Purpose–The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between staff size and perceived organizational support (POS) in early childhood education (ECE) organizations. Design/methodology/approach–A territory-wide questionnaire survey was designed to investigate the perceptions of preschool teachers in Hong Kong on four dimensions of organizational support, namely, teacher participation in decision making, school management support, school performance in organizational support, and organizational negativity in organizational support. In total, 2,066 teachers from 189 schools were sampled with stratified random sampling. Confirmatory factor analysis and latent mean analysis were employed. Findings–There was a significant relationship between staff size and POS. Specifically, teachers working at small schools in terms of staff size reported significantly higher POS than their counterparts in medium and large schools in aspects including teacher participation in decision making, school management support, and school performance in POS. Conversely, both medium and large schools had higher scores on organizational negativity. Research limitations/implications–There may exist other factors (e.g. principal leadership), which are not investigated in this study, that influence POS. Future studies are needed to capture a fuller structural relationship among an array of factors that influence POS. Originality/value–Research on staff size and POS has been conducted separately, without one element informing the other. The findings of the present study will stimulate more research on POS and staff size. The study will stimulate thinking about whether larger preschools are more efficient than smaller preschools in terms of scale of economies in a marker driven, ECE context. Building upon the foundation laid by the study, future studies may explore the interaction between staff size and POS on intended student outcomes in ECE.
[Copyright © 2016 Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Although the essential role of school leaders in school improvement processes has been confirmed in the literature, the link between school leadership and student outcomes has only been recently addressed. Research suggests that the effect of school leaders on student outcomes is mediated through the creation of certain school conditions. Our study aimed to verify the mediating effect of some school conditions on the school leadership and student outcomes link. Based on empirical data collected from the principals and key staff in 49 secondary schools in Hong Kong, our results showed that staff collaboration was a mediating factor influencing the link and it was more commonly found in schools whose leaders were more attentive to the professional development of teachers.

為配合1990年教育統籌委員會第四號報告書內建議，香港教育署自1992年落實推行學校本位輔導方式 (下稱校本輔導)，鼓勵學校以全校性輔導活動來培養學生良好的行為，加強他們的自我形象。欲藉著校本輔導，讓全校老師更有系統地結合彼此力量，採取一個更積極鼓勵的方式去達致輔導的效果 (教育署輔導服務科，1995；教育署學生輔導組，1997)。而為提升學校教育質素，1997年教育統籌委員會第七號報告書更在建議制訂質素指標時，特別提出須考慮包括與學生的個人成長及發展、學生在主要教育範疇的表現的指標，即與輔導有關的過程和產出指標 (頁 10-11)。基於有關措施自1992年實施至今，其成效如何，是否能為學校帶來預期的效果---培養學生良好的行為，加強他們的自我形象？甚至能帶來優質學校教育？因此，筆者除了於1999年3月至5月期間在本港12間小學推行一個問卷調查研究外，並從中揀選一所有參與試行「輔導課」課程的先導學校，進行質性研究，目的為進一步探討校本輔導計劃在本港學校推行的成效，冀能從中取得啟示，使優質學校教育的精神能真正在學校落實。本文主要就有關實況評估的個案研究，分析報告。