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School Leadership and Teachers’ Attitudes towards School Change: The Case of High Schools in Greece

By Jasmin-Olga Sarafidou and Dimitrios I. Nikolaidis.

Published by The Learning Collection

The Principal’s role as facilitator of school change as well
as school climate and teachers’ previous experience of
school changes on teachers’ attitudes towards change were
investigated. Participants in this study were 318 high
school teachers working in urban and rural areas all over
Greece. Measurement instruments included: a) the Principals’
Change Facilitator Style Questionnaire (Hall & George,
1999), b) a scale based on the 18 items of the Attitudes
Towards Change Inventory by Dunham, et al.(1989) and 13
items from the Multidimensional Response to Planned Change
(Szabla, 2007) together with three subscales concerning the
cognitive, behavioral and affective attitudinal components,
following factor analysis, c) a 29-items questionnaire
assessing the school climate for change and innovation and
d)a scale assessing 9 different emotions resulting from past
experiences of school changes.
Perceptions of the principal as ‘responder’ to change (low
level of facilitation) were held by 33% of the teachers and
were associated with less positive attitudes towards school
change. Half of the teachers perceived their principal as
‘manager’ of change (medium level of facilitation) and only
17% as ‘initiator’. All three components of teachers’
attitudes towards change were significantly correlated with
the perceived degree of school change facilitation by the
school leader. Hierarchical regression showed that negative
emotions resulting from previous experience of changes in
school had a negative effect on teachers’ attitudes, after
controlling for the effect of leadership style.

The International Journal of Learning, Volume 16, Issue 8, pp.431-440. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 1.262MB).

Dr. Jasmin-Olga Sarafidou

Associate professor, Department of Primary Education, University of Thessaly, Greece

Dimitrios I. Nikolaidis

High School Teacher, Msc in Organisation and Administration of Education, University of Thessaly, Greece, University of Thessaly, Greece