26 ANALYZING PARENT, STUDENT AND STAFF PERCEPTIONS OF SCHOOL CLIMATE AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO POSITIVE CULTURE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF A NORTH TEXAS SCHOOL DISTRICT Matthew C. Rainey, Ed.D. Journal of K-12 Educational Research 2024, VOL. 8, ISSUE 1 dbu.edu/doctoral/edd Introduction A positive school culture can be physically felt by anyone who enters a school (Shafer, 2018). Previous research indicates that positive school climates can influence students’ beliefs, behaviors, and relationships, ultimately leading to their success (Bear et al., 2014). Positive school culture is viewed as an important factor, and many researchers see it as the determining factor in student achievement and overall school improvement. Every school develops its own culture and then that culture defines the school’s daily operations (Barkley et al., 2014). The elements that comprise school culture are complex and range from the interactions in the teachers’ workroom or in the hallway, the cafeteria noise, and even the physical conditions of the building, such as the structure, heating, and cooling. The purpose of the current study was to explore the relationship between parents, teachers, and students’ perceptions of school culture within a large urban school district in North Texas and its impact on positive school culture on campus. The current mixed methods study uses historical quantitative data collected from Qualtrics surveys with qualitative data collected from seven elementary principals and two key informants to expand upon the quantitative data. Summary of Study For the current study, the researcher conducted a mixed methods study for the purpose of analyzing the relationship between student, staff, and parent perceptions of school culture, as measured by the Qualtrics surveys. The mixed methods study focused on a large urban school district located in the North Texas area, hereafter referred to as the District. The researcher collected quantitative data collected from the Qualtrics student, staff, and parent surveys to explore whether an alignment exists between student, staff, and parent perceptions of school culture. The survey data collected responses from a total of 13,121 individuals which included 6,754 elementary students in Grades 4 and 5, 5,003 parents, and 1,364 staff members from all 39 elementary schools’ participants from the April administration Qualtrics surveys for the 2022–2023 school year. The researcher created a scoring key for the Likert-type scale response items for each survey type to measure the scores for all items. A different scoring key was created due to varying response types for selected items. Each response was scored, and the total responses were averaged to provide a total mean for each campus data set. Particular questions were selected from the District Qualtrics surveys of students, staff, and parents that aligned with each of the four domains of school culture, which include academic, community, safety, and institutional environment (Wang & Degol, 2016). A total mean score was then calculated for all items within a study group for each campus, and all items in each study group were weighted equally. The analysis of the quantitative data addressed Research Questions 1 and 2.
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