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School culture, school climate, and the role of the principal.

Felecia V. Spicer , Georgia State University Follow

Date of Award

Spring 5-13-2016

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Educational Policy Studies

First Advisor

Dr. Jami Berry

Second Advisor

Dr. Nick Sauers

Third Advisor

Dr. Stan DeJarnett

The purpose of this case study was to determine to what degree the Vision Project’s implementation impacted school climate and student achievement in high implementation districts. Specifically, this study examined what principals do that impacts or determines the climate of a school, in an effort to establish action steps for school principals to follow to create a positive school climate. The purpose was to describe and interpret the actions of principals from their own view and the perspective of those around them. This research looked at two schools in two different school districts to determine principal and teacher perceptions in regards to what a leader does to develop and maintain a positive school climate. That is, how is a positive learning environment created where teachers feel confident in their work? A general inductive approach was chosen to focus on the realities of the participants within the school districts in order to understand their perceptions of what the principal does to impact the climate in a school. An instrumental study design allowed for an in-depth look at the Vision Project’s overall impact on a school implementing the recommendations with fidelity with a specific focus on school culture, school climate, and the role of the principal.

https://doi.org/10.57709/8618737

Recommended Citation

Spicer, Felecia V., "School Culture, School Climate, and the Role of the Principal." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2016. doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/8618737

Since June 16, 2016

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• Published: 03 June 2024

Factors influencing school climate: an empirical study based on the TALIS principal survey

• Xiaodi Jiang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1392-3456 1 &
• Ren Liu 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  722 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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To explore the influencing factors of school climate, this paper used TALIS 2018 principal survey data and applied linear regression to examine the influence of three elements on school climate: external school environment and structure, principal personal characteristics, and principal leadership. According to the research targeting 198 principals from Shanghai secondary schools, all three aspects can influence the formation and development of school climate, with each influencing factor acting on different dimensions of school climate. These different paths are the mechanisms that influence the school climate in the education system. In addition, principal leadership plays a more important role than the other aspects in determining school climate. To create a school climate that is better suited to the development of all involved in the school, this paper offers suggestions on how to better select principals and improve their leadership skills.

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Introduction.

Because of the close relationship between the performance and well-being of members of a school community, school climate has changed from being an issue of concern to researchers to one of common concern to educators, government agencies, and relevant international organizations. School climate comprises all the soft and hard environmental elements that each member of a school experiences and that impact their psychology and behavior, including the organizational structure, learning atmosphere, facilities, safety norms, values, interpersonal relationships, and other school characteristics (Thapa et al. 2013 ).

With the pioneering contributions of researchers such as Hansen and Childs ( 1998 ) and Freiberg ( 1998 ) in pedagogy, the study of school climate has evolved toward heterogeneity, systematization, and comparability. Since the beginning of the 21st century, many national and international education databases have developed, updating indicator systems and data on school climate, and quantitative, comparative, and causal studies of school climate have become the focus of educational research at all stages. Nevertheless, the current research on school climate still suffers from unbalanced research objects, unbalanced research regions, homogeneous research methods, and path dependence of research paradigms, which restrict the scientificity of school climate research and the learnability of the research results (Wang and Degol, 2016 ).

In school climate research worldwide, school climate mechanisms have been the focus of research by scholars in various countries because of the important role of school climate for the participating subjects in schools (Siebert et al. 2023 ). Validated school climate mechanisms include promoting positive effects and blocking negative effects on different school members (Moore et al. 2020 ). For example, a positive school climate promotes healthy and innovative thinking among school children and reduces teacher burnout and withdrawal tendencies. The regional and dimensional extensions of school climate research and country comparisons have recently increased attention given to school climate in academic research (Dutta and Sahney, 2022 ). However, relatively few causal studies use school climate as the explanatory variable compared to studies on the mechanisms of action using school climate as the causal variable.

