published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

This dissertation is concerned with exploring the context of a rural professional learning community and the interactions between the context and participants, both teachers and facilitators. An interpretive, qualitative, instrumental case study, the format of data collection and analysis used an instrumental case study approach and interviews, classroom observations, field notes, and artifacts. Participants included four teachers across three different rural locales and two facilitators. Data on the six study participants was collected over the 2013-2014 school year. Findings from this study add to research on the understudied rural context as well as work of in-service educators and teacher educators working within and across these communities. First, this study elucidates nine components of the rural context: students, standards, and student learning needs; teachers and teacher learning needs; practices, curriculum instruction, assessment, and the learning environment; organizational culture; organizational structures and leadership; national, state, and local policies; resources; history of professional development; and parents and community. Additionally, this study identifies new roles for professional development facilitators and explores classroom the teaching practices in rural science classrooms. Finally, this dissertation highlights the importance of rural communities on the interactions of facilitators and participants who work in a rural context. Attention to the roles and interactions between facilitators, teachers and the rural context is of utmost importance towards understanding and ultimately improving professional development experiences for these predominantly isolated educators. This work has the potential to directly impact current and future STEM students and ultimately the STEM workforce by improving professional development for science educators and ultimately science students. Therefore, attention to who is working in and around these communities as well as what is happening within the context of the professional development of rural educations is of particular interest for all those working to improve science education. / text

Objective: In this dissertation the differences between NCAA athletes and other college students who participate in sports at various levels (i.e., club sports and intramural) were examined. The effects of different types of academic socialization received and the primary source of these messages on grade point average and professional sport expectations were also studied. The weekly hours spent on school and sports during the season and offseason were tested as potential mediators of the relationship between professional sport expectations and grade point average. Method: The sample consisted of 448 college students (NCAA = 122, Club = 104, Intramural = 119, No Sport = 103) ranging from age 18-25. Participants self-reported GPA, professional sport expectations, athletic identity, weekly time spent on school/sports during the season/offseason, academic attainment aspirations/expectations, academic involvement, educational encouragement, the value of education, and most influential socializer of academic messages. Results: NCAA athletes reported greater academic involvement by others, but had lower GPAs than the other students. They also reported academic counselors/mentors and parents/family as their two primary socializers, while students from the other groups indicated parents/family as their only primary source of socialization, as they relied on themselves second most. Also, weekly time spent on sports during the offseason was found to significantly mediate the negative relationship between professional sport expectations and grade point average. Conclusions: The academic experience of NCAA athletes is different from all other students on campus. Collaborating with others on campus to help athletes explore other avenues for future success can lead to less emphasis on playing a professional sport and more academic success. This would be beneficial considering so few NCAA athletes end up having successful pro sport careers. / text

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex and lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder that is widely variable in presentation and intensity of defining features. ASD affects 1 in 94 Canadians and is increasing in prevalence. The variety of professionals who work with children with ASD have an accumulation of experiences that can be instructive and inspiring for other practitioners. This study explored how their wealth of experiences might be encapsulated as short vignettes or stories that could be analyzed and used as resources for educating current and future professionals. Six stories were collected from diverse professionals, and themes were summarized in order to demonstrate the types of lessons that can be learned from a clinician’s story of a significant moment or event in working with a child with ASD. The stories highlighted challenges and breakthroughs in communication and managing the child’s challenging behaviours, as well as skills and techniques that professionals have found effective in practice. The study shows that clinicians’ stories hold valuable information that can be shared with professionals in an interesting and memorable manner. Future research could expand on this study to build larger collections of stories with additional viewpoints and specific professional insights and experiences with a variety of children in their practice. / Graduate / 0518 / 0727 / 0758

