This study looks at the current situation of how teachers view the concepts of teacher professionalism and teacher leadership in New Zealand primary schools. It is a small scale study located in two large city primary schools, where it was identified by others in the profession that sharing of leadership was a common practice, and that they were high performing schools. I was interested in gathering the information from teachers with a range of teaching experience, and finding out what were the common understandings surrounding these concepts. The literature reviewed shows there is an international focus on developing leadership capacity within schools. It is argued that in order to sustain the development of schools in such complex times while remaining focused on the core business of the learning of the students, leadership is an activity that all teachers should be involved in, as it is a recognized component for improving the professional role of the teacher. The study was carried out by interviewing twelve teachers who had a range of experience and held a range of leadership positions from beginning teachers through to deputy principals. The findings showed the teachers in this study understood there is a close link between their leadership and their professionalism and that one reinforced the other. The teachers were empowered to take their professional development to new heights as the school culture reinforced the collective responsibility the teachers had for school development.

A longitudinal study was conducted to investigate the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of leadership capabilities and teachers’ efficacy beliefs in the context of their participation in a technology integration project. Participants included seventeen elementary school teachers and seven administrators in a school district located in the southwestern United States. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies were utilized over the course of the three and a half year project. Bandura’s (1997) social cognitive theory served as the framework for defining self-efficacy and explaining the potential influences of empowerment on teacher efficacy. Since the goal was to understand and describe the relationship between participation in the district project and the teachers’ efficacy beliefs, a qualitative research approach was chosen. Descriptive information related to teachers’ experiences and perceptions were gathered through observations of team meetings and interviews with teachers and administrators. All of the notes from the interviews and observations were transcribed using the constant comparative method of qualitative data analysis. Quantitative analyses were conducted to investigate the fluctuation of teacher efficacy over the course of the project. Teacher efficacy was measured at three points: prior to participation, at the end of the planning stage and after implementation of the technology in the classrooms. Qualitative results indicated that participation in the technology integration project did not have a positive effect on teachers’ perceptions of their leadership capabilities. Interview data included multiple reports of teachers’ negative feelings of empowerment and leadership opportunities. Four of the seven administrators supported the teachers’ position that leadership was not developed. Three of the administrators felt that leadership was developed but no support was provided for their assertion. Quantitative results found no statistical difference in general teaching efficacy. An increase in personal teaching efficacy was evident between the second and third administrations of the TES. The qualitative data provided an explanation for this increase. The qualitative data revealed that the addition of new technology tools allowed these teachers to develop new teaching methods. This in turn allowed the TIP teachers to reach more students which led to an increase in personal teacher efficacy.

Teacher attrition is a major topic of discussion and concern in this country. With the growth in the school-age population, the need to attract and retain quality teachers will become even greater. The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to explore factors that influenced teachers’ decisions to remain in an urban school. A qualitative research design was used by conducting one interview with 13 teachers in an intermediate school (5th & 6th grades) in an urban school district near Houston, Texas. The participants’ years of experience in this study ranged from 5-33 years. They presented a diverse range of age, career experiences, and cultural/ethnic backgrounds. Data were collected through audio-taped interviews that lasted 45-90 minutes conducted in their classrooms before or after school. Additional follow-up questions and clarification statements were obtained from the participants where it was warranted. The transcribed interviews and the follow-up questions were analyzed using the Labov method of structuring narratives into stories. This method was used in order to compare participants’ narratives to identify emergentthemes among the rich stories that the participants shared with me. The findings are presented as three emerging themes on why teachers choose to remain in an urban school. These themes were recurrent and dominant throughout the narratives. Participants generally felt that there were three main reasons why they remained to teach in this urban school. Those three reasons manifested themselves in the form of themes. Those three dominant themes were: (a) making a difference in the lives of young people, (b) having no reason to leave, and (c) having administrative support, which was the leading factor that influenced teachers to remain in an urban school. Each theme had several supporting themes that were explored also. Implications for practice and recommendations for further study were also discussed.

With increasing emphasis being placed on the selection of highly qualified teachers as mandated by the No Child Left Behind legislation (NCLB) of 2001, growing numbers of student populations, and the decreasing numbers of teachers entering the profession, it is evident that the teacher selection process must assume a more scientific path. In order to improve the selection process it is necessary to look at many aspects of this procedure. Specifically, what characteristics do teacher candidates possess that would qualify them for a particular position and, to what degree do the school identifiers play in this process? This is a study of the affects various school characteristics have on the selection process of elementary school teachers in one Virginia school district. Through a literature review conducted on the teacher selection process, a common group of thirty teacher characteristics grouped into four domains have been identified that if associated with teachers, have positive effects on instruction. The four domains that have been identified are Instruction, Personality, Orientation to Students, and Qualifications. A survey was utilized to determine the degree to which school administrators and teachers involved in the interview process place on the identified teacher characteristics and domains. Descriptive factors that reflect the differences in the schools for this study have been identified and an impact challenge index has been developed for each school. Descriptive factors utilized to determine the impact challenge index included minority and special population percentages of students, mobility indexes, and free and reduced price lunch percentages. In addition, data distinctive to each school's accreditation status and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) have been determined. ANOVAs were performed to determine if there were significance between variables presented in this study of challenge impact levels, AYP performance, and position. Results of this study are mixed and revealed only a few significant differences and/or substantive meaningful results between variables. / Ed. D.