Among the current studies on the factors influencing school climate, school features, external environmental factors, and principal and administrator elements are several aspects that have gained consensus among scholars. However, many research findings are based on qualitative analysis (Branson et al. 2015 ; Gaikhorst et al. 2019 ), while relatively few empirical studies use quantitative methods. Moreover, existing research fails to deconstruct the systemic associations between multidimensional school climate and the complicating influences from an educational system perspective. To add to the existing literature on school climate, this study intends to explore the main factors influencing different dimensions of school climate in China using quantitative research methods, providing an empirical basis for educational administrators and policy-makers to shape and optimize school climate. This paper poses the following research question: How are the different dimensions of school climate affected by different factors? To further address the research question, the remainder of this paper reviews the current research on school climate influencing factors, selects appropriate research methods and tools by combining existing data sources and variable designs, and finally presents and discusses the empirical study results and summarizes the relevant countermeasures.

Literature review

The effect of school external environment and structure on school climate.

The school context is a multidimensional concept that includes the school’s location, resources, and cultural, institutional, and socioeconomic environment (OECD, 2018 ). In recent years, a growing number of scholars have argued that the effect of school contextual elements on students’ performance is mediated by school climate (Berkowitz et al. 2017 ).

Some scholars have attempted to unlock the “black box” of the relationship between the social components of school community and the performance of students, while others have attempted to analyze the impact of the school’s social components on school climate. Some studies have demonstrated that in low socioeconomic status schools, teachers have lower teaching expectations, less effective teaching, and unclear self-orientation, problems that ultimately disrupt the school and classroom disciplinary climate (Harker and Tymms, 2004 ; Rjosk et al. 2014 ). The school’s location is another factor that affects school climate. Chen ( 2008 ) demonstrated that larger schools face more disorders and that schools with greater student mobility have greater safety problems. Chen’s study also noted that rural schools are relatively safer than urban schools, which adds to the idea that school context affects school climate. More studies are focusing on the safety dimension of school climate in areas with large disparities between rich and poor people, multiethnic concentrations, and less developed areas. Some studies have demonstrated that the school climate in these regions is far worse than in other regions (Djonko-Moore, 2016 ). In addition, institutional, cultural, and religious factors can all have an impact on school climate, although their role is relatively limited and, therefore, relatively little studied.

School structure is an important influencing factor of school climate, which has also been tested and discussed individually with respect to school background. Teacher training in the academic track focuses on subject-specific content knowledge and scientific outreach procedures, while teacher training in the nonacademic school track emphasizes a more practical approach with a strong pedagogical orientation (Baumert et al. 2010 ). This has led to wide variation in the purpose and pedagogy of the different school tracks and has resulted in differences in school climate. Schiepe-Tiska ( 2019 ) proved that academic track schools have higher levels of classroom management and a better classroom climate (including student–teacher interaction and inclusion). In terms of school size, several studies have demonstrated that larger schools tend to have difficulty forming positive staff relationships and, therefore, have a lower level of self-organization, which in turn results in a less engaged school climate (Payne et al. 2003 ). Burrow and Apel ( 2008 ) demonstrated through an empirical study of U.S. secondary school students that larger schools are more likely to have serious student discipline problems, such as violence and theft. The composition of students is multifaceted, and research by Gregory et al. ( 2011 ) showed that schools in the United States with more low-income students and a greater percentage of black students exhibit a more negative school climate, reflected in high dropout rates and low punctuality.

Effect of principal personal factors on school climate

Roderiguez ( 2007 ) suggested that the principal can be the key to building a respectful school climate and, thus, to promoting teaching and learning. As the primary leader of the school, some personal attributes of the principal can subconsciously influence other participating subjects in communicating instructions and participating in activities, which in turn affects school climate. Drago-Severson’s ( 2012 ) research demonstrated that principals are role models for teachers in their schools and that principals with higher levels of education and pedagogical competence motivate teachers to learn more from one another to improve their effectiveness, thereby improving school academic climate. In terms of principals’ gender, some studies have concluded that female principals are better able to foster a cohesive climate within schools (Abbott, 1993 ), which is reflected in improving the relationship among various stakeholders in the school and the efficiency of communication between school administrators (Price, 2012 ). In contrast, when managing leadership teams, male principals tend to show stronger leadership skills, which could potentially influence a school’s institutional environment (Benoliel, 2020 ). In addition, male principals were perceived by the researchers to be more engaged in their work and more ambitious (Wang and Liu, 2005 ). These characteristics may drive male principals to be more engaged in the school climate and make hands-on efforts to improve the school environment; however, studies have failed to explore the relationship between the greater commitment and ambition of male principals and school climate.

