Thesis advisor: Martin Scanlan / This qualitative case study of a medium-sized Massachusetts school district was part of a larger study exploring how educators throughout a school district make sense of and enact culturally responsive practice (CRP). This individual study focused on how school leaders and teachers incorporated their understanding of CRP into the supervision and evaluation process. Despite a growing body of literature on the effectiveness of educator evaluation standards on teacher practice, there is little on how these tools increase teachers’ capacity to support the learning of historically marginalized students. Specifically, this research asks two questions: (1) How do teachers and school leaders understand CRP? (2) How does the supervision and evaluation process contribute to a shared understanding of CRP for teachers and school leaders? Data were collected from 22 semi-structured interviews of school leaders and teachers, document review, and an online survey. Incorporating a cognitive framework for policy implementation, findings revealed that school leaders and teachers understand CRP through their own identities and life experiences and through their interpretation of the district’s professional environment. Findings further noted that the lack of a shared definition of CRP in the district contributed to inconsistent application and prioritization of CRP in the supervision and evaluation process. Without a shared understanding, educators often pivoted to other district initiatives to describe CRP. Implications include the need to establish a system of reflection and practice for educators to explore the beliefs they hold about historically marginalized students and how those beliefs inform practice. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

The purpose of this research was to understand educator experiences associated with a lateral career move. Qualitative narrative interviews were conducted with six educators, including four administrators and two teachers, who met specific research participation criteria. Thematic analysis and axial coding were performed on the collected data. A framework based on self-determination theory was used to further interpret the research findings. Research findings included participant accounts related to organizational perceptions, emotional effects, and perceptions of superordinate behaviors, before and after making a lateral move. Participants reported experiences associated with negative wellbeing and thwarting the basic psychological needs satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness prior to making a lateral move. Participants reported experiences associated with positive wellbeing and supporting the satisfaction of basic psychological needs after making a lateral move. The tenets of self-determination theory were supported. Recommendations for professional practice and future research are included.

This study explored how primary school educators expect to be supported and how they experience support from internal and external sources in a South African school district. Support for educators is vital in order to improve basic education in terms of South Africa’s long-term development goals and particularly in light of the poor performance of primary school learners in universal benchmark tests. Furthermore, the myriad of curricular changes introduced by the Department of Basic Education have increased the need for educator support in South Africa. A qualitative approach, located in an interpretive paradigm was adopted and a case study research design was employed. The requisite data were gathered by means of interviews, document sourcing and non-participant observation in three public primary schools. The main finding of the study was that there is limited amount of technical support, aimed at improving the quality of education, while affective aspects, i.e., meeting the socio-emotional needs of educators appear to be neglected. A broad theme that emerged was participants feeling like they are under surveillance; perceiving district officials to be on fault-finding missions when they conduct school visits and classroom observations; and feeling like they are on their own once they return to school from attending offsite workshops. In addition, the participants who served as heads of departments (HODs) reported that their workload prevented them from providing adequate internal support. A key recommendation of this study is that more curriculum instructors and HODs be employed and that they receive adequate preparation in order to provide appropriate support to primary school educators. In addition, it is recommended that the provincial and district officials increase the frequency of their school and classroom visits in order to spend more time supporting primary school educators. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Education Management and Policy Studies / PhD / Unrestricted

The purpose of this study is to examine the Tennessee tenure law by comparing the overall level of effectiveness of teachers who received tenure prior to receiving tenure and the overall level of effectiveness of teachers after receiving tenure. The population of this study includes teachers from districts in the Mid Cumberland region in Tennessee who received tenure after 2012. The major finding of this study was the effectiveness of teachers who received tenure under the current tenure law in Tennessee did not significantly change for up to two years after they received tenure. The lone exception was high school teachers. Their effectiveness significantly declined two years after receiving tenure. This study concluded that the current tenure law in Tennessee had components of effective policies as found in research and had safeguards in place to ensure only effective teachers were awarded tenure.

