Effects of support on stress and burnout in school principals

Background: More than ever before, school principals are dealing with stress and burnout, resulting from increasing role demands and decreasing decision latitude and autonomy. Following the Demand–Support–Constraints model, reasons for stress and burnout can be found in the lack of social support in the environment.

Purpose: This longitudinal study investigates whether changes in social support from colleagues, supervisors and/or the broader community affect levels of principal stress and burnout.

Sample: Approximately 26% of Australia’s school principals took part (N = 3572): primary (n = 2660) and secondary (n = 912) spread across all Australian states and territories. Age ranged between 46 and 55 years, and mean leadership experience was 12 years.

Design and methods: Since stress and burnout are psychological phenomena that develop over time, a longitudinal approach was adopted. Data were collected across four waves, spread over four years, from 2011 to 2014.

Results: It was found that social support predicts decreased stress and in turn burnout in school principals, however differences were found according to the type of social support. The data provide strong evidence for a positive effect of stress on burnout (e.g. the more stress at time 2, the more burnout in principals at time 3) and partial support for indirect negative effects of social support on burnout (e.g. the more support from colleagues at time 2, the less burnout in principals at time 3). However, we also found two instances of positive effects of social support from the broader community on burnout. This suggests that the more support principals receive from the broader community, the more likely they are to show burnout symptoms. This might be explained as the ‘the downside of empathy’, where principals who are strongly supported by their community might also feel more connected to that community. When their community is struggling, they are probably struggling as well.

Conclusions: The findings highlight the positive impact the wider school community can play in providing supplementary professional support to the principal. Unbundling or repackaging the job responsibilities with an administrative team that shares the leadership of the school, could be part of the solution.     

Associations of Number Line Estimation With Mathematical Competence: A Meta‐analysis

The number line estimation task is widely used to investigate mathematical learning and development. The present meta‐analysis statistically synthesized the extensive evidence on the correlation between number line estimation and broader mathematical competence. Averaged over 263 effect sizes with 10,576 participants with sample mean ages from 4 to 14 years, this correlation was r = .443. The correlation increased with age, mainly because it was higher for fractions than for whole numbers. The correlation remained stable across a wide range of task variants and mathematical competence measures (i.e., counting, arithmetic, school achievement). These findings demonstrate that the task is a robust tool for diagnosing and predicting broader mathematical competence and should be further investigated in developmental and experimental training studies.     

Working-class Men's Constructions of Masculinity and Negotiations of (Non)Participation in Higher Education

This article draws on discussion group data collected with 64 ethnically diverse working-class men who were predominantly not participating, or planning to participate, in higher education. The article identifies how the men drew on various discourses of masculinity in their arguments for and against higher education participation, and discusses potential implications of these discourses upon working-class men's continued underrepresentation in higher education. Analysis also highlights how the men's various constructions were framed/constrained by their locations within multiple, interlocking systems of inequality. Questions are raised with regard to future widening participation initiatives.     

Policies for higher education in Latin America: The context

Latin American higher education developed since the nineteenth century from the tensions between the Catholic tradition of Iberian colonization and the enlightenment, rationalistic and predominantly French views present in the independence movements, and embodied in the Napoleonic institutions established throughout the region. This article discusses how this system evolved, facing the problems of enlarged enrolment, diversification, and the current problems of reform, as alternatives among the poles of bureaucratic, oligarchic and market mechanisms of coordination.     

Long‐term Effects of a Staff Development Programme on Effective Instruction and Classroom Management for Teachers in Multigrade Classes

This study describes the long‐term effects of a staff development programme based on selected findings from teaching effectiveness research in schools with multigrade or mixed‐age classes. The short‐term effects of this programme were examined in two studies directed at schools with multigrade classes. The first improvement study was conducted in the school year 1986/87; the second improvement study was conducted in 1989/90. In the latter study, the effects of coaching in addition to participation in the staff development programme were also evaluated. In the school year 1992/93, a retention or follow‐up study was conducted. A quasi‐experimental, treatment‐control group design was used to test the long‐term effects of the programme ‘Dealing with multigrade classes’ and the effects of coaching. Based on pre‐ and post‐training classroom observations, the follow‐up study revealed a significant treatment effect for the time‐on‐task levels of the pupils in the multigrade classes and for the instructional and classroom management skills of the teachers. No significant differences were found between the coached and uncoached teachers and between the teachers who followed the programme either 2 or 5 years ago. No significant differences were found between the post‐test and the retention test. This suggests that the training results were quite stable. No indication of further growth in the executive control of the selected instructional and classroom management skills was found. No significant differences in achievement were found between the pupils in classes with trained teachers and the pupils in classes with untrained teachers.     

全球知识经济中的高等教育

许多国家的政府政策和学术工作都认同在世界范围的知识经济中,高等教育和研究的作用与日俱增,高等教育和知识同时具有全球性、国家性和地方性的特点。高等教育由国家政府各个部门共同孕育,而且其模式受到社会投资方式的影响,跨境或者全球层面的高等教育活动逐渐增加,尤其是对于知识而言。通过研究变化中的全球高等教育图景。可以为政府和国家政策、大学发展战略及国际机构提供建议。     

Body Donation,Teaching, and Research in Dissection Rooms in Spain in Times of Covid-19

The state of alarm due to Covid-19 pandemic in Spain stopped all educational and most university research activities. The Spanish Anatomical Society (SAE) Consensus Expert Group on Body Donations piloted a study based on a questionnaire to know the status of body donations and dissection activities during the lockdown, as well as the future implications of Covid-19 pandemic for body donation programs and anatomy teaching. The questionnaire results show that Spanish Universities refused body donations and stopped all dissection research and teaching. The Covid-19 expected influence on anatomy teaching was referred to the increase in teaching workforce and resources required to apply the new safety measures to future practical activities, as well as to prepare and adapt teaching material for online-only programs. The application of reinforced safety measures was expected to be perceived by the respondent's students as a gain in teaching quality, while the transformation of the anatomy courses in online-only programs will be perceived as a quality decrease. The respondent's concerns about future institutional implications of the pandemic were related to increased costs of the adaptation of the facilities and the reinforced preventive measures, as well as the eventual decrease in donations. The complete lockdown applied to dissection rooms was not justified by scientific evidence and represented a break of the confidence deposed in the institutions by the donors. A consensus is required for the adoption of a renewed, comprehensive protocol for present and future body donations including the evidence Covid-19 pandemic has contributed to create.