The impact of school culture, teacher job satisfaction, and student attendance rates on academic achievement of middle school students.

This quantitative study focused on 760 Kentucky middle school teachers in 28 school districts across the state of Kentucky. The Pearson r was used to determine the relationship between the following variables identified in the study: (a) school culture as measured by the School Culture Triage Survey combined scores, (b) job satisfaction of teachers as measured by the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) scores, (c) student achievement scores as measured by the Commonwealth Assessment Testing Score (CATS) accountability index for each school, and (d) student attendance rates. This study utilized correlation analysis to answer questions one through six and multiple regression to answer the seventh research question. The research questions were: (a) Is there a relationship between School Culture Triage Survey scores and Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire-Short Form scores?; (b) Is there a relationship between School Culture Triage Survey scores and Commonwealth Accountability Testing scores?; (c) Is there a relationship between the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire-Short Form scores and the Commonwealth Accountability Testing scores?; (d) Is there a relationship between attendance and Commonwealth Accountability Testing scores?; (e) Is there a relationship between School Culture Triage Survey scores and attendance rates?; and (f) Is there a relationship between Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire-Short Form scores and attendance? The results of the Pearson r showed that there was a positive correlation between the SCTS and MSQ scores, the variables of the School Culture Triage Survey scores and the Commonwealth Accountability Testing scores, as well as, a positive relationship between attendance and CATS. No other positive correlations were found. Notably, in Model 1 of a multiple regression analysis School Culture Triage Scores were a significant predictor of CATS scores. However, once attendance and teacher job satisfaction scores were added the in Model 2 of the regression analysis the researcher determined that the relationship between School Culture Triage Scores and CATS were spurious at best. The only variable which maintained a significant positive relationship was attendance. The present study seeks to contribute to the field and address gaps in the literature at the middle school level. Teacher job satisfaction was not a significant predictor of student achievement.