<p> The International Baccalaureate (IB) program is an ambitious and challenging academic high school program. However, the IB program is not without its difficulties and shortcomings. Many IB students appear to sense various levels of social dissonance from the general student population. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate why nonacademic socialization is a significant problem between high school IB students and AP/traditional students. IB student/graduates and former/retired IB faculty members were used exclusively for this qualitative study. The focus of this qualitative study required analyzing the IB student nonacademic socialization lived experience. This qualitative study used a grounded theoretical methodology that included open-ended interviews. All interviews conducted were face-to-face, phone, or with the use of Skype technology. The coding analysis resulted in the emergence of four themes and sixteen subthemes. The four emergent themes generated a theoretical model that supported the central research question and two secondary research questions.</p>

<p> In the last decade district-managed principal preparation programs have become common as a means for school leadership preparation (Leithwood, Seashore-Lewis, Anderson, &amp; Wahlstrom, 2004; Turnbull, Riley, &amp; MacFarlane, 2015), but evaluations of these programs are relatively rare. This dissertation evaluates one such program, the Mary Jane Patterson Fellowship conducted by District of Columbia Public Schools, now in its fourth year. </p><p> When asked to reflect upon programmatic activities within the Fellowship that have been most beneficial for them in their first year, fellows overwhelmingly cited the following programmatic features: cohort membership, access to the Central Office leadership, and the residency internship experience in which principals work closely with an experienced DCPS mentor principal. Notably absent were references to learning sessions, curricular content, and other &ldquo;classroom-based&rdquo; activities designed to improve individuals&rsquo; discrete leadership practices.</p><p> Through initial data collection and analysis, it became apparent that these three programmatic features&mdash;the cohort, access, and experience leading within the DCPS context through the residency&mdash;are beneficial to learning because of their impact on the fellows&rsquo; ability to cultivate social capital. Fellows&rsquo; unique access to aspects of the Fellowship that could be said to contribute to the development of social capital within DCPS is frequently cited as the main habitus that sets fellows apart from non-fellow principal peers. The cultivation of social capital within the Fellowship has led to improved self-awareness, trusting relationships with superiors, openness to feedback, and ease navigating the complexities of DCPS once in the role of principal.</p><p> This dissertation examines how the Patterson Fellowship cultivates social capital among fellows and what characteristics and trends emerge. Further, this study will analyze how fellows utilize the social capital they acquired through the Fellowship in their roles as novice principals. This study has many implications for the field of principal development, namely adding to conversations surrounding how principal preparation programs situated within districts position leaders differently; linking development of social capital within a preparation program to principal practice; and identifying how context, relationships, and positioning can influence principal development and practice. </p>

<p> This qualitative interview study explored the campus climate and experiences of 25 undocumented students at a public 4-year university. In addition, the study explored how campus climate shaped how the undocumented students utilized their community cultural wealth (CCW) while in college. Three themes define the findings based on 25 interviews with undocumented students: (1) undocumented students&rsquo; experience with a welcoming campus climate, (2) undocumented students&rsquo; experience with a unwelcoming campus climate, and (3) how campus climate shaped undocumented students&rsquo; utilization of CCW in college. For each of the themes, several subthemes helped to describe the findings. </p><p> Data analysis showed that participants who received academic support from faculty and staff in some departments and programs and from the leaders of the university experienced a welcoming climate and felt that they mattered to the campus and that the institution cared about their academic success. Participants noted the symbolization of the Dream Center at the university and the capture and understanding of how they utilized the six capitals described in the CCW conceptual frame by Tara Yosso.</p><p> These findings will help to expose challenges and struggles that undocumented students experience while trying to obtain a college degree. It is recommended that future research seek knowledge on how to alleviate the struggles that undocumented students experience in college in order to serve them more effectively. It is recommended that such research include undocumented student subgroups other than Latinos to identify the needs of this unique population of students. Furthermore, it is essential that institutions of higher education increase professional development for educators to address the educational needs of undocumented students. By educators participating in professional development, they will be able to develop best practices that will benefit the academic success of undocumented students.</p>