The creation of professional development that provides ongoing support to teachers so that they can continue to develop has been increasingly promoted in past years. With the onset of No Child Left Behind and Reading First, teacher professional development gained renewed interest in many school districts. One key component of professional development that received increased attention is professional development through instructional coaching. In a Reading First setting, coaches were supposed to provide teachers with ongoing support in implementing high quality reading instruction for teachers in grades K-3. However, little research on teacher perceptions in this setting has been undertaken. This study sought to discover teacher perceptions of the role, contribution, and value of coaching in grade levels K-3 by answering the following research questions: 1) How do teachers understand the role of instructional coaching? 2) What changes do teachers perceive in their practice as a result of instructional coaching? 3) Which components of instructional coaching do teachers believe they benefit from most? 4) Do teachers perceive a relationship between student learning and instructional coaching? A cross-case analysis was performed on two elementary schools. Data came from the perspective of eight teachers through personal interviews and focus group interviews. Coaching logs provided by instructional coaches were also used. Data collection and analysis was guided by Dewey’s (1938/1998) theory of experience, focusing on continuity and interaction. The results of this research revealed perceived diverse benefits of coaching on teacher practice in a Reading First setting, as well as issues and challenges within the coach-teacher relationship. Teachers’ views and attitudes regarding coaching were similar in some ways. Teacher interaction with coaches varied by experience and grade level. Most of the teacher participants wanted more interaction with the instructional coach assisting, modeling, and observing in the classroom. / text

Creditor committees have been characterized as the “watchdogs” of the bankruptcy reorganization process of large companies. Not only do creditor committees have broad statutory powers to oversee the debtor and its management, but they also play a key role in preventing abuses by professionals and other participants in the often complex corporate bankruptcy process. Furthermore, recent research has provided evidence of abusive fee practices in large corporate bankruptcy cases which point to failures in the oversight mechanisms of the process. This dissertation examines the role of creditor committees in the bankruptcy process and in selected outcomes of this process, with a focus on fees paid to bankruptcy professionals. Based on a unique data set comprised of 1,037 bankruptcy cases over the period 1999-2008, the research first examines committee characteristics along three separate dimensions of analysis: individual characteristics of members serving on committees; changes of committee composition over the life of the committees; and social characteristics of committee interlocks. The Calpine bankruptcy case is used throughout this dissertation to illustrate the research. This research finds a dense network of interlocks that dominates large cases, with financial industry members being significantly more likely to serve on multiple committees than non-financial industry members. Analysis of the data shows that over 50% of creditor committees are never amended and there are no systematic recompositions of the remaining committees. A test of small-world topology in the member creditor committee network fails to show a strong small-world structure in the member social network once it is corrected for imposed network topology. This dissertation then employs econometric models to evaluate whether creditor committee variables help explain professional fees in large bankruptcy cases. It finds a statistically significant and positive relationship between the social centrality measure of the creditor committee case and the professional fees paid. This finding points to potential conflicts of interest among the repeat creditor committee players and their constituents. The research fails to find a significant relationship between the presence of financial firms in creditors’ committees and professional fees paid in the case. The dissertation concludes with policy recommendations and suggestions for further research. / text

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of principals and assistant principals regarding the training and preparation afforded assistant principals in selected schools in the metropolitan Atlanta area. The research questions were as follows: RQ I : Is there a significant relationship between graduate training programs for assistant principals and preparedness for the principalship? RQ2: Is there a significant relationship between the prior employment training that assistant principals receive and preparedness for the principalship? RQ3: Is there a significant relationship between participation in the role of the principalship and preparedness for the principalship? RQ4: Is there a significant relationship between the leadership attributes that the assistant principals possess and preparedness for the role of the principalship? RQ5: Is there a significant relationship between the aspirations of the assistant principal and the preparedness of the principalship? RQ6: Do independent variables such as years teaching, age, race, highest degree earned, present position, gender, educational institution attended, type of certification: years as assistant principal, size, location, or type of school have a significant bearing on the perceptions of principals and assistant principals regarding training activities for the principalship? In this study, a survey questionnaire was used to document the perceptions of 70 principals and 100 assistant principals regarding the training and preparation afforded assistant principals in selected schools in the metro-Atlanta area as preparation for the successful principalship of schools. Demographic information and principal and assistant roles and responsibility data was also gathered. This study found a positive correlation between perceived importance of formal university graduate course work and preparedness for principalship. The study also revealed that having a written job description outlining specific duties while in the role of assistant principal is significantly related to preparation for principalship. Assistant principals in this study received the lowest ratings on the ability to handle effectively resource allocation. In addition, previous experience with budget and finance was noted as one of the most important areas of expertise one must gain when participating in the role of principalship. To the extent possible, principals should involve their assistant principals in decisions concerning planning and developing the school budget; managing fiscal, human, and material resources; utilizing the physical plant; and monitoring and reporting on resource use.

