Chapter 1 (Introduction)

“Best practices research,” described in this paper, refers to a systematic process used to

developed a research and refined by practicing. The definition of “best” based on values and

standards, identification and evaluation of potentially effective methods for each component or

step, combination of most-effective methods, and testing of combined methods. The

chronological development of this process is described with case examples, and the

methodological steps are discussed.

The best practice that have been done by our senior, Siti Zurainiwati Binti Abdul Kadir

from Master Of Education (Educational Management And Leadership), Faculty of Education,

Uitm Shah Alam with specific title is “The Organizational Climate Of Primary Schools In

Selangor” shows us on how to write a best thesis or dissertation.

First we look to chapter one. This chapter one is very crucial because of it is an

introduction to overall report on what we have to write in. This chapter is more like the head of

the research. So, in the other words, it is actually an abstract as a whole of everything. So, there

are several subtopics that we have to focus such as introduction for the chapter one, background

of the study, statement of the problems, research objectives, research questions, significance of

the study, research limitations, definition of terms and chapter summary.

First, introduction of chapter one. This is important so that reader can know what are all

about in this chapter. Then, background of study. This is actually a short brief to the reader to

know what actually a researcher wants to study. For example, in this dissertation that we have

referred to, she was state that each school has different climate that is used to differentiate it from
other schools. School climate represents the behavior, feelings, and emotions of teachers and

students about the school. Therefore, understanding school climate is very important in order for

the school to be effective.

Base on that statement, the researcher want to focused on the primary school climate by

measuring the collegial leadership, teacher behaviors, student achievements, parental

involvement, and leadership communication that perceived by teachers. The findings from this

study can be used by other schools as references in order to create a positive school climate for

students and also a conducive working place for teachers.

Next is statement of the problems. In this part, the researcher try to find the problem and

make the study to solve that problem. From the problem, we can get the purpose to make a

research. Base on this dissertation, creating a school climate that can meet the standard and

satisfied by teachers is not an easy task for the school administration. Hence, teachers’ work

place such as school condition and staff room should be given due attention in order to form a

conducive working environment. In fact, it is a surprise to know and understand that most school

teachers have low morale about their work and not much has been done to overcome the

situation. Due to many issues concerning teachers working condition in schools, investigating

school climate is a good idea to start finding some solutions.

After find the problem, then the researcher come out with the research objective. This

objective are built from the problem that accrue before. The research objective is more on the

reason or purpose we want to study. For example, the objectives stated in this dissertation that

we referred to are to identify and examine primary school teacher’s perception towards school

climate.
 Thus this researcher make this objective more specific by divided it to six specific

objective. There are to identify teachers’ perception towards the five dimensions of school

climate based on gender, school location, school categories. This research also want to identify

the inter-relationships among the five dimensions of school climate.

Many research question are stated as questions. The essential characteristic of a

researchable question is that there be some sort of information that can be collected in an attempt

to answer the question. In this research, six questions were determined for the purpose of the

study. Thus, the study endeavored to answer the following research questions.

Then we go to significant of the study. When writing a significance of the study, the

researcher must state what the point want to present and why researcher are doing the study.

Thus, the result of this study can give benefit to someone else. As example, in this research, the

study conducted would give an overview of school climate in primary schools in the State of

Selangor from the teacher’s perspective. This study was carried out in three different schools

categories namely national school (Sekolah Kebangsan/SK), national type Chinese school

(Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan China/SJKC) and national type Tamil school (Sekolah Jenis

Kebangsaan Tamil/SJKT). Mostly Malay background child will attend SK, Chinese background

child attend SJKC, and Indian background child attend SJKT. Schools of different categories

may have different style of administration that can lead to different perception of school climate

by teachers.

Moreover, researcher make this study to be references for school administration and

education department regarding school climate in the new era of information. This study will

form the foundation for suggestions and recommendations for school administrators in order to
create a healthier working place for teachers and also create a supportive learning environment

for students. The findings of this study also can guide the officers of the district education

department to design a more relevant instrument to assess the learning environment in different

categories of school.

Another part that state in this chapter one is the imitation of study. Why we call it

limitation? This is because in research, we cannot cover all aspect and most probably some

aspect that we might miss of. This same with this research. In this research, the limitation are the

samples were taken from urban and rural school areas. The selected rural schools are far from the

urban schools. Therefore, it was time consuming for the researcher to go from one school to

another.

However, the questionnaires were sent and distributed by the researcher herself to all the

schools involved a day before. Once the questionnaires have been distributed, the researcher

conducted 20 minutes interview with two selected teachers from each school. One week later, the

researcher returned back to each school to collect the questionnaires. However, some of the

school needs more time to distribute the questionnaires and to collecting it back from their

teachers. Therefore, researcher went to the schools more than once.

