Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 31-09, Section: A, page: 4590. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1970.

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This study looks at the impact that the National Certification of Educational Achievement (NCEA) has had on teacher collegiality in New Zealand. It is an exploratory study using an in case and cross case method, located in four secondary schools with a range of demographics. I was interested in gathering the information from teachers in three key roles: Assistant teacher, Head of Department and Principal's Nominee, finding out what their views were on the change that the NCEA has bought to their professional lives and the impact made on their collegiality. The literature reviewed shows there is an international appreciation of the value of collegiality in schools but there is a fragile nature of collegiality that challenges its strength. The complexity of school culture and the symbiotic relationship between it and collegiality contributes to challenge of the management and development in secondary schools. The findings showed the teachers in this study considered there to have been a deepening in collegiality as a result of increased sharing of material, professional communication through moderation and professional development, and a heightened respect for professional practice and understanding of personalities. There are threats from reduced socialisation, workload, loss of autonomy and the fragility of collegiality. These elements have created a shift in school culture. How teacher collegiality can best be supported using this assessment policy has been explored with features involving school organisation and increasing deep collegial activities such as collegial observation, marking, moderating and review being identified as beneficial.

This study utilises a phenomenographic approach to investigate teacher conceptions of student engagement in learning. The research question asks: “What are the qualitatively different conceptions of student engagement in learning held by secondary English teachers in Central Queensland?” The research aims to contribute to knowledge about student engagement by investigating the teacher perspectives generally ignored in the research literature. This thesis begins with a review of academic research, scholarship, and government documents where multiple and conflicting understandings of engagement are identified. Phenomenography has been chosen as the empirical research approach because it is designed to map variation in understandings. Standard phenomenographic analysis is used in conjunction with two frameworks congruent with phenomenography. The first framework is based on understandings of intentionality and the second on understandings of awareness. Together these frameworks allow for in-depth analysis of conceptions by identifying the parts and contexts of conceptions and differentiating between the participant’s understanding and his or her conception of how this understanding is facilitated. The empirical component of the research involves semi-structured interviews with 20 Central Queensland secondary English teachers about their classroom experiences with student engagement. These data are transcribed and analysed as per phenomenographic protocol. This study identifies six conceptions within the what aspect, teacher conceptions of student engagement. These correspond with three conceptions comprising the how aspect, teacher conceptions of how to facilitate student engagement. The findings of the empirical research and scholarly review of literature build conceptual knowledge about student engagement. This research indicates that educational stakeholders do not hold similar understandings of student engagement. If the concept of student engagement is to become educationally fruitful, the term must be more explicitly defined in educational research and government policy documents to promote shared understandings among stakeholder groups.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The principal aim of this study is to contribute to the debate on effective teaching and learning by investigating the role of dispositions in differentiating between 12 teachers nominated by their school principals as being ‘exceptional teachers’. The thesis is premised on the importance of human dispositions for high quality teaching and learning. A conceptual framework is developed as a guide to structure the investigation that is set in the context of classroom teaching in primary and secondary schools selected from an opportunity sample of independent schools in New South Wales, Australia. The study proposes that it is possible to examine and gain insight into the nexus between pedagogic and dispositional variables when considering what it means to be an ‘exceptional teacher’. From an extensive review of the literature a conceptual model, the Dispositional Cluster Model (DCM), is developed from five complementary fields of research literature, namely: effective teachers and effective teaching, giftedness and talent, intelligence, creativity, and dispositions. The case study involves the application of four instruments that are used to examine pedagogic variables, and teacher values and beliefs. In addition, the Interview Analysis Framework (IAF) has been designed to analyse case study interviews. NVivo analysis has also been applied to the interviews. The results from the case study provide a rich array of data for differentiating between the case study teachers. The major outcome of this research was the development of the IAF as an instrument that proved to be a useful and credible tool for analysing the case study interviews. It is proposed that the IAF and the DCM have strong potential for implementation in the areas of teacher education, teachers’ professional development, and teacher evaluation. The IAF may prove to be a useful device for school principals to use for analysing teacher interviews, providing teacher support, and for assessing teachers.

Thesis (D.Min.)--Liberty Theological Seminary and Graduate School, 2006.