<p> The purpose of this paper is to answer research questions related to this capstone project that evaluates how peer and/or individualized professional development impacts teacher comfort and usage of technology. The analysis, measures and processes utilized to answer these questions are outlined within this paper in order to determine significant factors that affect technology usage within the classroom.</p>

<p> The primary purpose of this study was to examine interscholastic athletic director&rsquo;s transformational leadership style and its impact on organizational effectiveness based on 14 legal and moral duties. Two survey instruments were used to collect the data necessary to examine the relationship between the leadership styles of interscholastic athletic directors, gender, and organizational effectiveness. Based on the 14 legal and moral duties specified by the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA), the Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 5X) rater version and a self-developed questionnaire based on the 14 legal and moral duties specified by the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) were used to measure the athletic directors&rsquo; organizational effectiveness as perceived by the head coaches. Three hundred forty three head coaches from the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) completed surveys. The research design was a quantitative approach that used Pearson&rsquo;s correlation, and a t-test to examine the impact of directors&rsquo; transformational leadership style and gender on organizational effectiveness. Quantitative results revealed a significant relationship between the five domains of transformational leadership and organizational effectiveness. Results of the <i>t</i>-test analysis revealed statistically significant differences between male and female head coaches in evaluating their athletic directors&rsquo; leadership style and that there are no significant differences between male and female head coaches in evaluating their athletic directors&rsquo; organizational effectiveness. Previous research supports the findings from this study, which identified the need for athletic directors to adapt the transformational leadership style in order to reach a higher level of carrying out their 14 legal and moral duties.</p>

<p> Schools exist for the sole purpose of academic achievement, and within every school exists a unique culture that every student navigates and absorbs. It is reasonable to assume a student&rsquo;s environment and the expectations set forth in that environment may have an effect on their academic achievement. The purpose of this study was to determine the elements of rural middle school culture and their potential impact on academic achievement as perceived by administration at a high achieving rural middle school. A rural middle school in Eastern Oregon was chosen for this study. This school received a rating of &ldquo;Outstanding&rdquo; on the 2011&ndash;12 Oregon State Report Card, and when the report card rating system changed, they received a rating of &ldquo;5&rdquo; out of 5, which is above average on the 2012&ndash;13 and 2013&ndash;14 Oregon State Report Cards, identifying them as high achieving. Oregon did not assign ratings to schools for the 2014&ndash;15 report cards due to the transition between types of state testing, but this school performed higher than the state targets in all tested areas. This qualitative case study was conducted using four days of observations, surveys, interviews, a focus group, pictures, and field notes. The administration interviews and surveys were used to gain perspective on their perception of the school culture and its relation to the academic success experienced. The student focus group, parent and teacher surveys, observations, pictures, and field notes were used to triangulate the data to determine support or non-support for the administrative perspective. The results of this research indicated that the administration at this high achieving rural middle school perceives the research-based elements of culture, Unity of Vision, Role of Communication, Behavior Management, and Students Feel Safe/Cared For, as present in their school culture and responsible for student achievement. Administration also perceives they practice the transformational leadership elements of Building Collaborative Relationships, Holding High Performance Expectations, and Developing Shared Vision and Building Consensus most predominantly and these help foster the culture they attribute to their academic achievement. These perceptions were corroborated in full or part by teachers, students, and the researcher as shown through the survey, focus group, and observation data.</p>

