The College of Education, Health and

Human Sciences

Announces the Final Examination of

Fatima K. Ferguson

for the degree of

Doctor of Education

February 12, 2015 at 1:00 pm

405 Ball Hall, University of Memphis

Memphis, TN

Biographical Sketch

Bachelor of Business, Management, Jackson State University

Masters of Arts in Teaching, Elementary Education, Jackson State University

Advisory Committee

Duane Giannangelo, Ph.D, Professor, Instruction and Curriculum Leadership, Committee chair

Jeffrey Byford, Ph.D, Associate Professor, Instruction and Curriculum Leadership

William Hunter, Ed.D, Assistant Professor, Instruction and Curriculum Leadership

George Relyea, MA, Assistant Research Professor, Public Health

Major Field of Study

Instruction Curriculum Leadership

Period of Preparation: 2011 – 2015

Comprehensive Examination Passed: February 2013

An Analysis of the Effects of School Climate on School Annual Yearly Progress

Abstract

With increasing pressures to improve student performance, schools are in need of ways to positively affect student achievement. The concept of organizational health, which includes academic emphasis, teacher leadership, resource influence, teacher affiliation, and administrative leadership, offers educators an opportunity to gauge the climate of their building and in turn positively affect academic outcomes. Using Hoy and Tarter’s (1997) concept of organizational health in elementary schools as a conceptual framework, this study undertook a quantitative approach to examine the relationship between school climate factors and student achievement gains and decreases using Independent t-tests. Quantitative analysis revealed a significant relationship between academic emphasis, teacher affiliation, resource influence, administrative leadership and student achievement gains and decreases with p-value<0.01.