A Multilevel Analysis of the Impact of a Professional Learning Community, Faculty Trust in Colleagues and Collective Efficacy on Teacher Commitment to Students
Source: This article was published in Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 27, Issue 5,
Author(s): John Chi-kin Lee, Zhonghua Zhang, and Hongbiao Yin, " A Multilevel Analysis of the Impact of a Professional Learning Community, Faculty Trust in Colleagues and Collective Efficacy on Teacher Commitment to Students", Pages 820–830, Copyright Elsevier (July 2011).
The current study investigated the relationships between a professional learning community (PLC), faculty trust in colleagues, teachers’ collective efficacy, and their commitment to students.
Of the six original factors of the scale of Professional Learning Communities Assessment (PLCA), only three ones including shared and supportive leadership, collective learning and application and supportive conditions - structures were retained in the Chinese setting.
Multilevel analyses was conducted to investigate how school-level variables, including the three factors of PLC, faculty trust in colleagues, and collective teacher efficacy, affect teachers’ commitment to students.
The findings from the Hong Kong teacher sample indicated that two PLC factors including collective learning and application and supportive conditions – structures, and the factors faculty trust in colleagues and collective teacher efficacy could significantly and positively account for the school-level variances of teachers’ commitment to students.
Another PLC factor, shared and supportive leadership, was not identified as a significant predictor to teachers’ commitment to students in a Chinese setting.
The findings of school-level regressions indicated that all three factors of PLC as well as faculty trust in colleagues could significantly and positively affect teachers’ collective efficacy on instructional strategies.
However, only one PLC factor, collective learning and application, and the factor faculty trust in colleagues were significant predictors to teachers’ collective efficacy on student discipline.