Prof Zehava Rosenblatt talks about teacher accountability
Two lectures were delivered by Dr Rosenblatt at the College of Education during February 2013. The first dealt with teacher withdrawal behaviours (teacher absenteeism and lateness) from an organizational deviance and ethics perspective. The second concerned teachers’ and administrators’ accountability disposition. Prof J.Seroto welcomed Dr Rosenblatt, a faculty member at the University of Haifa, Israel, when she came to speak to the college about her research.
Dr Rosenblatt’s study of absenteeism and lateness looked at the scope and possible misbehaviour patterns of these work behaviours. She showed that while the scope of teachers’ absence in Israel was similar to that in most developing countries, its pattern attested to a teacher tendency to be absent on the first day of the week, after official holidays, and during longer working days. Teachers’ absence implications included costly substitution, increased students’ absence and decreased academic achievements, and led to a culture of absence. Most of the reasons cited for teachers’ absence were related to illness, and backed by generous collective contracts allowing extended paid absences. Dr Rosenblatt also showed that Israeli teachers’ absence and lateness behaviours were strongly related to their perception of school ethics: The more school climate was perceived by teachers as unethical and unjust, the higher their withdrawal behaviours. The recommendations which came out of these studies indicated that principals should develop a culture that fosters ethical values, and at the same time provides a clear and assertive school absence and lateness policy.
Dr Z Rosenblatt and Prof J Seroto
In her lecture on accountability disposition, Dr Rosenblatt defined accountability as an interactive process, involving clear standards, result evaluations, and related feedback. She described an experimental study in Israel, where teachers who took part in a yearly accountability program – obliging them to report to their superintendent as well as to colleague teachers about their work achievements – performed better than teachers in a control group. Dr Rosenblatt also presented a new self-report measure of accountability disposition designed for teachers and school administrators, validated against work accountability scenarios. She showed that this measure predicted teachers’ in-role and extra-role performance, and that this relationship was moderated by principals’ leadership style.
Prof Eleanor Lemmer hands over a small token of appreciation to Dr Zehava Rosenblatt
The measure consists of items representing two accountability dimensions: one is bureaucratic (external), where teachers report to their supervisors and others, and the other is professional (internal), where teachers report to their own ethical codes and moral beliefs. Finally, Dr Rosenblatt discussed the role of stress in assessing the results of accountability, and the role of cultural values in the manifestation and expression of accountability disposition.
