The Impact of Levels of Organizational Health on Student Reading Achievement

Abstract

The first purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between levels oforganizational health in elementary schools and levels of student reading achievement.The study also examined if a relationship existed between institutional integrity, collegialleadership, resource influence, teacher affiliation, or academic emphasis and levels ofelementary student reading achievement. This quantitative study utilized purposivesampling of elementary teachers in a large Missouri public school district. The teacherswho participated in this study all administered the Fountas and Pinnell BaselineAssessment System to students in order to identify student reading levels. The studentreading levels examined in this study were gathered from historical data, and studentgrades ranged from kindergarten to fifth grade. The dependent variable in this study waslevels of student reading achievement which were compared to the independent variable,levels of organizational health in schools. Levels of organizational health weredetermined by examining results from the Organizational Health Inventory forElementary Schools survey. This survey was completed by ninety-seven teachers fromfour different elementary schools, in the same school district. The results of the studyindicated no statistically significant relationship between levels of organizational healthand levels of student reading achievement. The study also indicated no statisticallysignificant relationship between institutional integrity, collegial leadership, resourceinfluence, teacher affiliation, or academic emphasis and levels of elementary studentreading achievement. Examining the organizational health of schools should be acomponent of a school improvement plan, and further research should be conducted toidentify how organizational health impacts student learning.