In organizational behavior research, the age of managers tends to influence organizational culture and climate by affecting their work engagement and acting styles (Zacher et al. 2011 ). However, scholars have not studied the impact of a principal’s age as a school administrator on school climate. In addition, some studies have suggested that principals’ work experience influences school climate. Park’s ( 2012 ) study of Korean vocational high schools demonstrated that principals’ work experience can positively shape an innovative school climate. In contrast, a study of Swedish secondary school principals demonstrated that principals’ years of service can cause principal burnout, which may negatively affect the formation and shaping of school norms and interpersonal relationships (Persson et al. 2021 ).

The impact of principal leadership on school climate

Several studies have explored the relationship between leadership and workplace culture, finding that leaders are key to maintaining a healthy workplace climate through decision-making, building relationships, creating the conditions for creativity and career development, and shaping collaboration (Block, 2003 ; Ogbonna and Harris, 2000 ). Therefore, leadership may have the same effect on school climate as on organizational culture. Leadership, like school climate, is multidimensional; thus, it is important to demonstrate the impact of leadership on school climate by matching the different dimensions and verifying the relationships. Purkey and Smith ( 1983 ) validated the positive impact of principal leadership in basic education systems on school climate in the school safety dimension and summarized ten leadership skills that positively guide school climate.

In recent years, many countries and regions have decentralized school leadership in primary and secondary schools, and this innovation in primary and secondary school management has attracted the attention of scholars. Using PISA data, Ho ( 2005 ) indicated that leaders can improve student academic performance much more by influencing teachers than through direct principal leadership. The study also demonstrated that increased teacher engagement can positively affect elements of school climate, such as sense of belonging, school discipline, and student moral integrity. The importance of leadership in shaping school climate was also demonstrated in a study based on the impact of elementary and middle school principal leadership on student reading levels, which assessed the impact of leadership on school institutional environment and learning environment (Hallinger et al. 1996 ). Ciudad ( 2015 ) found that communication and collaboration between principals and teachers are important drivers of engagement, relatedness, and relationship density among the various actors in a school. In a study of 139 teachers in Israel, Weisel and Dror ( 2006 ) confirmed that the intraschool rapport aspect of school climate is influenced by leadership’s six dimensions: supportive leadership, teachers’ autonomy, teachers’ professional prestige, innovation, staff cooperation, and workload. The efficiency of school leaders in handling affairs also affects school climate, and Glover’s ( 2015 ) research proved that the dimensions of school belonging, trust, relationships, and engagement in elementary and middle school climate tend to be more positive when teachers perceive that their leaders are efficient in handling school matters.

Patrick ( 1995 ) suggested that the principal’s leadership style, such as the willingness to open up and delegate authority, had a much greater impact on the school climate than the principal’s teaching experience and leadership experience. Villani ( 1996 ) conducted a case study of elementary and middle schools and combined it with structured interviews with principals, finding that leaders’ communication styles and learning abilities contribute to a positive school climate and that leaders’ focus on safety also increases student engagement at school. In addition, school leaders’ level of attention to detail is conducive to a school climate. For example, principals who are more attentive to transferring and promoting students tend to create a more supportive school climate, such as relationships, parental involvement and teachers’ supportive behavior (Felner et al. 1982 ). Porter et al. ( 1989 ) explored the “power strategies” of elementary school principals and their impact on school climate; the findings revealed that the principal’s power strategy influenced the school climate and that teachers’ rational and agreeable responses to the principal’s power strategy led to a more positive school climate. When principals and other leaders rely primarily on sanctions and coercion, schools run inefficiently, undermining morale and threatening school climate. This positive leadership is consistent with the “servant leadership” style of the modern leadership model.