<p> Online learning offers a convenient and popular choice for those needing courses to accommodate busy schedules. These include busy professionals, students with limited or no access to physical training facilities, businesses with diverse and global workforces, and students studying on campus. Online learning has experienced steady growth in both the academia and business worlds in recent years. Despite this steady adoption rate, however, there is a gap in the literature for empirical research to determine common factors of successful online courses. The Framework for Interaction and Cognitive Engagement in Connectivist Learning Contexts (FICECLC) Theory, a modern online-learning theoretical framework, states that the purpose of an online course is to transfer knowledge to the learner via his/her interaction with other learners, the course, and the instructor. This mixed-method study investigated online student course success with respect to student interaction by validating the FICECLC Theory framework by examining the correlation between student social interactions and progress for an online course built on the basis of the FICECLC Theory and an online course not built on the basis of the FICECLC Theory. Descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U test and Pearson&rsquo;s Correlation found no statistically-significant difference between the levels of student interaction, correlation of student interactions to success, and student performance levels between the students from the online course built on the basis of the FICECLC Theory and the students from the online course not built on the basis of the FICECLC Theory. Themes from semi-structured interviews found that social interaction in an online course is not a precondition for course success, but an interactive course content and instructor support, when oriented to promoting application based course exercises, are. The interaction between the student, content, and instructor can lead to deep learning if the interactions among them are multi-directional and centered on content-based exercises.</p>

<p> Effective teaching strategies can be defined as utilizing the higher levels of Bloom&rsquo;s taxonomy, which include understanding, application and analysis (Flynn, Mesibov, Vermette &amp; Smith, 2004). Teachers that use effective teaching strategies can significantly impact the future earnings of their students. Students that are recipients of these strategies receive a higher quality of K-12 education, which leads to a higher caliber of colleges and universities chosen. As a result of the higher education institutions attended, students become more competitive when entering an evolving workforce, earning higher salaries. This study explores the effective teaching strategy of storytelling. It identifies best practices of storytelling leaders in education. The literature reveals a link between successful storytelling practices and adult learning theory. There is also a connection between the impact of storytelling and the neuroscience of the brain. The findings are expected to help leaders in education who want to practice storytelling in their leadership practice. As a result of interviewing participants in this study, several themes were discovered that pointed out key factors in best storytelling practices. Some key findings include using stories to encourage critical thinking skills, heighten self-awareness among students, and activate brain triggers that produce an emotional connection around a subject matter. The data collected in study is believed to contribute to the effectiveness of future storytellers who wish to use storytelling as an effective teaching strategy in their leadership practice.</p>

<p> The topic of this phenomenological research concerned parental involvement, especially hindrances to father involvement. The purpose of this study was to identify and understand hindrances to parental involvement at Head Start from the perspective of fathers. The research took place at three Head Start sites, with all sites coming under the auspices of Semcac/Head Start. The methodology and data analysis were based on the method of Moustakas (1994, 2001) and involved interviewing seven Head Start fathers or stepfathers. Regarding hindrances to father involvement, three themes emerged from the interview data. Data indicated that the nature of fathers&rsquo; employment, work schedules, and lack of work influenced involvement. Other themes pertained to family issues, circumstances, and relationship issues as well as father personal beliefs and self-perceptions of fathering. Recommendations for future research included conducting studies on fathers and their involvement with the peers of their Head Start children. Another area requiring more research could be the role that grandparents play at Head Start. As for implications for Head Start personnel, all fathers seemed generally pleased with Head Start in that all fathers felt Head Start was beneficial to their children in their learning experience. However, in keeping with fathers&rsquo; work schedules, Head Start administrators might schedule events at various times during the day and possibly offer more father/child activities during the year. Father support groups or parenting classes at Head Start might be other options for Head Start administrators to consider.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to research the gap between teachers and leadership. There is a disconnection in addressing characteristics that are represented by the transformational, transactional, or laissez-faire teacher leaders. This study was focused on teachers and the type of leadership they are more inclined to display (transformational, transactional, or laissez-faire) in the classroom. The types of leadership were correlated with certification type, years of experience, and self-efficacy (personal and teaching). The 241 participants in the study were from two academically successful school districts in Texas as determined by the Academic Excellence Indicator System. The findings of the study did not produce statistically significant results between teacher leadership type and certification type nor years of experience. Leadership type and teacher and personal self-efficacy, demonstrated statistical significance. Recommendations for future study are made. </p><p> <i>Keywords:</i> teachers, leadership, transformational, transactional, laissez-faire, certification type, years of experience, self-efficacy.</p>