The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the perceptions of the impact of trauma-informed care training in three Appalachian elementary schools. Childhood adversity can negatively affect a student’s experience in the classroom (van der Kolk, 2014; Ogata, 2019) with findings showing an estimate of one half to two-thirds of children experiencing at least one traumatic event before the age of 18 (CDC, 2016; Finkelhor, 2015; McInerney & McKlindon, 2021). Trauma, an event or occurrence that causes great distress by exposure to physical or psychological abuse, violence, crime, has been linked to academic failure, various illnesses, both physical and mental, substance abuse, and criminal behavior, and may impact concentration, memory, language skills and organization, which are considered necessary traits to achieve academic success (Center for Treatment of Anxiety and Mood Disorder, n.d.; Liberman et al., 2011; Ogata, 2012). Trauma can also affect social, self-regulation, and relational skills as well as cognitive abilities (National Child Traumatic Stress Network, 2016). As reported by O’Neill et al. (2010), these situations should be addressed through proper trauma education and training which include intervention strategies. The trauma-informed care (TIC) approach is a strengths-based framework based on the awareness of the impact of trauma that takes a universal precaution approach, emphasizing safety and reestablish control (Huckshor & LeBel, 2013).

This quantitive study aims to observe how educators work with students diagnosed with ADHD as well as, if the students´ gender has an effect on educators work procedures. Furthermore, the study views how learning and education can help encourage students with an ADHD, and if there is an active inclusion. The research questions consists of: “in what ways can outdoor pedagogy be healthy for students with ADHD, and how can it encourage their learning process and inclusiveness?" and “How educators work with students with ADHD,and is the work process different depending on gender?”. This study contains a background that explains the profession of an educator at Swedish leisure centers. Additionally, it also explains, learning and inclusion through outdoor pedagogy which is acquired through controlled play and free play, the diagnosis of ADHD and the difference between boys and girls with ADHD. From previous research scientific articles has been used. The results of the study conveyed educators different work processes. Some educators considered outdoor pedagogy to be important for students to get fresh air and move, and for the students to see, be acquainted with and discover new things due to a natural curiosity. Informators who work with outdoor pedagogy pin points the importance of outdoor pedagogy and how much it contributes to students´ learning process and personal growth. On the other hand, there are informators who do not work with outdoor pedagogy but who still view the pedagogical theory as an important aspect and, consequently expressed outdoor pedagogy as a working process in their educational styles.

Huvudsyftet med vår studie är att synliggöra vad begreppet samverkan innebär för pedagoger. Vi vill öka kunskapen om uppdraget kring samverkan i förskolan och hur det kan fungera i praktiken. Vi utgick från följande frågeställningar:•Hur upplevs uppdraget att samverka med vårdnadshavare av pedagoger i förskolan?•Vilka hinder och möjligheter gällande samverkan med vårdnadshavare identifierar verksamma pedagoger?Metod: Vi har genomfört en kvalitativ studie. Vi lämnade ut enkäter till pedagoger på olika förskolor och intervjuade en annan grupp pedagoger på samma förskolor. Vi ville undersöka pedagogernas syn på samverkan och hur samverkan fungerar i praktiken. Pedagogerna i enkäterna var anonyma. Intervjuerna spelades in och transkriberades. Därefter analyserade vi och tolkade svaren. Genom intervjuerna kunde vi få ett fördjupande komplement till svaren från enkäternaResultat: Resultatet placerades i olika kategorier. Vår studie visar att pedagogerna saknar resurser och att stressproblematiken minskar tiden för samverkan. Pedagogerna nämner även att språkbrist hos vissa vårdnadshavare försvårar arbetet med samverkan och att det är ett bekymmer att nå ut till alla. I enighet med tidigare forskning återkommer språkbrist, socioekonomiska hinder och stressfaktorer som en central orsak till bristande samverkan på förskolorna. Som teoretisk utgångspunkt har vi använt Bronfenbrenners utvecklingsekologiska teori. På så sätt förstår vi att de olika miljöerna kring barnet behöver komplettera och stötta varandra för att barnet ska utvecklas på bästa sätt. Pedagogerna i studien vill använda olika former för samverkan men har begränsade resurser för att möta alla vårdnadshavare, i synnerhet de med annan bakgrund, exempelvis utlandsfödda. Nyckelord: Samverkan, vårdnadshavare, pedagog, förskola, Bronfenbrenner, utvecklingsekologi, engagemang, närmiljöer, digitalisering, information