Overall, some research has explored the factors that influence school climate, which are broadly categorized as school factors, individual principal factors, and leadership factors. However, more path mechanisms should exist for the multiple influences on the different dimensions of school climate. In addition, some studies lack explanatory power because they are too dated and the samples are too homogenous. Thus, this study aims to differentiate itself from previous studies by following the new direction of empirical research with larger sample sizes and multiple pathway mechanisms in the study of school climate influences.

Methodology

Data sources.

To verify the effects of school context, principals’ personal features, and principal leadership on school climate, it is necessary to obtain information on school principals, school information, and school climate for a sufficient sample size. Thus, the author selected the 2018 TALIS (Teaching and Learning International Survey) Principal Survey as the data source for the empirical study. The authors chose the principal as the subject of the study because, on the one hand, the principal’s influence on school climate is part of the research question examined; and on the other hand, a principal has systematic and precise knowledge of a school’s basic situation, his or her own situation, and the school’s climate. The TALIS is an international database of educational surveys initiated by the OECD with the participation of >80 countries and territories. The TALIS has been conducted in all OECD countries and some emerging countries since 2008, targeting teachers and principals in a 5 year survey. In the 2018 database, TALIS involved a total of 198 Shanghai secondary school principals in a questionnaire study of 198 secondary schools, which is the entire sample in mainland China. This study extracted these samples from the TALIS Principal Survey database for further analysis.

Variable measurement

As explanatory variables, it is first necessary to measure the elements of a school’s external environment and structure, which mainly include its size, location, ownership, and teacher turnover. All these factors can be included in the TALIS Principal Questionnaire, but some need further refinement. There are two important indicators of school location. The first is the degree of the school’s urban‒rural location. The TALIS research classifies the urban‒rural location of the school into five levels: rural areas (those with <3000 people), villages (those with 3001 – 15,000 people), small towns (those with 15,001 – 100,000 people), cities (those with 100,001 to 1,000,000 people), and large cities (those with > 1,000,000 people). Each of the five levels is assigned a value ranging from 1 – 5. The assignment increases with the degree of urbanization and, thus, can be considered a fixed-order variable measuring the degree of urban‒rural location. The proportion of school students from poor families is included in the principal’s questionnaire, and some studies have considered this question as a variable to measure the level of poverty in the region (Jiang, 2022 ; Persevica, 2011 ). This variable was also selected as a second variable for school location in this study. In terms of school size, this study selected the number of teachers as a measure, which is more common in current quantitative studies (Weiss et al. 2010 ). The study also selected school ownership in the TALIS principal questionnaire, where 1 is a private school and 2 is a private school. Finally, in terms of teacher turnover, this study chose the number of teachers who joined and left the school within 1 year as the measure of teacher turnover according to previous studies (Chang et al. 2021 ). The TALIS principal interviews were assigned a frequency of 1–5, representing 0, 1–5, 6–10, 11–15, and 16 or more teachers entering and leaving their school, respectively.

The second type of explanatory variable that influences school climate is the principal’s personal features, which include the principal’s education, gender, age, and number of years in the principal’s position. The work experience of the principal is divided into the number of years working as a principal and the time engaged as principal at the current school. Gender is a binary variable, with female principals assigned a value of 1 and male principals assigned a value of 2. Principals’ education is in the range of ISCED3-7. The age of the principal, the number of years as a principal, and the number of years as a principal of the previous school were continuous variables.

