The impact of head teacher praise and criticism on adolescent non-cognitive skills: Evidence from China.

Introduction: Although the importance of teacher feedback has been confirmed by a great number of studies, the association of head teacher praise and criticism with adolescents' non-cognitive skills still needs more deeper and more extensive research. Therefore, how to improve the non-cognitive skills of adolescents, especially those with disadvantaged family and economic backgrounds, has become a key concern in the field of educational practice. Methods: Based on CEPS data, this paper used panel regression and PSM-DID methods to analyze the impact of head teacher feedback on an adolescent's non-cognitive skills measured by the big-five personality scale. Results: It found that praise from head teachers favorably influenced adolescents' extraversion, agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness, yet significantly mitigates their neuroticism. Meanwhile, the effect of criticism from head teachers is bi-facial: It made a positive effect on adolescents' extraversion and openness but impaired their conscientiousness and neuroticism. As rural adolescents notably lag in their non-cognitive skills and are much less likely to be praised by head teachers compared to their urban peers, we estimate that when rural adolescents are frequently praised by their head teachers at the same level as urban students, their gap in extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and conscientiousness would be narrowed by 12.51%, 16.58%, 11.35%, 14.25%, and 24.29%. This finding has significant implications for head teacher teaching and adolescent well-being. Conclusions: The study examined the effects of head teacher praise and criticism on adolescent non-cognitive skills. The results showed that adolescents who were often praised by head teachers developed better non-cognitive skills. While the effect of head teacher criticism was two-sided: it enhances extraversion and openness as well as heightens neuroticism and corrupts conscientiousness. We further analyzed the urban-rural gap in non-cognitive skills and found that rural adolescents significantly lagged, and they have a lower possibility to be often praised by the head teacher, but a higher probability to be criticized. Through the PSM-DID quasi-experimental design, it was suggested that more head teacher praise can improve the non-cognitive skills among adolescents. When rural adolescents are estimated to receive the same amount of praise as urban adolescents, the disparities reduction in their non-cognitive skills can become possible. Our findings are of great significance to promote adolescent non-cognitive skills development and improve educational equity in urban and rural areas.

Perceived leader integrity as a mediator between ethical leadership and ethical climate in a teaching context.

BACKGROUND: Scandalous incidents occurring in prominent organisations in the world have brought to limelight the role of leaders in shaping the ethical climate of their organisations. As a result, several studies across different organisational/occupational contexts and climes have examined and unanimously proven that ethical leadership was positively related to ethical climate. However, there is rarely any of these studies that was conducted in teaching context. Besides, the mechanisms involved between ethical leadership and ethical climate seems not to have been addressed in literature. Thus, this paper reports the findings of a study that investigated the mediating role of perceived leader integrity in the ethical leadership-ethical climate relationship among teachers. METHODS: Data were collected from 336 teachers (105 male and 231 female) in three-time periods using measures of ethical leadership, perceived leader integrity, ethical climate, and demographics. RESULTS: The results from OLS regression-based path analysis showed that: 1) ethical leadership was positively related to perceived leader integrity, 2) perceived leader integrity was positively related to ethical climate, 3) ethical leadership was positively related to ethical climate, and 4) the positive relationship between ethical leadership and ethical climate was mediated by perceived leader integrity. CONCLUSIONS: The current study extends the social learning theory by identifying perceived leader integrity as a mechanism underlying the relationship between ethical leadership and ethical climate. The findings have some implications for personnel selection especially in relation to selection of ethical leaders.

A Comparison of the Ability Emotional Intelligence of Head Teachers With School Teachers in Other Positions.

Head teachers are exposed to a highly emotional and stressful job, and they need a sufficient combination of professional competencies in order to deal with daily challenges in schools. Recent studies have shown the importance of developing emotional competencies such as emotional intelligence (EI) in teachers in order to improve their professional development and to ensure the adequate functioning of the school. However, rather less is known about the ability EI of head teachers. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the ability EI of public school head teachers and compare this ability with those working in other positions within the school. For these purposes, 393 participants (35 head teachers, 39 middle leaders, 236 tutors, and 86 teachers) aged between 24 and 62 years (M = 40.26; SD = 9.27) completed the mayer-salovey-caruso emotional intelligence test (MSCEIT). The results revealed a significantly higher total EI for head teachers than teachers, along with higher scores in the understanding branch of the MSCEIT for the head teachers compared with workers in other positions. In addition, on this EI branch, tutors also achieved higher scores than the teachers. We also evaluated the alternative hypothesis that years of teaching experience could explain the relationship between work position and the EI scores, and found no evidence in support of this possibility. Limitations and future lines of research are discussed.

El profesor principal y su preparación para diseñar instrumentos de evaluación escritos / The head teachers and their training for designing written evaluation tools

Introducción: la calidad en el diseño de los instrumentos de evaluación escritos puede repercutir en su validez y confiabilidad, así como en los resultados académicos. Objetivo: identificar el nivel de preparación pedagógica de los profesores principales de las disciplinas integradoras en las carreras de Medicina, Estomatología y Enfermería con respecto al diseño de los exámenes escritos de sus asignaturas. Métodos: se realizó un estudio observacional, descriptivo y transversal en la Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de Villa Clara, durante el curso 2011-2012. Para ello, se aplicó una guía de evaluación a 21 exámenes, así como una entrevista a los 14 profesores principales de las asignaturas rectoras. Resultados: el mayor número de los profesores principales tienen categoría de asistente, más de seis años con experiencia docente y menos de cinco como responsable de la asignatura. Recibieron actividades de superación y formación académica en pedagogía y en especial sobre sistema de evaluación, que se evidencia en los criterios emitidos sobre las características que debe reunir un examen, dominio en las variantes de ítems a utilizar, así como sus ventajas y desventajas. No obstante, los resultados constatan dificultades en el diseño de los instrumentos de evaluación de tipo escrito en estas asignaturas rectoras. Conclusiones: se constatan algunas dificultades en el desempeño del profesor principal respecto al diseño de los instrumentos de evaluación escritos, por lo que resulta imperioso explotar las fortalezas del trabajo metodológico para perfeccionar esta actuación docente en los niveles de colectivos de asignatura y disciplina.

Introduction: the quality in the design of written evaluation tools may have effects on their validity and reliability, as well as in their academic results. Objective: to identify the level of pedagogical training of head teachers of the integrative disciplines in the courses of study of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing, regarding the design of written exams in their subjects. Methods: an observational, descriptive and transversal study was done at the Medical Sciences University of Villa Clara, during the 2011-20l2 academic year. With this purpose, an evaluation guide was applied to 21 exams, and also an interview was done to the 14 head teachers of the main subjects. Results: most of the head teachers possess the teaching rank of Assistant Professor, they have over six years of teaching experience, and less than five years of experience as head of the subject teacher staff. They received upgrading activities and academic training in pedagogy, and especially, about the evaluation system. This training is evident in the criteria they express about the characteristics that an exam should have, their mastery on the variants of items to use, as well as their advantages and disadvantages. Nevertheless, these results also verify difficulties in the design of the written evaluation tools in these main subjects. Conclusions: some difficulties are verified in the performance of the head teachers regarding the design of the written evaluation tools. Therefore, it is an urgent need to improve the strength of the methodological work to perfect this teaching performance at the levels of subject teacher staff and discipline staff.