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Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION in the Department of Educational Psychology at the UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND, South Africa, 2010. / The purpose of this study was to explore an intervention programme that could be used by class teachers to address the needs of orphans and vulnerable children. The goals of the study were: (i), to explore the educator’s perceptions regarding the role that the class teacher could play in addressing the needs of orphans and vulnerable children and (ii) to stress the impact of the proposed intervention. The sample in the first phase of the research consisted of 120 rural primary school educators from the Dududu Circuit in Southern KwaZulu-Natal. These educators completed a survey in the form of a structured questionnaire. The descriptive method of research was used to collect data, and inferential statistics were used to test the null hypotheses using the Chi-squared test. The results of the study indicated, among other things, that educators had generally agreed that the form teacher was best positioned to address the needs of orphans and vulnerable children. Educators were in agreement that the form teacher should facilitate life-skills training and organise peer-support programmes for orphans and vulnerable children. Gender and age group did not influence the views of educators. Educators also expressed a strong desire to be trained in programmes relating to the care and support of orphans and vulnerable children. The quasi-experimental-comparison group pretest-posttest design was used in the second phase of the research to determine the success of the intervention strategy. This phase of the research entailed the following: distribution of questionnaires to 20 educators in the comparison school and 20 educators in the experimental school; presenting the intervention strategy via a workshop to educators in the experimental school; and conducting a posttest survey using the same set of questionnaires to educators in both the schools. The intervention entailed the presentation of the following: a life-skills model, a peer-support programme, and the asset-based approach. The outcome of the intervention was then gauged through the use of self-constructed questionnaires. The posttest survey showed that 60% of educators in the experimental school had implemented all three models and had accordingly noted the direct benefits to orphans and vulnerable children. This implied that the intervention was successful. Being successful, the intervention creates a gateway for much desired relief for orphans and vulnerable children. The intervention holds the key for similar applications in areas such as substance abuse, physically challenged children and children who display various psychological problems.

Health care professionals and nurse educators are concerned about increasing percentage of first time test takers failing the NCLEX-RN exam. The purpose of this retrospective study was to examine predictive accuracy of the Assessment Technologies Institute (ATI) RN Comprehensive Predictor for passing or failing the NCLEX-RN exam in a cohort of nursing students (N = 195). South Eastern Technical College in South Carolina is in jeopardy of losing accreditation for their nursing program because of the low percentage of first time test takers failing. The college's pass rate on the NCLEX-RN exam has been below the national and state averages for the last 2 years. Guided by Bloom's taxonomy and Knowles' andragogical model of learning as the theoretical mainstay, factors that predict success with the NCLEX-RN exam for first time test takers were examined. Inferential and descriptive statistics were used to determine if a relationship existed between NCLEX-RN scores and the independent variables. A Pearson r correlation test was conducted to address whether the ATI Comprehensive Predictor accurately predict student success with the NCLEX-RN exam on first attempt. Multiple regression was employed to test for a significant relationship between prenursing GPA, final GPA, age, gender, and ATI predictor scores. Regression analysis results showed ATI Predictor scores to significantly predict student success with the NCLEX-RN exam on first attempt. Based on findings, a Structured Learning Assistance program was proposed to assist in preparing students for NCLEX-RN success. Positive social change occurs within the community, nursing programs, and health care by increased NCLEX-RN pass rates enhancing the number of nurses entering into health care.