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Thesis (Ed.D.)--Murdoch University, 2007. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-194).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rhode Island, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 212-223).

<p> <b>Purpose.</b> The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the impact of the implementation of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP) on teachers in Southern California high schools. This study examined the lived experiences of teachers who teach courses in the IBDP. Based on the literature, the specific focus was on the following themes related to the impact: content knowledge, confidence, creativity, relationships with students, and increased workload. The research provided valuable information for teachers and site and district administrators as to what to expect during and after the implementation of the IBDP.</p><p> <b>Methodology.</b> Three schools served as the cases for this phenomenological study. There were 11 participants. The researcher conducted one-on-one semistructured interviews to explore the lived experiences of the IBDP teachers. The results were rated on a Likert scale and coded for deeper meaning. </p><p> <b>Findings.</b> Four of the 5 themes impacted the implementation. Workload and relationships with students were highly impacted. The theme that had no impact was content knowledge. Two additional themes emerged: increased stress and the love for the IBDP program. </p><p> <b>Conclusions.</b> The study revealed that all participants felt an impact, positive and negative, when implementing the IBDP. The data revealed that teaching the IBDP courses takes their entire person, academically and personally. The participants were completely entrenched in the program, which impacted their lives in ways they could not have predicted.</p><p> <b>Recommendations:</b> Future studies regarding the impact of the implementation of IB should include middle school teachers who do not need to demonstrate expertise in their content area to teach. Additionally, a longitudinal study of the same participants might yield different results on the variables. This study could be replicated to include only new schools which had at least one graduating class of diploma students. The data may provide a fresh perspective as teachers will have results to refer to and reflect upon when discussing their experiences.</p><p>

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-63).

Thesis (M.S.)--Air Force Institute of Technology, 2007. / AFIT/GLM/ENV/07-M6. Title from title page of PDF document (viewed on: Nov. 15, 2007). "March 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 48-51).

The study aim was to investigate the perceptions of senior leaders within the sector to determine their views of the key challenges in contemporary academic leadership and to inform practice for the future. Academic leadership is a key component of the success or otherwise of an academic institution. There is significant literature around the issue of academic leadership the emphasis of which is based around the perceptions of academic staff and how they would wish to be led. The work was undertaken from an interpretivist perspective using a phenomenological research design to elicit an understanding of the views of senior managers through conducting semi-structured interviews and a focus group with senior university leaders. The interview process afforded the respondents the opportunity to recount their own experiences in their own terms with their own emphasis on what was important to them within the broad structure of the four core categories drawn from the literature: definitions of leadership; leadership in an HEI; academic leadership and leadership development. The findings from this study provides a contribution through considering senior leaders perceptions on how best to lead the academic staff to maximise their contribution to the institution and ultimately to better serve the needs of students. Practice implications include the forwarding of a framework for the consideration of the development of academic leaders within the Higher Education context.

The thesis contributes to the emerging critical perspective on global management education and leadership development in a multi-faceted world. It takes a critical look at leadership, particularly with respect to how this is conceptualised and understood, and also, what are the implications for such epistemological leanings. This is in light of recent criticisms of global management education, and other salient questions of knowledge imperialism and ethnocentrism that arise with respect to how knowledge is created and represented. Furthermore, there are even more pertinent questions of universality and contextual applicability, given the relevant issue of cultural diversity and what many researchers increasingly suggest is the socially constructed nature of leadership. To this end, it has been suggested that there might be a possibility of contextual dissonance between mainstream leadership paradigms and the lived socio-cultural reality of many non-western societies. This is in view of the fact that there are as many definitions of leadership as those who have tried to define it (Stodgill, 1970), such that there is now no one universal ‘truth’ about leadership (Billsberry, 2007) because leadership is a process of reality construction that is grounded in the management of meaning (Smircich and Morgan, 1982), so that it means ‘different things to different people’ (Gill, 2006; p.7). This thesis therefore investigates the contemporary practice of leadership development/leadership education and in particular, questions its application as a management learning intervention in the contexts within which it is deployed. It explores the pertinent question of contextual dissonance and in this, critically examines leadership development as a catalyst for organisational change within the context of a global non-profit organisation, and again, as a tool for management development in the context of a non-western society. Findings indicate the presence of a strong community orientation that is seemingly consistent with the philosophical underpinnings of indigenous community practices in Africa and that reflect a noticeable degree of contextual dissonance between mainstream paradigms of leadership and the lived experiential reality of programme participants in the context understudied i.e. Nigeria. Subsequently, this thesis proposes a model of leadership development that may begin to address this contextual gap; one that although acknowledges the conceptual importance of the mainstream, is fundamentally accommodating of the local knowledge frameworks within which it is deployed. Overall, the research contributes to understandings of Leadership Development in that it uncovers how ‘knowledge’ about leadership is conceptualised within the studied context and it generates new insight into how leadership development as a contemporary practice is constructed within this environment; in particular, how this is negotiated and engaged with relative to that society. Secondly, it advances a model through which contemporary management education interventions may account for the lived socio-cultural reality of the contexts within which they are applied.

<p> Abstract Culturally Relevant Instruction integrated with Responsiveness to Intervention is considered a framework for creating equitable learning environments that engage and educate all students within the classroom. Creating equitable learning environments has been a problem for American educators for over forty years. Historically, the curriculum and instruction methods employed in most American classrooms centered in cultural paradigms that appealed to European American students and ignored the cultural significance of African Americans and other culturally diverse student populations. As a result, most African American students experience academic challenges in the classroom. </p><p> The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) revealed that since the 1970&rsquo;s, the academic achievement gap between African American and European American students&rsquo; averages between 20 to 30 points on standardized Math and Reading examinations. With such a significant gap in academic performance, professional development teacher training and schools of education programs have attempted dramatic changes in their approaches to curriculum and instruction. The purpose of this basic qualitative research study is to explore what twelve teacher participants consider the best practices for creating equitable learning environments in their classrooms. Data collection included interviews with teachers about what strategies are most effective for integrating Responsiveness to Intervention with Culturally Responsive Instruction and how to identify and implement evidence-based instruction that enhances learning. Future studies should focus on the impact of Re-normed tests on student performance and full implementation of all components of CRI.</p><p>

Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 1975. / Typewritten.