The principal’s leadership was the third type of explanatory variable used to explore the factors influencing school climate. The TALIS Principal Survey covers 11 principal leadership indicators, including the ability to work with teachers to resolve classroom issues, observe classroom instruction, provide feedback to teachers, ensure collaboration among teachers, ensure teachers’ teaching skills improvement, ensure teachers are accountable for students’ academic performance, provide feedback to parents on student performance, review school administration and reports, plan teachers’ curricula, communicate with other principals, and plan professional development. Each type of leadership is measured on a four-point scale (where 1 = rarely or never; 2 = sometimes; 3 = often; and 4 = very often), and a high score reflects a high degree of principal leadership. The authors treat the Likert scale as a continuous variable in the data analysis process because of its ordinal nature; this treatment is quite common in previous TALIS-related empirical studies (Bernardo and Mante-Estacio, 2023 ).

In terms of the explained variable of school climate, the main dimensions include teacher‒student relationships, teacher relationships, the academic environment, stakeholder involvement, school discipline, and care for special groups. These school climate dimensions in the TALIS survey are frequently applied in the literature (Liu and Bellibas, 2018 ). In addition, with the increasing importance of school internet security for students’ well-being (Jiang et al. 2021 ), this study investigated cyberbullying mediated by electronic devices in the TALIS principal questionnaire. Notably, some of the school climate dimensions in the TALIS consist of multiple questions. To explore each item’s explanatory power for the dimension, TALIS conducted confirmatory factor analysis to calculate the factor loadings, and the factor loadings of different dimensions of school climate in different countries are available in TALIS technical reports (OECD, 2019 ). To examine the fitness of the items belonging to each school climate dimension, the authors referred to the Shanghai principal survey’s RMSEA and standardized factor loadings, and all the parameters were within the acceptable range of the TALIS report (RMSEA < 0.08, standardized factor loadings > 0.45). In this way, the authors applied the combined school climate dimension calculated by TALIS, which is available in the existing TALIS 2018 database. Table 1 illustrates the variables’ categories, types and number of questions in the TALIS principal questionnaire. It is worth noting that care for special needs groups is reversed in the TALIS dataset, and a high score indicates that the principal recognizes the lack of special care.

Descriptive analysis

The study was conducted with categorical descriptive statistics since principal information and school situation are mostly dichotomous and continuous variables and principal leadership and school climate are mostly four-point scale data. In Table 2 , the ratio of male to female secondary school principals in Shanghai, China, is relatively balanced, with education concentrated at the bachelor’s and master’s degree levels and age concentrated in the 40–49 and 50–59 age ranges. In terms of work experience, principals participating in the TALIS test in Shanghai have been principals for a maximum of 33 years and have been principals, on average, for 9.53 years. The maximum number of years as a principal at the current school is 23 years, while the average number of years as a principal at this school is 6.53 years. The difference between the maximum and minimum values of the two items is large, and the standard deviation is high, indicating high heterogeneity in principals’ work experience. In terms of the level of poverty in the school district, 4.5% of schools have a high percentage of students living in poverty, 12.6% of schools have 11%–30% of students living in poverty, and most schools have <10% of students living in poverty. Finally, the number of students and teachers in Shanghai secondary schools is more discrete, and the average inflow of teachers is greater than the outflow; thus, the total size of secondary schools in Shanghai tends to increase.

The descriptive statistics of principal leadership and school climate in Shanghai are shown in Table 3 . Among the leadership categories, principals working with teachers on classroom matters and providing feedback to parents on student performance are relatively uncommon in Shanghai, and there is also relatively little communication between principals of different secondary schools. Compared to several of these leadership skills, principals in Shanghai scored relatively high in providing feedback to teachers, ensuring collaboration among teachers, improving teachers’ teaching skills, and reviewing administrative reports. In general, principals in Shanghai demonstrate a high level of leadership, they are more focused on the macro level of school management, and the management and feedback to specific classes and parents are more decentralized at the teacher level. In terms of school climate, principals in Shanghai gave high ratings to school climate in their self-assessments, with the most highly rated dimensions relationships, the academic environment, and stakeholder involvement, while they reported low exposure to school discipline problems and cyberbullying. Notably, the results indicated that Shanghai’s principals lacked caring for special needs groups in their schools.

