<p> Educators at a public high school in Southeastern United States depend on mentor teachers to minimize the attrition rate among beginning teachers, yet the strategies implemented by mentors lack definition and clarity. The purpose of this study was to explore mentor teachers&rsquo; perceptions of effective mentoring strategies and their needs when mentoring new teachers. Maslow&rsquo;s humanistic learning theory guided this bounded basic qualitative study. The research questions focused on the mentoring strategies mentor teachers perceived as effective and the needs of the mentors. Ten high school mentor teachers, who currently mentor new teachers, were purposefully selected to participate in individual and focus group interviews. Precoding, open and axial coding were used to inductively analyze the data. The results showed mentors promote school culture, are a source of information, build relationships, use data to drive discussion, provide opportunity for reflection, conduct observations, connect theory with practice, and model professional behavior as effective strategies. Mentor teachers indicated that effective communication is crucial when mentoring new teachers. Additionally, they need specific skills to help beginning teachers better understand the reality of teaching and address their unrealistic expectations of the profession. Based on the findings a 3-day professional development for mentor teachers was developed to address mentors&rsquo; needs. This endeavor may contribute to positive social change when district administration provides mentor teachers with professional development to enrich their mentoring strategies which in turn may address the challenges new teachers experience and reduce the attrition rate.</p><p>

Despite a wealth of research into improving questioning in mathematics, recent research has identified the need for more effective questioning strategies which are accessible to mathematics teachers. This thesis investigates the types of questions which encourage mathematical thinking and participation, with the aim of deepening and varying mathematical thinking for learners through working with my own tool to develop questioning in mathematics, the Intended Mathematical Processes and Cognitive Thought (IMPaCT) Taxonomy. Following a literature review of existing taxonomies which can be used for classifying questions, and framing the research around the establishment of sociomathematical norms in the classroom, this thesis develops a new taxonomy and presents the findings from the pilot study for this research followed by the empirical research to explore the effectiveness of the IMPaCT Taxonomy. Over the course of an academic year, 28 mathematics lessons, from four participant teachers and five classes of 14-16 year olds were observed, and the questioning in each lesson was analysed using the IMPaCT Taxonomy. After the first 15 of these observations, intervention was given to the participant teachers on using the IMPaCT Taxonomy before the remaining lesson observations were conducted. Proportions of question type and depth were analysed according to several factors: the participant teacher; the level of attainment of the class; the stage of the lesson; the Assessment for Learning techniques used; and the mathematical topic. The results show that although all these factors affect the questioning, the attainment of the class and the individual teacher have the biggest impact on the questioning employed. The empirical analysis shows that both the teachers’ understanding of how their questioning impacts on learners and the teachers’ variety and depth of questioning can be increased through working with the IMPaCT Taxonomy, although there are variations between teachers to the extent of the impact of the IMPaCT Taxonomy.

This study is an interpretive study of the perspectives of first-year head teachers in secondary education in Seoul, the Republic of Korea. Education in Korea has been highlighted in education scholarship because of its teaching quality and its high standing in the PISA tables. On the other hand, it has been criticised for low levels of student satisfaction and high levels of stress. Many countries are trying to use the Korean model, so gaining insight into headship is timely and useful for the research community. The research questions concern: the motivation to become a head teacher; preparation for the head teacher’s role; and the practice of being a new head teacher. To address these questions a largely qualitative study was undertaken using interviews (n=33) and shadowing (n=20) of new head teachers. Key findings include: First, both male and female head teachers’ main motivation was described as '‘to make their educational philosophy come true’. This was seen as a realistic aspiration as they saw the role as having a high status and as influential in their school. Second, it was found that head teachers felt well-prepared for their role and, with varying degrees of confidence, believed they could carry out the role of head successfully. This was because they had succeeded in getting through a competitive selection process, had gained relevant experiences in management team roles, and many had experienced working in the Office of Education as an officer and policy maker. They felt confident of understanding the Ministry of Education and the Office of Education policy goals, and felt they could influence education policy.

This research looked at how observers make judgements in the Observation of Teaching and Learning (OTL). Until recently, graded OTL has been the dominant model for assessing teaching quality across all sectors of education in the UK. From Ofsted inspection to routine in-service appraisal, teachers have become familiar, if not comfortable, with being watched and judged. Although the outcomes of these observations have high-stakes consequences for practitioners, and their institutions, the judgement process of the observer has been an under-developed area of research, and questions of which elements of theory, experience and practical knowledge they access in doing so, are areas yet to be fully explored. This research constituted a case study focussed on the process of OTL in a city-wide Adult Education service provider in England, attempting to understand and clarify the opaque process utilising methods including: interviews and questionnaires with 14 experienced classroom observers, analysis of data from 137 observation reports, and accreditation results and attendance rates pertaining to over 230 classes. Data were complemented by a rich background of ethnographic and auto-ethnographic reflection to provide context and to make the experience of OTL relatable for the reader. The findings suggested that the concept of Wisdom of Practice was at the heart of the OTL process and that observers appeared to reach their initial judgements holistically based on a largely intuitive and automatic access to a wealth of theory, experience and practical knowledge. Observers then appeared to make use of a range of elements to refine and justify their judgements: chiefly judgement-criteria arising from a range of sources, but also contextual factors including the observer’s relationship with the observee. The analysis and discussion of these findings has led to the proposal of a theoretical model of the OTL judgement process, which clearly demonstrates the complex strands of OTL decision-making. Ultimately, the findings support a claim for the continued usefulness of OTL with an increased emphasis on Continued Professional Development. There is an appreciation of the authenticity of the measure, once grading has been removed, based upon the Wisdom of Practice of the experienced observer.

