Research on school principals has been narrowed to the factors leading to attrition or retention with little focus on the recruitment and development. The decreasing number of individuals applying for school principal positions has led some school districts to implement new methods to recruit and develop future school principals. One method being used by some large, urban school districts is the creation and implementation of leadership academies; however, few studies have been conducted to determine the effectiveness of this tool in aiding the recruitment and development of aspiring school principals.The purpose of this case study was to investigate the effectiveness of a leadership academy implemented in an urban school district to increase the recruitment of school leaders. Participants were assessed on their perceptions of the effectiveness of the leadership academy, in one urban school district, to prepare them for the school principal role. A qualitative, embedded case study approach was used to describe these perceptions. The study participants consisted of 12 individuals who were working as principals or assistant principals in the district after participation in the leadership academy. The data was based on participants' responses from 25 semi-structured interview questions, non-participant observations, and a document analysis of materials used in the leadership academy.The data revealed four assertions 1) the leadership academy provides an avenue for the district to identify individuals interested in the principal position and get to know the leadership styles of each individual; 2) participants believe the leadership academy aided in their preparation for a principal position in the district; 3) the application and selection process enabled the district to identify individuals interested in the principal position; and 4) the leadership academy was an indirect tool for recruitment. The findings showed that all study participants felt the leadership academy was a valuable experience and did aid them in their journey to becoming a school principal. The findings from this study support the use of a leadership academy as a tool to develop aspiring school principals; however, further research is needed to determine the effectiveness of the leadership academy in recruiting future school leaders.

This thesis investigates the experiences of Children’s Centre leaders of the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL) who find themselves in a newly developed role and lacking a professional identity. Its aim is to explore the developing professional identities of NPQICL participants from their own perspectives, focusing on ways in which their professional identities are developing and how, correspondingly, these might be better supported on the NPQICL. Clarification of core ideas embedded in these aims theoretically and conceptually reveals that professions are publicly shaped in line with established traditions, and therefore often prescribed. Processes of professional development are correspondingly seen as largely publicly organised processes of professional learning and/or acculturation. However, a key area for research is the interface between publicly shaped expectations of those learning to be professionals and the particular needs and expectations of course participants themselves especially with regard to how they see themselves as Children’s Centre leaders. Because this area is fluid, uncertain and shaped partly by professionals themselves it is hard to investigate. A flexible Adaptive Theory research design is selected along with an array of conceptual tools (orienting concepts and a conceptual cluster) which can be modified, discarded or replaced according to the demands of data collected. Using a relatively open-ended data collection device also allows a wide range of potentially revealing data to be ‘storied’ for analysis in order to preserve their individualised nature. Although a process of subjective self-conceptualisation in role can be used to explain how NPQICL participants adapt to expectations from the wider professional community and social context, there is a need to explain how public influences and individual co-constructions of professional identity shaped by professionals themselves are synthesised in individual responses to fluid, uncertain professional identities. The research aims are met by modelling the process of developing a professional identity on the NPQICL as an ‘autobiography’. This conceptual device brings together public and individual influences into a synthesis and allows insight into the experiences of individuals. It explains some of the success of the NPQICL course and some of its dynamics including how the development of Children’s Centre leaders’ identities can be supported in a professional learning programme.

This thesis comprises two stages that empirically investigate and evaluate the perceptions and importance of service elements expectations of professional baseball spectator in Taiwan. Study I is designed to collect the perception of spectators service elements expectations focus groups meetings, which also help the research to develop an appropriate research instrument for the evaluation of the importance of service elements expectations to Taiwan professional baseball spectators. Study II collected 1020 questionnaire survey samples and used cluster analysis approach to segment TPB spectators into six meaningful groups by service elements expectations. The thesis concludes that, firstly, the successful use of expectation to segment spectators proves the potential of expectation as a typology with which to categorise customers. Secondly, TPB spectators with different levels of team identification failed to have great differences in their service expectations, even though two service factors ( subsidiary services and social and educational services ) were evaluated as less important by respondents, they were still evaluated that six service expectation factors are all important to them. Finally, this study provided a different angle for sports organisers to consider, and an outline for assisting managers design service packages that are highly responsive to the target market.