Results and discussion

Table 4 shows the results of the correlation analysis (Kendall’s tau-b correlation). The results indicate that some school characteristics and principal features are correlated with different dimensions of school climate. Moreover, leadership tends to have a more potential relationship with school climate; however, specific pathways remain to be explored. After testing for multicollinearity (VIF < 1.5), independence (Durbin–Watson ~ 2), normality (normal probability plot), and linearity (scatter plot), this study used multiple linear regression to explore school climate determination factors more specifically.

Models 1 to 8 represent 8 variables of school climate (dependent variables), and the results are presented in Tables 5 – 7 . In these tables, the authors present the coefficients, significance, R square, Durbin–Watson, and F value to provide more references. Table 5 shows the results of the regression analysis of school context and structure influencing school climate. Almost no school background factors affected school relationships, except for teacher inflow, which had a slight effect on teacher–teacher relationships. The significant effect of school ownership on care for special needs groups indicates that private schools in Shanghai have more differentiated measures of special care. Stakeholders’ involvement is positively affected by the number of teachers and negatively affected by the school’s degree of poverty, which suggests that the proportion of poor students in secondary schools in Shanghai and the level of parents’ support for their children’s schooling and for school affairs decrease, reflecting the mutual crowding-out effect between family social capital and tangible capital, as well as the lack of attention given by poor families to their children’s education and school affairs in China (Ma et al. 2018 ). Meanwhile, more faculty and staff are better able to address the internal and external affairs of the school, thus increasing the participation of stakeholders. This mechanism could also explain the significant relationship between the number of teachers and decision involvement.

Table 6 shows the regression analysis results of the impact of principals’ personal characteristics on school climate. First, teacher‒student relations and teacher–teacher relations in secondary schools led by female principals were significantly better than those led by male principals, while female principals reported less care for special needs groups, school delinquency and violence. These results demonstrated that female principals can enhance the school climate through their interpersonal skills and attention to detail (Arar, 2017 ; Murakami and Törnsen, 2017 ). Second, principals with higher education degrees could better shape the school academic environment and reduce cyberbullying. A principal with higher education can better understand the education system, develop better plans and be a role model for teachers in completing instructional plans (Dhuey and Smith, 2018 ). Finally, the results indicate that principals’ work experience and age do not significantly affect school climate in Shanghai middle schools, in contrast with the results of Dhuey and Smith ( 2018 ).

Table 7 shows the results of the regression analysis of the impact of principals’ leadership on school climate; each of these principal leadership skills significantly improves school climate in at least one dimension. First, principals working with teachers on classroom issues significantly reduce school delinquency and violence. This leadership sets a clearer student code of conduct and safety awareness (Berkovich, 2018 ). Second, principals’ observation of instruction directly enhances schools’ academic environment, as evidenced by a better understanding of classroom goals and better preparation of lessons, which is more effective for achieving classroom goals (Zheng et al. 2019 ). Third, the principal’s ability to provide feedback on teachers’ work can enhance school members’ motivation to participate in school decisions; this result is in line with Derrington et al.’s ( 2021 ) study. In addition, principals who encourage teachers to account for students could significantly increase stakeholders’ involvement. This result reflects that awareness of responsibility transferred from principal to teacher could further transfer to the families and community, increasing the motivation of diverse members to engage in school affairs (Rutledge et al. 2010 ).

With respect to the effect of parental feedback, principals can significantly increase stakeholders’ involvement by reflecting on students’ performance with parents and guardians. Parents also provide more feedback on how students behave while at home during their interactions with the principal, regulating student behavior at home; thus, social media-mediated bullying will be significantly reduced by increased feedback between principals and parents. Since previous research has shown that teachers’ feedback to parents has the above effects (Blau and Hameiri, 2012 ; Schweinberger et al. 2017 ), the two mechanisms described above are extensions of the existing research on principal–parent interactions. The principal’s planning of the teacher’s curriculum is a channel for clarifying the work division and cooperation among teachers, which can significantly improve teachers’ peer relationships. This finding also extends previous research (Boies and Fiset, 2019 ). Moreover, clear assignments of tasks by principals can improve school internal efficiency, reducing school delinquency and violence. This relationship is demonstrated in Model 6.