This study seeks to investigate the problems of English language education in Thailand by exploring Thai EFL teachers’ and students’ perceptions at the upper secondary level. Nowadays, English language education is increasingly important in Thailand in a number of domains including professional advancement, expansion of the tourist industry, and high social status. Moreover, English is expected to be an official language among ASEAN countries. Therefore, the Thai government is trying to improve English language proficiency among Thai people. However, the problem is that, on national and international English language examinations, Thai learners have very low scores despite studying English for twelve years in primary and secondary schools. Through the literature review, the importance of exploring teachers and students’ perceptions was identified as crucial to an investigation of this phenomenon, together with an attempt to identify problems of English language education at various educational levels both in the global and Thai contexts. Most previous research utilised a top-down approach to explore context-specific problems and policymakers normally design top-down educational policies; however, the current research has expressly applied a bottom-up approach to investigate the problems of English language education at the upper secondary level in Thailand. This research took a case study approach, comprising in-depth interviews and focus group interviews. Sixteen Thai EFL teachers had in-depth interviews whereas focus group interviews were used with 10 groups of Thai EFL students. Furthermore, to broaden the data and to gain a more detailed perspective of the issues emerging from the first interview round, second interviews were also conducted with each of the 16 teachers and with 10 individual students, each of whom was randomly selected from each focus group. The data in this study were analysed using thematic analysis. Briefly, the findings suggested that the key problematic issues having influence on many other problems were mostly related to low teacher salaries, the ineffective nature of education curriculum and policy, and the prevalence of the English language examination. However, there were also some mismatches between teachers and students’ perceptions toward the problems of English language education in that teachers primarily focused on macro and micro problems whereas micro problems were mainly mentioned by students. Interestingly, apart from the expected problems which were similar to those from literature review, some problems were reported as emergent problems, which are unique in the Thai context.

<p> This generic qualitative research study examined the impact that non-counseling duties have on school counselors&rsquo; professional identity. The 10 participants were tenured school counselors who worked in a suburban county in a mid-Atlantic state. This generic qualitative study explored how school counselors can perceive non-counseling duties and how those duties may be redefined by integrating clinical components to align them with the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) National Model. Generic qualitative methodology structures the study for a greater understanding of a phenomenon, school counselors&rsquo; perceptions of their professional identity and does non-counseling duties impact those perceptions. Semi-structured interviews revealed the participants&rsquo; perceptions towards their roles as school counselors, non-counseling duties, their own professional identities, and their ability to change their perception of non-counseling duties to align with the ASCA National Model. Thematic analysis of the data revealed themes that addressed how those participants perceived non-counseling duties and their perceptions of their professional identity. This study indicates there was a direct effect on professional identity due to the assignment of non-counseling duties and the perception of the school counselors of those duties. The participating school counselors spoke of a positive perception of their school counseling role, which focused on how they performed their job. They perceived non-counseling duties to be an interference to performing their role as a school counselor. In addition to their perceptions to non-counseling duties, the school counselors that participated struggled to describe their perceptions of their professional identity.</p><p>

<p> This study used the TIMSS 2011 International Database to investigate predictors of 8th-grade mathematics achievement across three countries that represent a wide range of cultures and levels of mathematics achievement: Chinese Taipei, Ghana, and the United States. A review of literature on predictors of mathematics achievement yielded variables in four major contexts of learning&mdash;a student&rsquo;s home, beliefs, school, and classroom. The variables of home that were investigated are home possessions for learning, parent education, and parents&rsquo; expectations and involvement in their children&rsquo;s education. The variables of student beliefs were self-confidence in mathematics and the value of mathematics. The variables of school were school climate, school resources, administrator leadership, and school socioeconomic status. Finally, the variables of the classroom are access and equity, curriculum, tools and technology, assessment, and teacher professionalism.</p><p> A 2-level hierarchical linear model was used to investigate relationships between the predictors for learning mathematics and 8th-grade mathematics achievement. Level 1 represented the relationships among the student-level variables, and Level 2 represented the school-level variables.</p><p> In Chinese Taipei, statistically significant predictors of mathematics achievement in the final model included variables from the domains of home resources, student beliefs, school climate, and school socioeconomic status. In Ghana, both student-beliefs variables had statistically significant relationships with mathematics achievement, and one school climate and one school socioeconomic status variable each was found statistically significant. The U.S. had statistically significant predictors in the domains of home resources, student beliefs, school socioeconomic status, classroom-level access and equity, classroom assessment, and teacher professionalism.</p><p> This study extends previous research in several ways. It includes a review of classic and recent literature regarding predictors of mathematics achievement; 17 scales using the Rasch partial credit model were developed to measure predictors of mathematics achievement; and the results of this study may be used to examine the relationships between the independent variables of this study and middle-grades mathematics achievement in countries similar to the 3 in this study to reinforce and support variables that contribute to student achievement.</p>