Internationally the contribution that teachers’ learning can make in bringing about change in education, by improving outcomes for young people, is a topic of ongoing interest. Influenced by discourses of professionalism, in Scotland education policy has developed over time to support and structure teacher learning throughout the teaching career. However, the lived experience of being a teacher is a socially constructed act located in multiple realities. Policy in action may, or may not, reflect the intentions of policy makers. Within the context of Primary Education, in which 92% of teachers are women, this qualitative study explores women Primary Teachers’ experiences and understandings of professional learning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 women Primary Teachers and 12 opinion shapers. Critical analysis of relevant educational policy also took place in order to explore dominant policy discourses. A Grounded Theory approach was adapted for data analysis and theory construction. Sensitised by thinking tools provided by feminist theory and Bourdieu, the findings suggest early schooling plays an important part in shaping experiences and understandings of learning. Moreover, gender matters in understanding women Primary Teachers’ experiences and understandings of learning. Early gendered learning identities seemed to notably influence how learning was negotiated and enacted later as a woman, as a teacher and thus as a professional. The woman teacher participants in this study were theorised as Caring Teachers. However, Caring Teachers is not a homogenous construct as the women performed as Nice women, as Confident women, as Kind women and as Authoritative women. Influenced by early schooling and a desire to be ‘good teachers’, the Nice and the Kind women produced themselves within traditional discourses of femininity, of compliance and subordination. This performance of a teacher was vulnerable to policy demands as, despite the rhetoric of professionalism, education policy constructs Class Teachers as technicians. In contrast, the Confident and Authoritative women, more likely to be Chartered Teachers, produced themselves somewhat differently. Their habitus predisposed them to perform as a learner with some confidence. However, although the Confident women and Authoritative women understood and enacted teacher learning differently, their learning too was constrained by the limitations of policy-sanctioned discourses. Informed by the findings of this small-scale study, I argue that teacher learning is subject to complex, interwoven understandings of woman, of learner and of teacher as professional. Attention, therefore, should be given to the interrelated nature of the aforementioned constructs as Women Primary teachers’ learning and professionalism has played, and will continue to play, an important role in shaping the outcomes available to children.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Donald J. Mrozek / This dissertation examines the development of the professional military studies curriculum at the United States Air Force Academy. The study explores the rationale behind establishing an Air Force Academy, along the lines similar to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point or the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. The quest for an additional academy emphasized the need for specialized training of air force cadets and creating a common bond for its future officer corps, rather than recognizing the necessity to equip them with a professional military education regarding warfare and how air power influences war, for example. This trend continued in the two main studies used to justify the Air Force Academy, as well as the development of the initial curriculum, where an integrated academic curriculum, one that emphasized both the sciences and engineering as well as the social sciences and humanities, placed any discussion of professional military studies on the back burner. The challenge of the Academy’s general academic curriculum on the cadet’s time left little room for the development of a strong, rigorous professional military studies program. However, the confluence of a cheating scandal at West Point and the resulting report, as well as a reflection during the 25th anniversary of the Academy’s founding in 1979, which developed questions on the professional military studies program within the curriculum, led to the establishment of a Permanent Professor within the Deputy Commandant for Military Instruction, and resulted in drastic changes to the curriculum for the cadets, specifically involving professional military studies. Today, the United States Air Force Academy has a Department of Military and Strategic Studies under the overall authority of the Dean of Faculty. This department has as its charter the role to provide “the study of the context, theory, and application of military power”—with special emphasis on the role of airpower to the art and science of war. The document that helps define the duty of the department also states that this necessary study for officer candidates constitutes “the essence of a military academy education” and, most certainly, the central core of a professional military studies program.

