Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to identify Small Learning Community high school teachers' perceived levels of collective efficacy as identified by the Teachers' Sense of Collective Efficacy Scale (TSES) and the correlation to their perception of collaboration as measured by Rosenholtz's teacher collaboration instruments. Methodology. The study employed both descriptive and correlative methods to collect descriptive data on teachers' perceptions about teacher collaboration and collective efficacy. The population for this study comprised high-school teachers in two counties in the state of California implementing Small Learning Communities (SLC) initiatives. The study used two previous instruments: Rosenholtz's (1989) Social Organization of Schools as Workplace instrument and Goddard and Hoy's (2000) Teacher Collective Efficacy instrument. Findings: Overall, teachers seemed to moderately agree with the 33 questions about teacher collaboration to which they responded. In addition, the results seem to suggest that principals have weak social networks with their teachers. Further, the study appeared to suggest a moderate agreement with the overall teacher-efficacy statements to which the high-school teachers responded. While the overall collective-efficacy indices show moderate agreement with the statements rated by the survey participants, the disaggregated data indicated that respondents agreed more with statements related to group competence than they did with statements related to task analysis. The findings indicated that the overall collaboration index was moderately related to the overall collective efficacy index (correlation coefficient of .625). Conclusions: There appeared to be simultaneous desires for teachers to be independent and interdependent. Also, new teachers' socialization and induction are predominantly done by their colleagues instead of by principals and other administrators. The study does not appear to support the existence of real collaboration or "joint work," among small learning communities' teachers as described by Little (1990a). It was further concluded that the overall collaboration index was moderately related to the overall collective efficacy index. The findings from the present study and the accumulated literature indicated that the traditional characteristics of teachers' autonomy, norm of privacy, independence and noninterference still exist. Recommendations. It was recommended that school leaders create and nurture environments where people can talk and reveal things about themselves, and be listened to, but with due respect for individual privacy. They are also to allocate resources not only to train teachers and administrators, but also to develop the supportive structures necessary to foster teacher collaboration. It is also incumbent upon the principals to create school environments in which collaborative cultures can thrive—giving teachers the opportunity to lead, make mistakes, and learn from their mistakes. Further, school leaders must provide organizational structures such as mentoring arrangements and curriculum-planning time to accelerate new teachers' induction into the school.