Editorial

Citation

Ross Thomas, A. (2009), "Editorial", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 47 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/jea.2009.07447daa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Educational Administration, Volume 47, Issue 4

Outstanding paper award

I am pleased to announce that, in the opinion of the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal, the W.G. Walker Outstanding Paper for Volume 46 (2008) is: “School context and individual characteristics: what influence principal practice?” by Ellen Goldring, Jason Huff, Henry May and Eric Camburn. The article appeared in Vol. 46 No. 3, pp. 332-52.

Highly commended is: “Forging the links between distributed leadership and educational outcomes” by Viviane M.J. Robinson. The article appeared in Vol. 46 No. 2, pp. 241-56.

Award for special issue

Each year Emerald Publishing acknowledges outstanding special issues published by its extensive portfolio of journals. It is indeed most pleasing to learn that one of the Journal of Educational Administration’s publications has been chosen as a Highly Commended Special Issue. Congratulations are due, therefore, to guest editor Alma Harris for her thematic issue “Distributed leadership through the looking glass” (Vol. 46 No. 2) and to the internationally-renowned authors who contributed the seven articles in this excellent issue.

Annual meeting of AERA

The annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) will be held in San Diego from April 13-17, 2009. Several members of the journal’s Editorial Advisory Board will be presenting papers to the meeting as well as participating in the annual meeting of the board. Details of this meeting, as well as a commentary on activities relating to research in educational administration, will be provided in the next issue of the journal (Vol. 47 No. 5, August 2009).

This issue

As is customary, this issue of the journal brings a powerful international “flavour” with articles contributed by authors in Israel, Taiwan, Australia, the UK and the USA. All six articles are research reports, five of which are quantitative in methodological approach and treatment.

The first article, contributed by Fidler, Jones and Makori, reports on a national study of school leaders in England all of whom were in their second primary school headship. Data were gathered via an initial survey and then a sample of telephone interviews. Three particular issues were addressed: the over-riding reasons for changing schools were to provide a fresh challenge and to prevent feelings of stagnation; choice of second headship most frequently hinged on movement to a larger school; and, with regard to their “second time’ experiences, heads generally considered themselves more effective and re-energised.

The concept of self-efficacy, focus of considerable contemporary research, undergoes further investigation in the next article by Lev and Koslowsky. Using data gathered from teachers in a sample of Israeli junior and senior high schools, the authors test hypotheses that relate teacher collective efficacy with the three components of self-efficacy – instructional, social and management. Collective and self-efficacy are found to be positively associated with teacher role moderating two components of self-efficacy – social and management. Staff members in managerial roles are found to have higher levels of self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy is also a key construct in the following article by McCormick and Ayres. In a follow-up study to research reported a year ago, the authors investigate teachers’ self-efficacy and occupational stress within the context of a large-scale curriculum reform in a large Australian state education system. The study produced a more parsimonious model of the related constructs than that which emerged in the previous study, but the earlier results were replicated, for example, understanding what was required by the reform was negatively associated with teachers’ self-efficacy for the new type of teaching, including the use of technology.

A total of 60 elementary schools in Taiwan provide the setting for the next article by Li and Hung which reports on parents’ loyalty within the educational context. The data from a survey of 1,200 parents, when subjected to structural equation modelling, reveal that selected marketing tactics – particularly promotional tactics – all significantly predict school image. In turn, school image is an effective predictor of parents’ behaviour. School image also mediates the relationship between marketing tactics and parents’ loyalty.

DiPaola and Neves next investigate the fascinating theme of organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB). Using respondents from teachers in American and Portuguese public high schools as data sources, the authors closely examine the relevance and applicability of the OCB scale. Contrary to the findings of several studies, DiPaola and Neves establish that the instrument reveals a single dimension that captures all aspects of organisational citizenship in schools – in both cultures. A bipolar construct emerges reflecting benefits to the organization (helping the school) and benefits to the individual (helping teachers).

The final article is contributed by Byrd and Eddy and emphasises the importance of improved statistical analyses and reporting in quantitative research in educational administration. As editor I have been in frequent contact with the senior author of this article and I express my thanks for his accommodating several of the suggestions I have made. Submitted originally at about the same time as an earlier and similar article of his was published in EAQ (Byrd, 2007), “From the field: a call for statistical reform in EAQ”, Educational Administration Quarterly, Vol. 43 No. 3, pp. 381-91), the article herein has undergone several amendments. Not the least of these has been a change in emphasis. Whereas the original paper accentuated essentially the important statistical obligations of researchers in our field, the final version devotes considerable space to a comparison of EAQ and JEA. One of the several relevant (additional) findings emerges from a comparison between the proportions of quantitative and qualitative methodologies employed in the articles in both journals. Throughout the ten-year period surveyed, for example, EAQ published relatively more qualitative articles and, conversely, JEA published more quantitative articles. For both journals the authors also identify the frequency of use of the various statistical formulae. The call from the authors is for both journals to adhere to the recommendation of the American Psychological Association (APA) and to require authors to report confidence intervals and effect sizes in future articles.

Six book reviews complete this issue of the journal.

A. Ross Thomas