Les jeunes du Liban, comme partout ailleurs, connaissent des difficultés lorsqu'il s'agit dechercher un travail. Le contexte est cependant spécifique, puisque le pays connait desproblèmes économiques, auxquels il faut ajouter les conflits politiques locaux et une situationcommunautaire et confessionnelle complexes. Dans le même temps, les technologies del'information et de la communication (TIC) apparaissent dans des discours et des projetsmultiples comme sources de nouvelles opportunités pour l'individu. Par les nouveaux usageset modes de socialisation qu'elles induisent et les compétences qu'elles délivrent, ellestransforment l'organisation de l'activité professionnelle et domestique sous différentes dimensions, ainsi que les besoins en capital humain du marché de l'emploi. Les objectifs posés sont alors de savoir dans quelle mesure l'usage des TIC pourrait avoir un impact positif sur l'insertion socio-professionnelle du jeune libanais. Pour répondre à cette question, cet ouvrage propose une méthodologie d'enquête et d'analyse basée sur le paradigme des économies de la grandeur tiré des travaux de Boltanski, Thévenot, et Chiapello. Il analyse les discours d'acteurs concernés par la problématique de l'insertion professionnelle et sociale dans notre contexte précis, ainsi que les pratiques technologiques du public étudié. / The youth of Lebanon, as elsewhere, are experiencing difficulties when seeking a job.However,the context is specific, since the country is experiencing economic problems, which must beadded the local political conflicts and a community and religious complex situation. At thesame time, information technology and communication (ICT) appear in speeches and multipleprojects as sources of new opportunities for the individual. For new uses and modes ofsocialization and skills they induce, they transform the professional and domestic activityorganization in different dimensions, as well as the human capital needs of the labormarket. The objectives raised then are research to what extent the use of ICT could have apositive impact on the socio-professional integration of young Lebanese. To answer thisquestion, this thesis provides a survey methodology and analysis based on the paradigm ofeconomies of scale issued from the work of Boltanski, Thévenot, and Chiapello. It analyzes thediscourses of actors concerned by the issue of professional and social integration in ourspecific context, and technology practices of the considered public.

Effective teacher development is significant for any educational system to remain competitive in the global arena (Bayar, 2014). However, science teachers’ professional development activities have often been found to be ineffective (Opfer & Pedder, 2011). Science teachers also minimally participate in such activities due to their ineffective experiences (Chval, Abell, Pareja, Musikul & Ritzka, 2007). Understanding how science teachers’ experiences are constructed is also crucial to create programs to meet their needs (Schneider & Plasman, 2011). It is essential in the construction of professional development experiences to recognize who is being served in professional development (Saka, 2013). But rigorous methods are required to understand the outcomes of professional development (Koomen, Blair, Young-Isebrand & Oberhauser, 2014). The purpose of this phenomenological case study was to study how secondary school science teachers describe their lived experiences of professional development in Punjab (Pakistan). How do these teachers understand, make sense, and use of those intended goals of professional development opportunities and change their practices through the implementation of learned knowledge of professional development? This study used purposive sampling to collect the qualitative data from fifteen secondary school science teachers of Punjab (Pakistan). The data collection was done through conducting semi-structured in-depth phenomenological interviews with these science teachers (Seidman, 2013). The data were analyzed using three-stage coding methods, and thematic analysis. Three main themes emerged from the analysis of data. The first theme of sense making is about their understanding and description of intended meaning of professional development activities. The second theme of meaningful experiences captured the participants perceived benefits from the PD activities. The third theme of contextual and cultural factors is focused on the understanding the impact of these factors in imparting of professional development experiences. The findings of the study communicate the significance of science teachers’ role in professional development activities. Science teachers’ voices, needs and active involvement must be taken into consideration in the designing and implementation of such activities.