Communication with other administrators can benefit from successful experiences and correct irrational decisions during management practice. Active communication among principals can shape a learning-oriented and democratic school climate, which is proven by the research results. Moreover, communication with other school administrators allows principals to prevent delinquency and violence more effectively in their schools. Because principal peer influence is still unexplored in educational research, the above findings may lead to a new orientation of educational administration. Finally, principals’ ability to make career plans for teachers can lead to more career paths and create fairer and more open teacher incentives and promotions. These influences can increase teachers’ sense of belonging and decision engagement, leading to better relationships among school members. In line with previous research (Badri et al. 2017 ; Choi and Lee, 2020 ), this study indicates that principals’ recognition of teachers’ professional development benefits the school climate.

In general, the school’s external environment and structure, the principal’s personal characteristics, and the principal’s leadership have different influences on school climate, with the principal’s leadership having a more positive and significant impact. Considering that the school’s external environment and structure are inherent properties of the school that are difficult to improve in the short term, the key to improving school climate is to choose a more suitable principal and improve the principal’s leadership abilities.

Implications

In response to the main findings of this study, this paper proposes the following two measures.

The first measure relates to the selection and promotion of principals. First, when selecting principals, the education department should consider the principal’s teaching and management experience, focusing on the principal’s responsibility and enthusiasm to ensure that the principal both processes teacher traits and an entrepreneurial spirit while also having the energy to assist and guide teachers in dealing with school problems. Second, education departments should not change school leaders frequently. Because the school climate has strong cultural roots, shaping and improving school climate often require principals to be engaged over a longer term, which requires a certain guaranteed tenure. Finally, the school climate should be taken as an important criterion for promoting and recognizing principals. Local education departments should understand the school climate through multiple aspects (including teachers, students, parents, and social aspects), establish a dynamic evaluation mechanism and link it directly to the evaluation mechanism of principals to form an effective supervisory role.

The second measure is to strengthen principals’ professional development training in a targeted manner. On the one hand, it is important to educate principals about the meaning of school climate, including its evolutionary nature and the association of different dimensions of school climate within the education system. On the other hand, principals’ leadership should be developed comprehensively, which is conducive to improving school climate. Case studies should be used to convey to principals the impact of different leadership styles on school climate so they can more accurately choose different leadership styles based on the school climate of their schools.

To enrich the research on school climate mechanisms, this study empirically explored the factors influencing school climate using the TALIS Shanghai Principal Survey as the data source. The study demonstrated that school background, structure, principal characteristics, and leadership can influence different dimensions of school climate, and the results suggest there are multiple pathways through which school climate is shaped and evolves. Because the principal’s influence on school climate is greater than the school’s background and structure, enhancing the principal’s leadership and improving principal selection criteria are important ways to improve school climate in our secondary schools. There are two limitations of this paper. First, although the TALIS database provides enough school principals in China, the sample lacks sufficient geographic coverage because all principals are from Shanghai. Second, due to the limitations of the data sources, the study was unable to include all dimensions of school climate in the analysis of influencing factors, such as the sense of belonging of each participant in the school, student performance in the classroom, and student and teacher attendance. Future research could expand the geographical coverage of the sample and measure more dimensions of school climate by adding questionnaires and semistructured interviews. In terms of research design, future path analysis approaches (e.g., structural equations or bootstrapping) could be used to explore the associations between the independent variables (e.g., principal personal characteristics and principal leadership) and between different dimensions of school climate.

Data availability

All the data applied in this paper were obtained from the TALIS (Teaching and Learning International Survey) 2018, Shanghai principal’s data and data instructions are available at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/DJFMRO .

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Jiang, X., Liu, R. Factors influencing school climate: an empirical study based on the TALIS principal survey. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 722 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03203-1

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Perceptions of school climate.