‘Dare to be different, dare to progress’ explores the educational experiences of a group of 14 – 16 year old students referred to a pupil referral unit (PRU) during the period 2009 – 2012 using both quantitative and qualitative data sources. The quantitative data gathered from school files, the Local Authority’s school performance data and police records enabled a statistical exploration of recorded information pertaining to issues of attainment and progress, attendance, exclusions, deprivation factors and contacts with police. The qualitative data enabled rich contextual information and was gathered from fieldwork involving the researcher’s observations, four group interviews involving four teachers and four teaching assistants and thirteen paired interviews with nine volunteer students. Willis (1977) showed how ‘the lads’ used their social class identities to forge social class relations acting out resistant behaviours in the process in preparation for and perpetuating a working-class lifestyle or culture. This study resonated with my work at the PRU and the impetus to take it further developed during a secondment to the local Youth Offending Service where I observed a high proportion of PRU students were also known to the police and other children’s services. Bourdieu’s (1984, 1990, 1992) works on habitus, capital and field were influential in shaping the theoretical and conceptual framework around ‘class’ and ‘culture’. Skeggs’ (1997, 2004) concepts of inscription and identity formation and Quinn’s (2010) concept of imagined social capital contributed to this too. The research is unique to a particular group of young people in a particular setting and combined statistics, field notes, photographs and dialogue thus indicating ethnographic case study methodology (Merriam 1988). The research found that ‘class’ remains the strongest indicator of educational achievement and cultural capital, but the cultural influences of youth and identity, and deprivation alongside low aspirations and expectations exacerbate the situation.

<p> Noticeably absent from prior research on the selection of high school principals is empirical evidence about the factors that teachers consider in recommending candidates for high school principalships. This study gave teachers a voice about factors that should be considered in selecting high school principals. A discrete choice experiment was conducted with 219 tenured (or previously tenured), public school teachers in Grades 9-12 in New York State. Teachers were asked to choose a single hypothetical candidate from 10 sets of 3, where each candidate was described by 6 candidate-specific characteristics: teaching experience, administrative experience, education level, instructional skills, managerial skills, and interpersonal skills. Case-specific variables (i.e., teacher-participant characteristics) in the analysis included teaching experience, education level, and school needs level. A single-class, alternative-specific conditional logistic regression (asclogit) found 4 statistically significant candidate-specific factors: previous administrative experience, instructional leadership, managerial experience, and interpersonal leadership ability. Teaching experience and holding a doctorate were not statistically significant factors in the asclogit model. The asclogit found 2 statistically significant case-specific factors (i.e., having an advanced certificate or doctorate, and being in a high-needs school), both of which affected teachers&rsquo; views about candidates&rsquo; instructional leadership. Latent class conditional logistic regression (lclogit) found that all 6 candidate-specific variables except holding a doctorate were statistically significant across 3 distinct latent classes and that holding a doctorate had a statistically significant negative effect only in Latent Class 3. No statistically significant case-specific factors were found by lclogit. The study concluded that greater attention needs to be given to the views of teachers in principal-selection processes.</p><p>

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / An important component of President Johnson's War on Poverty, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 represented government's first legislative acknowledgement of the educational challenges that children who live in poverty face. The original and abiding goal of Title I is to meet the special educational needs of disadvantaged students by providing supplementary funding to the schools that serve them; this funding purchases additional programming and resources that should, in theory, enable disadvantaged students to achieve at levels comparable to their more privileged peers. Despite its noble intent, more than forty years of research on the effects of Title I shows that it has had, at best, little effect on the achievement of disadvantaged students and, at worst, no effect at all. In an effort to determine why Title I has not measurably impacted the achievement of disadvantaged students, this research turns to the international community to understand similar policies employed in other countries. After classifying and describing the most common international policies for targeting financial and other resources to disadvantaged youth, the author attempts to link, via regression analysis, three different models of targeting funding and resources to student outcomes on the 2003 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) examination. Citing a lack of sufficient data to establish a relationship between prevalent models and student level outcomes on PISA, the author goes on to present case studies of the policies in place in three different countries, each of which represents a particular model of targeting funding and resources to disadvantaged students. The three case studies focus on The Netherlands, England, and Spain. Drawing from an analysis of policy documents and survey and interview data, each case study describes 1) how a particular international model of targeting resources looks in implementation and 2) the extent to which policies employed within each model align with documented best practices for the education of disadvantaged students. The research concludes with an assessment of what the United States can learn from each of the countries studied and with a comprehensive set of recommendations for the reauthorization of Title I. / 2031-01-02