The organisational climate of primary schools in Selangor / Siti Zurainiwati Abdul Kadir

The purpose of this study was to identify the teacher’s perception of school climate in primary schools in Selangor. Six primary schools from three different types of school namely national school (Sekolah Kebangsaan/SK), national type Chinese school (Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina/SJKC) and national type Tamil school (Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Tamil/SJKT) were selected for the study. Data were collected using questionnaire and interview techniques. The questionnaire was distributed to a total of 300 randomly selected teacher respondents and 194 questionnaires were returned, however only 186 questionnaires were appropriately completed and able to be used for analysis. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings revealed that the level of four dimensions of school climate namely collegial leadership, achievement press, institutional vulnerability and communication were at the moderate level. Among these variables, professional teacher behavior dimension was identified at the high level. In addition, findings indicated that there was no significant difference in teacher’s perception of school climate based on gender and school location. On the other hand, the finding indicated that teachers from different types of school are having different perceptions toward collegial leadership, achievement press, institutional vulnerability and communication. This study indicated that was no significant
relationship between the two dimensions namely professional teacher behavior and institutional vulnerability. Besides that, these two dimensions were not positively associated with each other. In terms of the contribution of the significant predictors of school climate, the results revealed that there are three important variables namely achievement press, institutional vulnerability and communication contributed to the variance of school climate. Overall, the findings of this study have implications to the role of school head, teachers and parents in the way to enhance positive school climate. Based on the findings, this study also provides recommendations for improvement of practices and future research.