Academic optimism: empirical assessment of the construct in a Portuguese sample

Abstract

Recent research in the United States and Taiwan has confirmed the existence of a school-level characteristic named academic optimism that includes cognitive, affective and behavioral facets of collective efficacy, faculty trust, and academic emphasis. The aim of this study is to examine this construct and test if, in a different cultural context, academic optimism can also be considered a school characteristic which emerges from the perception of the teachers' collective efficacy on the confidence of their educational body in the students and in the parents as well as of academic emphasis. The sample includes 382 teachers from 35 Portuguese schools. The indices provided by confirmatory factor analysis (^_X2 = 100.9 df = 5; GFI = .958, CFI = .964; RMSEA = .051) support the data model adequacy and allow us to conclude that, as in the USA and Taiwan, academic optimism in a European context, can be understood as a collective school propriety resulting from a dynamic interaction between collective efficacy, faculty trust, and academic emphasis.

Keywords:
academic optimism; schools; trust; academic emphasis; collective efficacy