Teachers' construction of and motivation for using new mathematics knowledge learned in professional development differs from students' learning of mathematical concepts. However, teachers also vary in their use of new mathematics content in their own classrooms. This qualitative study followed teachers from a professional development course in algebra into their classrooms in order to investigate how teachers connect mathematics content from PD with the content they teach. The results of this study established three modes of connection (direct connection, indirect connection, and disconnection) and contextualized these connections by exploring teachers' motivations for participating in professional development and analyzing their alignment with the perspective on and development of the content taken by the PD course's instructors.

This study investigated the relationship between teacher training transfer, perceptions of principal leadership, and specific principal behaviors among 62 teachers who participated in one district's new teacher induction program. A mixed methods design was employed. A sub-group of 19 participants reported statistically significantly greater training transfer than the other 40 participants; chi-square tests revealed no significant differences between these two groups in terms of demographics or conditions of their supervision. The 19 high-training-transfer participants also reported that their principals demonstrated certain behaviors at a statistically significantly greater level than was reported by the other 40 participants. These principal behaviors were categorized as promoting a culture of accountability and promoting a culture of professional learning. The participants in the high-training-transfer group also were more likely to perceive their principals as strong in both transactional and transformational leadership. However, in the entire sample, leadership style was not found to be significantly related to teacher training transfer, nor were any significant interaction effects revealed between perceived leadership style, teacher demographic variables, and teacher training transfer. The results indicated that specific instructional leadership behaviors were effective in promoting teacher training transfer, and that leadership style made a difference only when applied in the context of these instructional leadership behaviors.

This qualitative study endeavored to interview professional immigrants in order to better understand the adjustment and career-related challenges that professional immigrants encounter when they immigrate to Canada and pursue educational retraining. The main purpose of the study was to explore retraining decisions and outcomes and uncover the factors that influence career resiliency amongst professional immigrants. It was discovered that most professional immigrants have a desirable pre-immigration career and come to Canada to provide a better standard of living for themselves and/or their children. Professional immigrants often expect that they will be able to continue in their vocational field after arriving in Canada with little or no retraining. Unfortunately, most professional immigrants encounter significant initial career barriers such as discrimination, a lack of social networks, and non-recognition of foreign education and work experience. These barriers often lead to issues such as unemployment, under-employment, unfair treatment, psychological distress and a reduced standard of living. To help cope with these difficulties, most professional immigrants rely on social support and personal actions. In particular, encountered career challenges often prompt professional immigrants to adopt educational retraining as a career-enhancing strategy. The specific retraining experiences and career outcomes of participants were explored and discussed in detail. In summary, some participants were able to re-establish a career in Canada that was as satisfying as their pre-immigration career, however, most participants were unable to establish a career that is equivalent to their pre-Canadian career status. A number of participants even found themselves’ unemployed or grossly under-employed despite living in Canada for at least six years and having completed retraining. Overall, participants in this study represented a wide range of experiences which served to guide the formation of a new theoretical model for career resiliency. In addition to accounting for the influence of individual, relational and contextual factors, the newly presented Relative Encompassment Model of Career Resiliency accounts for the influence of relative comparisons, which were found to influence participant’s attitudes, perceptions and coping abilities. The important implications for theory, policy and practice are discussed. Suggestions for future research on career resiliency are also made.