When we conduct a research, there must be a term that not everybody can understand. So,

to counter this problem, researcher have put definition of term into chapter one. Three common

ways to clarify ambiguous or unclear terms in a research question involve the use of constitutive

definitions, definition by example, and operational definitions.

As conclusion of this chapter, the researcher explained about the background of the study

and statement of problems that support the research. After analyzing the statement of problems,
we can see the importance of school climate on teachers teaching and learning that can

contribute to better student academic achievement. It is important for school leaders to

understand the teachers need in school. By providing positive working environment can help to

boost teacher morale and at the same time enhance their teaching skills. Therefore, conducive

and supportive school environment can create teacher’s high morale and also motivate teachers

to work at their best when teaching.

There are six research objectives and also six research questions presented in this study

for the researcher to answer. The significance of the study was to enhance the understanding

towards organizational climate in the primary school context and to provide ideas for the school

administration and educational department to improve school climate and at the same time lead

to student high achievement. The terms of definition used in the study was also listed in this

chapter so that others will find it easier to understand the concept of school climate in the life of

teachers.
Chapter 2 (Literature Review)

Next is chapter two or most researcher named it as literature review. A literature review

helps researchers learn what others have written about a topic. It also lets researchers see the

results of other, related studies. A detailed literature review is often required of masters and

doctoral students when they design a thesis.

Moreover, researchers need to be familiar with three basic types of sources. The type are

general references, primary sources, and secondary sources) in doing a literature review.General

reference tools are sources a researcher consults to locate other sources. Primary sources are

publications in which researchers report the results of their investigations. Most primary source

material is located in journal articles. Secondary sources refer to publications in which authors

describe the work of others. The most common secondary sources in education are textbooks.

Search terms are keywords or phrases researchers use to help locate relevant primary sources.

Based on our review from this dissertation, this chapter also enclosed background of the

study. As example, the research review of literatures for school climate. The definitions of

school climate, theories of school climate, and five dimensions of school climate investigated in

the study namely collegial leadership, professional teacher behavior, achievement press,

institutional vulnerability and communication were also reviewed.

 Thus, this chapter discussed the relevant literature to the notion of school climate and the

important concept of the five dimensions of school climate namely collegial leadership,

professional teacher behavior, achievement press, institutional vulnerability and communication.

To answer the research questions posed in the previous chapter, a conceptual framework was

proposed and discussed. Rationale for choosing each of the study variables was analyzed with

reference to either related literature or general impression. The five dimensions of school climate

relatively collegial leadership, professional teacher behavior, achievement press, institutional

vulnerability and communication were treated as independent variables and school climate as

dependent variable.
Chapter 3 (Methodology)

Methodology is the systematic, theoretical analysis of the methods applied to a field of

study, or the theoretical analysis of the body of methods and principles associated with a branch

of knowledge. It, typically, encompasses concepts such as paradigm, theoretical model, phases

and quantitative or qualitative techniques. A Methodology does not set out to provide solutions

but offers the theoretical underpinning for understanding which method, set of methods or so

called “best practices” can be applied to a specific case.

Back to our reference of this dissertation, in this chapter, the researcher discussed the

methodology applied in conducting the research. Descriptive-correlational method consists of

quantitative and qualitative techniques were used during the investigation with the objective to

understand the current scenario of school climate in Malaysian primary schools. The reason for

choosing this type of study was to investigate the school climate of different categories of school

namely SK, SJKC and SJKT.

Two instruments were used to collect data pilot study was carried out to assess the

appropriateness and the intelligibility of the instrument whether the instruments were suitable for

necessitate of the study. The results of the pilot study were reported in this chapter. Teachers

from one of the primary schools in Klang district were chosen as respondents for the pilot study.
The pilot study was conducted in January 2012. The overall measures of each instrument

demonstrated good internal consistency coefficient with .874 and .780 respectively Dimensions

of School Climate instrument and School Climate Overall instrument. The internal consistency

was based on the Cronbach’s alpha values.

Two types of sampling procedures were used to select the samples. The teacher

respondents for answering the self-administer questionnaire were selected based on random

sampling procedure. Meanwhile, purposive sampling procedure was utilized to select the teacher

respondents for the interview.

The data collection was carried out after obtaining permission letter from the MOE and

JPNS. The data was collected using self-administer questionnaire and interview. Statistical

procedures such as descriptive statistic, independent sample t-test, ANOVA, correlational and

multiple regression were used to determine each of the research questions.