The hiring of teachers is one of the most important responsibilities of principals (Emley & Ebmeier, 1997; Place & Drake, 1994). When errors in hiring occur, consequences are felt by staff, students, parents, community, and the overall operation and functioning of the school (Emley & Ebmeier, 1997). Unfortunately, not much empirical research has been conducted to date to support how to hire quality teachers effectively. "The research to date has not sufficiently addressed questions such as (1) what criteria need to be assessed; (2) which of those criteria are judged to be the most important by those using them in the process; and (3) what variables influence principal priorities." (Place & Drake, p. 87) The implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2002) has mandated that all teachers meet the definition of being highly qualified. This mandate poses unique challenges to principals in the identification of teachers who possess the characteristics considered essential in the teacher selection process. The purpose of this study was to develop consensus among nationally recognized principals regarding the traits considered essential for teachers, the best interview questions to target these traits, and other sources utilized to identify these essential traits. The research methodology that was used to develop consensus consists of a three-round Delphi study. By definition, the Delphi technique is "a group process involving an interaction between the researcher and a group of identified experts on a specified topic, usually through a series of questionnaires" (Skutsch & Hall, 1973). The knowledge and experiences of the panel of expert principals provided the underlying premise from which group consensus was built. / Ed. D.

Thesis advisor: Joseph J. Pedulla / This paper describes the literature on teacher attrition as either focusing on the working conditions faced by beginning teachers or highlighting variations in teachers' characteristics as causes for early teacher attrition. This study uses responses to the School and Staffing Survey (SASS) along with the Teacher Follow-Up Survey (TFS) to compare these contrasting views of early teacher attrition. Two logistic regression models were constructed and their relative efficacy in explaining teacher attrition were compared using three statistical techniques; model fit characteristics (e.g. pseudo-R2, Akaike Information Criteria, Bayesian Information Criteria); a comparison of their classification effectiveness, and results from Davidson and MacKinnon's J test (1981). A final model was also constructed using the predictive elements of each of the previous models. Results suggest that the working conditions model better fits the observed data than the teacher characteristics model. The final model highlights the importance of teacher commitment and engagement in the profession in teachers' career decisions. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher quality variables, student demographic variables, and student performance in order to determine the influence teacher quality variables have on student performance in one large school district. The population for this study included 69 schools during the 2007-2008 school year within one large suburban school district. Included in this study were 47 elementary schools, 14 middle schools, and 8 high schools. In this three-phased study, descriptive correlations were examined, t-tests were conducted comparing each of the variable sets, and partial correlations were conducted in order to determine the strength of associations between teacher quality variables and student performance variables. Findings from this study showed several strong and significant associations. When comparing the highest and lowest quartile of schools based on average years of teaching experience, percentage of within-district transfers, and total teacher mobility, there was a significant difference seen in both the percentage of economically disadvantaged (ED) students and percentage of African American and Hispanic students combined. Further analysis showed a significant difference between the top and bottom quartiles of percentage of ED students and percentage of African American and Hispanic students combined and their performance in both math and reading. Findings showed that teaching experience was negatively associated with student performance in reading and math, however, there was a smaller association in math. Controlling for within-district teacher transfers had a small to medium association between African American and Hispanic students combined and commended performance or meeting standard in math and reading. When controlling for percentages of total teacher mobility (leavers + movers) from campuses, there was a strong negative, partial correlation between percentage of ED students and performance in math (commended only) and reading. Implications for practitioners include the need to improve school leadership, improve working conditions, provide more and better professional support, create incentives to work in challenging schools, improve preparation for work in challenging schools, streamline hiring placement policies, create a coherent set of policies to close the staffing gap, and provide greater funding targeted to student needs.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

abstract: The purpose of this study was to distinguish factors that influence the satisfaction levels of teachers in urban school districts. This work also distinguished factors that directly impacted teachers' level of satisfaction towards their work and their attitude towards the administration of their schools. Forty-one teachers from two kindergarten through eighth grade schools in the southwest region of the United States were given a modified version of the 2007/08 Schools and Staffing Survey, a federally recognized survey on the satisfaction levels of teachers in America, combined with a select number of questions created by the researcher in this study to address the research questions of this study. Data were collected and analyzed through Survey Monkey, an online data portal, and imported into SPSS for data analysis. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were compiled to provide answers to the research questions established for this study. Results from this study indicated that although a majority of teachers sampled were satisfied with their teaching positions (78%), kindergarten through fourth grade teachers were more satisfied than teachers in the older grades. For the whole group, salary was the most influential factor; however, the teachers with 11 to 15 years of experience were the only ones who chose salary as their primary choice to increase their satisfaction. This study found that the levels of satisfaction per subgroup (teachers' years of experience, level of education, gender, age, type of certification, and grade level) were different than the group needs as a whole. This study revealed that the needs of the whole group and the needs of the subgroups can differ, consequently individual differences of the staff need to be taken into consideration. To view the staff as a whole may discredit the needs of the individual. Even though data indicated that a significant number of teachers felt supported by their administration, this study revealed the need for administrative staff to address specific issues of subgroups in their schools. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2011

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