Three separate electronic questionnaire surveys were carried out . The surveys were distributed via e-mail and non-responding teachers were sent reminders at least once. The surveys included the following groups of teachers: • 18 schools participating in a school development project in the Oslo municipality were invited to take part in a teacher survey. These schools are located in areas of differing socio-economic composition within Oslo. • A survey was distributed to all teachers working in the schools for adult immigrants in Norway (abbreviated Vox). • A survey was distributed to all teachers working in Norwegian folk high schools, (abbreviated FHS).Measurement instruments previously reported in the literature were adapted and translated into the Norwegian language. In the surveys, teachers responded to items on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from ‘Strongly disagree’ to ‘Strongly agree’, where alternative 4 represented a neutral mid-point. OCB was the dependent variable in our study. We used social exchange and economic exchange measures developed by Shore et al. (2006). Bryk and Schneider’s (2002) ‘teacher-principal relationship’ construct and a construct called Clear leadership were used.Structural equation modelling of cross-sectional surveys was used to estimate the path coefficients and to compare the strength of relationships .

Expected Outcomes

In all three sub-models, it was the path PT->SE->OCB that was the most significant in explaining antecedents of OCB. This was not surprising for the FHS, but was somewhat surprising in the case of the Oslo schools and Vox. A possible interpretation is that the quality of relationships amongst school professionals is the most central prerequisite for typical school quality-ensuring processes. If this is the case, it indicates a limitation of New Public Management (NPM) techniques, or at least a complementary quality for human relationships that a management system should take into account. Furthermore, the results showed that the relationship between clear leadership, social exchange, and OCB was much stronger in the Oslo sample than in FHS and Vox samples. The results further indicate that clear leadership had positive effects on both social exchange and economic exchange in the Oslo sample, while no corresponding positive effects were established in the FHS sample.The strength of accountability in education governance may influence OCB among teachers. The main implication of the study is, therefore, that educational administrators could benefit from exploring this issue to help the establishment of institutional arrangements. OCB among teachers is essential for the smooth functioning of schools.

References

Besley, T. and Ghatak, M. (2003), “Incentives, Choice, and Accountability in the Provision of Public Services”, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Vol.19 No.2, pp. 235-249. Bevan, G. and Hood, C. (2006), “What’s measured is what matters: Targets and gaming in the English public health care system”, Public Administration, Vol.84 No.3, pp. 517-538. Blunch, N. J. (2008), Introduction to Structural Equation Modelling using SPSS and AMOS, Sage Publications, London. Blau, P. (1964), Exchange and Power in Social Life, John Wiley and Sons, New York. Bogler, R. and Somech, A. (2004), “Influence of teacher empowerment on teachers’ organizational commitment, professional commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour in schools”, Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol. 20 No.3, pp. 277-289. Bragger, J. D., Rodriguez-Srednicki, O., Kutcher, E. J., Indovino, L. and Rosner, E. (2005), “Work-family conflict, work-family culture, and organizational citizenship behaviour among teachers”, Journal of Business and Psychology, Vol.20 No.2, pp. 303-324. Bryk, A. S. and Schneider, B. (2002), Trust in Schools. A core Resource for Improvement, Russel Sage Foundation, New York. Carnoy, M. and Loeb, S. (2003), “Does External Accountability Affect Student Outcomes? A Cross-State Analysis”, Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 305-331. Christ O., Dick, R. V., Wagner, U. and Stellmacher J. (2003), “When teachers go the extra mile: Foci of organizational identification as determinants of different forms of organizational citizenship behaviour among schoolteachers”, British Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 73 No.3, pp. 329-341. Christensen, T. and Laegreid, P. (2001), New Public Management: The Transformation of Ideas and Practice, Aldershot, Ashgate. Koretz, D. (2008), Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Shore, L. M., Tetrick, L. E., Lynch, P. and Barksdale, K. (2006), “Social and Economic Exchange: Construct Development and Validation”, Journal of Applied Social Psychology,

Author Information

Eyvind Elstad (presenting / submitting)

University of Oslo

Department of teacher education and school research

Oslo

Knut-Andreas Christopherseb

University of Oslo, Norway

Are Turmo