Mentoring has been used as a tool to help novice teachers ease into their new roles as educators. Research information on mentoring programs is extensive; however, limited research has examined novice teachers' views and the impact of mentoring programs on teacher development. The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify how female novice teachers perceived the district teacher mentoring program in a rural Texas public school district. The research questions examined participants' firsthand impressions of the teacher mentoring program, impact on teacher development, and attributes of the program. The learning theory of constructivism was the conceptual framework for this study. The mentoring program facilitated teacher learning through observing, coteaching, and co-planning. The qualitative phenomenological study was implemented on 10 female novice teachers, who were surveyed, interviewed, and observed. Pattern coding and memos were used to analyze the data. This triangulation of data validated the district teacher mentoring program as being effective at the district and campus levels and provided female novice teachers with ongoing professional development, campus mentors, opportunities for collaboration, and collegial support throughout their first and second years of teaching. Findings provide district stakeholders an understanding of how each first and second year teacher internalized their new learning. The implications for social change include understanding how use of the Ginger Tucker model can contribute to the success of novice teachers which can potentially lead to improved student academic achievement.

This study looked at the transition from preservice teacher to teacher by considering novice teacher success stories. This investigation rested on the presumption that the first year of teaching may be a struggle for some. This claim was underscored by the prevalence of the sink or swim metaphor in discourse related to induction. To understand how novice teacher success stories can inform teacher education, narratives were captured using task-oriented, semi-structured interviews deliberately designed to elicit authentic responses. Iterative analysis of the narratives yielded two profiles and 10 stories that are presented in a combination of vignettes written in the voice of the participant and expository comments. Iterative analysis of the 10 stories using the features or elements of story (setting, character, tone, and theme) yielded a number of patterns. In sum, consideration of these findings informs a deeper and richer understanding of induction through the experiences and perspectives of the purposively and conveniently selected participant in this study. Her case supports the rationale for this inquiry. She demonstrated a keen awareness of the struggles novices face. Yet, she self-identified as successful and her administration concurred. The overarching finding is deep insight into the persona of the participant---a survivor that understood successes as a novice teacher to be occurrences marked in sometimes minimal relief upon a context of struggle.

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study is to give teachers a voice to express their self-efficacy beliefs, their opinions about the content and the effectiveness of their teacher preparation programs to facilitate student learning, and to hear their suggestions for improving teacher education to enable future educators to achieve that goal. The advent of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2002, referred to as No Child Left Behind, has reframed the debate on teacher quality. Across the board, from scholars to government officials to private foundations, there is a call for reform of schools of education. It is these schools which are responsible for preparing teachers to educate students who will succeed in the globalized society of the 21st century; yet the voice of the classroom teacher is nearly absent. In this transcendental phenomenological study, I collected data from a sample of 25 educators who have been teaching in schools between 5 and 10 years. An online survey, face-to-face interviews, and one focus group was used to address the topic of how to improve teacher education to best meet the educational needs of a diverse student population. While nearly all participants expressed positive self-efficacy beliefs and an overall satisfaction with the quality of their respective teacher education programs, each reported deficiencies in preparation. Participants expressed concern in the areas of content knowledge, special education, teaching English language learners, using instructional technology, classroom management, and building relationships with families.

This study focused on evaluating the sufficiency of research in reading in the content area used to instruct classroom teachers. The research used was conducted between 1970 and 2000 and incorporated into textbooks written between 1975 and 2005. Studies examined were those reported in the following journals: Review of Educational Research, Review of Research in Education, Social Education, Theory and Research in Social Education, Reading Research Quarterly, and Research in the Teaching of English. Some attention was also given to two major educational curriculum and issue journals- Educational Leadership and Phi Delta Kappan as these sources might identify relevant research studies for further investigation. References cited in more than one text helped identify and establish a baseline of those studies considered most significant by textbook authors. The findings of this study showed that the majority of citations looked at the following themes: -Learners acquire meaning from the printed page through thought. -Reading can and should be done for different purposes using a variety of materials. -A number of techniques can be used to teach reading skills. -Reading materials need to be selected according to changes in a child‘s interests. -Reading ability is the level of reading difficulty that students can cope with. It depends on ability rather than age or grade level. -Readability contributes to both the reader‘s degree of comprehension and the need for teacher assistance when reading difficulty exceeds the reader‘s capability. -Reading instruction, in some form, needs to be carried on into the secondary grades. Research findings from the 1970s were concerned with reading strategies, reading skills, reading comprehension, readability, attitudes towards reading, vocabulary, study skills, and content area reading programs. In the 1980s research cited in content area reading books looked at reading comprehension, reading skills, vocabulary, learning strategies, curriculum issues, purposes for reading and writing, content area reading programs, readability, schema theory, thinking skills, summarizing, comprehension strategies, and cooperative learning. By the 1990s more research cited in content area reading books focused on reading strategies, curriculum issues, how to read documents and graphs, reading skills, vocabulary, attitudes towards reading, reading comprehension, and activating background knowledge.