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This doctoral dissertation investigates the differences in perceptions of school climate among in-school stakeholders. The study focuses on how the participant’s role within the school and gender impact their perceptions of school climate. Surveys were administered to students and teachers in a high school setting, with quantitative analysis revealing statistical differences in perceptions among key groups. Notably, teachers demonstrated higher perceptions of school climate than students, indicating the role within the school has the potential to influence stakeholder perceptions. Additional findings include male students demonstrating higher perceptions of school climate than female students, indicating gender plays an integral part in stakeholder perceptions. Implications of this study include the need for school administrators to examine perceptual differences between stakeholder groups and leverage this data as a means to improve school quality for all. This includes ensuring formal and informal methods for collecting perspectives and ensuring an inclusive process that is representative of the school population.

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Elektrostal

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Elektrostal , city, Moscow oblast (province), western Russia . It lies 36 miles (58 km) east of Moscow city. The name, meaning “electric steel,” derives from the high-quality-steel industry established there soon after the October Revolution in 1917. During World War II , parts of the heavy-machine-building industry were relocated there from Ukraine, and Elektrostal is now a centre for the production of metallurgical equipment. Pop. (2006 est.) 146,189.

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Elektrostal Climate (Russian Federation)

Data and graphs for weather & climate in elektrostal.

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• >> Climate graph // Weather by Month Elektrostal
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The given location is in the northern hemisphere. Summer begins here at the end of June and ends in September. The months of summer are: June, July, August, September.

Climate graph // Weather by Month Elektrostal

In March, the precipitation level plummets to a mere 40 mm | 1.6 inch. This month holds the title for being exceptionally arid. The greatest amount of precipitation occurs in July, with an average of 85 mm | 3.3 inch.

average temperature by month Elektrostal

The month of highest temperature is July during which the average temperature reaches up to 20.0 °C | 68.1 °F. The lowest average temperatures in the year occur in January, when it is around -7.7 °C | 18.1 °F.

Weather by month // weather averages Elektrostal

Data: 1991 - 2021 Min. Temperature °C (°F), Max. Temperature °C (°F), Precipitation / Rainfall mm (in), Humidity, Rainy days. Data: 1999 - 2019: avg. Sun hours

The precipitation variance between the months with the lowest and highest levels of rainfall is 45 mm | 2 inch. The variation in temperatures throughout the year is 27.8 °C | 50.0 °F.

The month with the highest relative humidity is January (84.49 %). The month with the lowest relative humidity is May (62.95 percent). The month with the most rainy days is July (12.77 days). The month with the fewest rainy days is April (9.53 days).

Elektrostal weather and climate for every month

Hours of sunshine in elektrostal.

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In Elektrostal, the month that is graced with the most daily hours of sunshine is June. This month sees an average of 11.94 hours of sunshine. In total, there are 370.16 hours of sunshine throughout June.

In Elektrostal, the month that experiences the lowest number of daily sunshine hours is January. The average duration of sunlight during this period amounts to approximately 1.09 hours per day, resulting in a total sum of 33.79 sunshine hours throughout the entire month.

In Elektrostal, the sun shines for an average of 2345.45 hours per year. That comes out to 76.85 hours of sunshine each month.

Airport close to Elektrostal

The closest Airports of Elektrostal are: Domodedovo International Airport (DME) 54.21km,Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO) 66.53km,Vnukovo International Airport (VKO) 74.96km

You can reach Elektrostal from this Cities by Plane: London (LGW), Athens (ATH), Ljubljana (LJU), Copenhagen (CPH), New Delhi (DEL), Vienna (VIE), Paris (ORY), Toronto (YYZ), Hamburg (HAM), Cologne (CGN), Oslo (OSL), Alicante (ALC), Málaga (AGP), Beijing (PEK), Casablanca (CMN), Ankara (ESB), Stockholm (ARN), Kyiv (IEV), Odessa (ODS), Lviv (LWO)

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