This dissertation is a descriptive, exploratory examination of professional commitment, organizational commitment, and conflict between those commitments in the internal audit profession. That conflict has been suggested in prior studies as the source of dysfunctional outcomes such as increased role stress, high turnover, decreased job satisfaction, and the exercise of improper judgment leading to audit failures. The descriptive aspect of this study deals with the development of a more comprehensive structural model of the factors and relationships involved in commitment and conflict than has been developed by previous research dealing with accountants. The exploratory aspect deals with the testing and refinement of the developed model utilizing the internal audit profession as the field of examination. The model developed in this study is derived from the synthesis of factors suggested by role theory, the concept of side bets, the cosmopolitan-local construct, and the concept of commitment as a process. This research utilizes a questionnaire administered to 205 practicing internal auditors in order to test 30 hypothesized relationships. Path analysis is used to determine the significant direct relationships between variables with a process of theory trimming being conducted in order to produce more parsimonious structural models. Indirect relationships between significant variables are identified and their redundant or suppressive nature determined. Explanations of these suppressive or redundant relationships are provided based on the theoretical considerations identified above. Such a determination and explanation of the redundant and suppressive indirect relationships involved in the commitment-conflict relationship has not been accomplished in earlier studies of the subject. Although the procedures used here do not support causal conclusions, the findings of this study indirectly provide evidence that conflict between the two commitments in the internal audit area is not to be considered inherent. The findings also suggest a possible undesirable relationship between organizational formalization and professional commitment.

The purpose of the study was to investigate independent piano teachers' view of themselves in the light of selected attributes found in sociological writings on the professions. The research problems were: (a) to determine the attitudes which independent piano teachers held toward selected professional attributes; (b) to determine the relationship between the attitudes toward the professional attributes and selected background variables; and (c) to determine the degree of association between these attributes. The problems were addressed by a questionnaire directed to independent piano teachers active in the area of Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas. Thirty teachers were also interviewed to determine consistency of response and to explore issues which the questionnaire had raised. Reliability and validity were established at acceptable levels. Techniques of statistical analysis included Pearson's product-moment correlation, multiple regression, chi-square in conjunction with Cramer's V_, and factor analysis. The strongest attitudes expressed by the teachers in the study concerned professional self-image, altruism, client orientation, commitment to work, and independence. The most important background variables were age, years of experience, number of students, certification by a professional association, and college degree in music. A multiple regression analysis tested each variable against the dependent variable professional self-image; recognition by others, commitment to work, client orientation, and qualification were found to account for 25% of the common variance. A factor analysis was also conducted to seek out patterns of attitudes among the attributes being studied; seven factors were identified among the subjects' belief systems as Professional Actions, Satisfaction, Quality Control, Professionalism, Compliance, Autonomy, and Focus on Student. These factors accounted for almost half of the total variance in the data. The study concluded that: (a) independent piano teaching was a female-dominated, subsidized occupation, and (b) the piano teachers' professional self-image seemed to be an evaluation of themselves and their work, rather than the use of profession as a definable goal for which to strive.

This case study examined learning components and outcomes of the UDL Virtual Classroom project, a web-based professional development program that was a collaboration between educators in the United States and Jamaica. The study applied the HPL lens (NRC, 2000) in order to understand the ways that Jamaican educator-participants perceived the integration of learner-centered learning, knowledge-centered learning, assessment-centered learning, and community-centered learning in the program itself, and also examined the impact of these components, despite numerous hurdles, on teachers’ mindsets and practices and the engagement and performance of students in their schools and classrooms. The researcher’s intent was to address the contextual nature of teacher learning, which must contend with the challenges of meeting the needs of individual teacher-learners, as well as obstacles and real-world situations impacting the implementation of theories and strategies. A multi-case study design was used to gather data through observations, interviews, group meetings, and surveys. Findings were analyzed using qualitative methods, focusing on the experiences of participants both as adult-learners in the professional development program and as educators themselves as they returned to their own educational contexts to implement what they had learned. This study provided insights about strengths and challenges of hybrid learning, international resource-sharing, and long-term impacts of teacher learning.