This study aims to examine the effects of elementary teachers’ perceptions of school organizational health on teacher efficacy and to analyze the moderating effect of teaching experience as well as the relative influence of the sub-dimensions of sch...
This study aims to examine the effects of elementary teachers’ perceptions of school organizational health on teacher efficacy and to analyze the moderating effect of teaching experience as well as the relative influence of the sub-dimensions of school organizational health. For this purpose, data from 2,354 elementary teachers who participated in the third-year survey of the KTLS-E(III) conducted by the KEDI were analyzed. School organizational health was reconstructed into five sub-dimensions—goal attainment and task accomplishment, internal relationships and organizational culture, leadership, institutional management, and environmental adaptation and external collaboration—and teacher efficacy was measured as a single integrated construct using 12 items. Data were analyzed using SPSS, employing descriptive statistics, t-tests, one-way ANOVA, multiple regression analysis, and moderated regression analysis.
The findings are as follows. First, elementary teachers perceived school organizational health to be generally positive. Among the sub-dimensions, leadership, institutional management, goal attainment and task accomplishment, and internal relationships and organizational culture were perceived relatively high, whereas environmental adaptation and external collaboration were perceived the lowest. School organizational health showed a significant positive correlation with teacher efficacy, and internal relationships and organizational culture exhibited the strongest correlation with teacher efficacy. Differences by background characteristics indicated that teachers with at least ten years of experience, teachers holding administrative positions, teachers in small schools, and teachers in innovation schools perceived school organizational health more positively. Second, the analysis of the effects of the sub-dimensions of school organizational health on teacher efficacy showed that school organizational health significantly influenced teacher efficacy. Among the sub-dimensions, internal relationships and organizational culture were identified as the most influential positive factor for teacher efficacy, and institutional management as well as environmental adaptation and external collaboration also had significant positive effects. In contrast, leadership had a significant negative effect on teacher efficacy, and goal attainment and task accomplishment did not show a significant effect. Third, the moderated regression analysis examining the moderating role of teaching experience indicated that school organizational health had a significant positive effect on teacher efficacy even after controlling for relevant variables, and that teachers with five or more years of experience showed significantly higher teacher efficacy than those with less than three years of experience. However, the highest-order interaction effect was not statistically significant. Nonetheless, partial negative interactions were found in the groups with three to less than five years of experience and ten to less than fifteen years of experience, suggesting that, in these career stages, the positive effect of school organizational health on teacher efficacy was relatively weaker than in the group with less than three years of experience.
These results suggest that, to enhance elementary teachers’ efficacy, it is essential to prioritize strengthening internal relationships and organizational culture in ways that ensure trust, collaboration, and psychological safety among teachers. In particular, the partial moderation finding—showing a relatively weakened positive effect of organizational health during the career transition period (3–5 years) and the mid-career stage (10–15 years) compared with the novice group—highlights the need for differentiated, career-stage support policies that reduce workload and provide opportunities to renew professional capacity for teachers in these stages.