This paper describes a multivariate analysis of scores on the Charles F. Kettering School Climate Profile, a measure of climate. A total of 906 administrators, teachers, and students from a high school campus in a large school district in the southwestern United States completed the General Climate Profile. Primary and second-order factor analysis suggested different subscales than those given for the profile. Refinements are offered to make the instrument more effective for a high school population.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
American Psychological Association. (1985) Standards for educational and psychological testing. Washington, DC: Author.
2.
AnastasiA. (1976) Psychological testing. (4th ed.) New York: Macmillan.
3.
AndersonC. S. (1982) The search for school climate: A review of the research. Review of Educational Research, 52, 368–420.
4.
BaileyS. S.YoungK. M. (1989–1990) The relationship between leadership styles of high school principals and school climate as perceived by teachers. National FORUM of Education Administration and Supervision Journal, 6, 108–123.
5.
CronbachL. J. (1951) Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika, 16, 297–334.
6.
CronbachL. J. (1970) Essentials of psychological testing. New York: Harper & Row.
7.
DrexlerJ. A. (1977) Organizational climate: Its homogeneity within organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62, 38–42.
8.
EbelR. L. (1965) Measuring educational achievement. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
9.
FoxR. S.BoiesH. E.BrainardE.FletcherE.HugeJ. S.MartinC. L.MaynardW.MonasmithJ.OliveroJ.SchmuckR.ShaheenT. A.StegemanW. H. (1973) School climate improvement: A challenge to the school administrator. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation.
10.
GorsuchR. L. (1983) Factor analysis. (2nd ed.) Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
11.
HalpinA. W. (1966) Theory and research in administration. New York: Macmillan.
12.
HowardE.HowellB.BrainardE. (1987) Handbook for conducting school climate improvement projects. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation. (ED 290 211).
13.
JamesL. R.JonesA. P. (1974) Organizational climate: A review of theory and research. Psychological Bulletin, 81, 1096–1112.
14.
JenkinsG. D.TaberT. D. (1977) A Monte Carlo study of factors affecting three indices of composite scale reliability. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62, 392–398.
15.
JohnsonW. L.DixonP. N. (1984) Response alternatives in Likert scaling. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 44, 563–567.
16.
JohnsonW. L.DixonP. N.RobinsonJ. R. (1987) The Charles F. Kettering Ltd. School Climate Instrument: A psychometric analysis. Journal of Experimental Education, 56, 36–41.
17.
KaiserH. F. (1960) The application of electronic computers to factor analysis. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20, 141–151.
18.
KerlingerF. N. (1984) Liberalism and conservatism: The nature and structure of social attitudes. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
19.
KimJ. O.MuellerC. W. (1978) Factor analysis. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
McKelvieS. G. (1978) Graphic rating scales: How many categories. British Journal of Psychology, 69, 185–202.
22.
MiskelC.OgawaR. (1988) Work motivation, job satisfaction, and climate. In BoyanN. J. (Ed.), Handbook of research on educational administration. New York: Longmans. Pp. 279–304.
23.
NeumannL.NeumannY. (1981) Comparison of six lengths of rating scales: Students' attitudes toward instruction. Psychological Reports, 48, 399–404.
24.
NovickM. R.LewisC. (1967) Coefficient alpha and reliability of composite measurements. Psychometrika, 32, 1–13.
25.
Phi Delta Kappa. (1974) School climate improvement: A challenge to the school administrator, an occasional paper. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation. (ED 102 665).
26.
RotterG. S. (1972) Attitude points of agreement and disagreement. Journal of Social Psychology, 86, 211–218.
27.
SAS Institute, Inc. (1986) SAS user's guide: Statistics, statistical analysis system. Cary, NC: Author.
28.
SteigerJ. H. (1979) Factor indeterminacy in the 1930's and the 1970's: Some interesting parallels. Psychometrika, 44, 157–167.
29.
SternG. G. (1970) People in context: Measuring person-environment in education and industry. New York: Wiley.
30.
StevensJ. (1986) Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciencesHillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
31.
TagiuriR. (1968) The concept of organizational climate. In TagiuriR.LitwinG. W. (Eds.), Organizational climate: Explorations of a concept. Boston, MA: Harvard Univer., Division of Research, Graduate School of Business Administration. Pp. 1–32.
32.
ThompsonB.BorrelloG. M. (1986) Second-order factor structure of the MBTI: A construct validity assessment. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 18, 148–153.
33.
ThompsonB.MillerA. H. (1981) The utility of “social attitudes” theory. Journal of Experimental Education, 49, 157–160.
34.
VictorB.CullenJ. (1987) A theory and measure of ethical climate in organizations. In FrederickW. C. (Ed.), Research in corporate social performance and policy. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Pp. 51–71.
35.
WitkinB. R. (1977) Needs assessment kits, models, and tools. Educational Technology, 17, 4–18.
