Are You Being Served? The Relationship between School Climate for Service and Teachers' Engagement,Satisfaction, and Intention to Leave: A Moderated Mediation Model

The notion of service has been receiving increasing attention in organizational psychology literature in recent years, due to the client-oriented managerial movement. Yet, little to no attention has been paid to the service notion in educational psychology despite its high relevance to educational settings, given the pressure to be more service-oriented and possess a client-focused state of mind. The present study explores the notion of service in school domains by examining the joint effects of climate for service and the internal service in schools on teachers' work attitudes: work engagement, job satisfaction, and intention to leave their work. The notion of climate for service emphasizes the school's attitude of teachers as service providers to its clients (students and their parents); internal climate emphasizes the school's attitude of providing service to its teaching staff. The study was conducted via a sample of 423 teachers from 30 different schools in Israel. We hypothesized that the indirect relationship between the climate for service and teachers' job satisfaction and intention to leave work would be mediated by teacher work engagement. Our findings supported this hypothesis. Moreover, this indirect relationship via teacher work engagement was demonstrated most strongly when the internal service quality received was high, providing teachers with the capability to deliver what the service climate motivates them to do. Therefore, service-oriented resources—both climate for service and internal service—may be crucial in affecting teachers work attitudes and should be specifically targeted by principals and other educational decision makers.     

Young children’s character strengths and emotional well-being: Development of the Character Strengths Inventory for Early Childhood (CSI-EC)

Abstract

The Character Strengths Inventory for Early Childhood (CSI-EC) is a parent report inventory that was developed to measure pre-school children’s character strengths consistent with the VIA Classification of Strengths and Virtues. The inventory consists of 96 items that measure 24 character strengths. The CSI-EC was administered to 2274 parents of children aged 3–6 in two large samples from Israel. Parents also completed questionnaires assessing their child’s emotional and behavioral problems and emotional well-being. Principal component analyses and confirmatory factor analyses of the CSI-EC supported 24 primary character strengths factors and four second-order factors. Children’s transcendence, intellectual and interpersonal strengths were positively associated with children’s emotional well-being, and children’s temperance and interpersonal strengths were negatively associated with socio-emotional difficulties. The findings are discussed in terms of future research and practical implication.     

The effects of father absence on children's achievement motivation,ego-strength,and locus-of-control orientation: A five-year longitudinal assessment

Predictions of reductions in children's achievement motivation, educational aspirations and interpersonal orientation due to early and prolonged father absence were investigated. To test these predictions, 120 father-present and 120 father-absent male and female children (aged 10 years) were assessed on measures of achievement motivation and related interpersonal orientation scales. A five-year longitudinal follow-up of 85 father-absent and 85 father-present subjects was carried out to assess subjects' later development. A multivariate analysis using a repeated measures design showed that father-absent subjects, compared to father-present subjects, declined in achievement motivation dimensions of competitiveness, desire for mastery, perseverance and willingness to endure negative consequences. They showed a corresponding increase in negative ego-strength dimensions of social alienation and self-centredness. The results indicated that father-absent boys and girls changed differently in psychosocial dimensions over time and father absence had more adverse effects on boys than girls. Educational and developmental implications of the longitudinal analysis are discussed.     

Crawling in and out of sleep

The goal of the study was to examine the link between motor attainments and sleep–wake regulation by comparing the sleep characteristics of infants who are crawling with the sleep of same‐age infants who have not yet acquired the locomotion milestone. The participants were 59 healthy 8‐month‐old infants with no developmental delays, who were recruited through well‐baby clinics and childcare centers. The measurements included objective sleep recordings (actigraphy), sleep questionnaire, and motor milestones checklist. The main finding was that the sleep of crawlers was more fragmented in comparison to the sleep of pre‐crawlers. While the findings of this report give support to the hypothesized link between sleep regulation and motor development, more studies are needed to clarify why crawling might provide a marker of nightwaking. In discussing the results, it is proposed that the association between fragmented sleep and crawling could be related to maturational, constitutional, and relational factors. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.