A Study of the Relationship Between School Culture and Standardized Test Scores

The purpose of this quantitative study was to discover the perceptions of school culture and correlate those perceptions with standardized test scores in elementary and secondary schools in southwestern Arizona. The intention of this study was to contribute to the field of education leadership related to student achievement and factors contributing to student achievement including organizational culture. A survey of teachers and administrators in participating schools in southwestern Arizona was completed and correlated with existing student achievement data for those participating schools. The School Culture Survey by Leithwood, Aitken, and Jantzi (2001) was used for the survey instrument, and the Stanford Achievement Test, Ninth Edition, was used to measure student achievement. The survey results and student achievement data were correlated and revealed that a relationship does exist between perceptions of school culture and student achievement.