MSU, area schools establish research initiative

MSU’s Institute for School Improvement and seven school districts in southwest Missouri will sign a cooperative agreement, establishing the Ozarks Educational Research Initiative.

The initiative is aimed at combining the school districts’ desires to have research conducted to improve their programs with the university’s experience in educational program evaluation.

Member districts will pay $1 per student per year, and a council with representatives from all partner schools will make decisions about what projects will be pursued.

The program’s first project involves researching “school climate” and its effect on student achievement – a topic already under evaluation by several MSU faculty members. Chuck Barke, head of the counseling department; Vicki Schmitt, ISI director of research; and Joe Hulgus, associate professor of counseling, have conducted their research in Springfield Public Schools.

As part of the initial research, teachers, parents and students in Springfield schools completed surveys about the learning environment in their schools.

“Initial results indicate that these and other school climate factors are significantly related to student achievement levels on the Missouri MAP tests in communication arts, math and science,” Barke said in a news release. “Most importantly, many of these are factors that can be strengthened through school improvement collaborations among administrators, teachers and parents.”

According to Barke, “school climate” refers to the social, interpersonal, physical and academic aspects of the learning environment in schools. Those aspects can include how involved parents are in the school, expectations of positive performance, students’ sense of belonging, quality of communication and having a positive learning environment.

Barke, Schmitt and Hulgus will present the early results of their research today at 1 p.m. following the agreement signing, which will take place at noon in Plaster Student Union on the MSU campus.