The purpose of this dissertation was to understand the decision-making process of school choice for Christian parents with preschool through elementary aged children. Hall's et al. (2002) values-based decision-making theory (VBDM) guided this qualitative descriptive study that incorporated two research questions. The two sources of data included…

The applicability of leadership theories on leaders' personal values in a non-Western context remains unclear. This study attempts to explore school leaders' value-driven leadership practices in Malaysian primary schools. This study employed a qualitative approach using interviews with five school leaders from Malaysian national primary schools.…

The current study aimed to make students discover the multidimensional structure of Socio-scientific Issues (SSI) using the SEE-STEP model. Nine-step module has been designed to help students' discover the aspects of the SSI in the implementation process of the research. This research was based on qualitative methodology in determining the study…

Any activity that involves making choices entails the risk of failure, and the more personally meaningful the choices are, the more deeply felt the failure will be. Drawing on my experiences in supervising the self-chosen, long-term projects of my eighth-grade students, I argue that it is neither possible nor desirable to prevent young people from…

Research-based science curriculum has become a common means of supporting best practices in science teaching. In response to his middle school's transition from one such commercially available science curriculum to another, a seventh-grade science teacher elected to make certain changes to the newly adopted curriculum in its first year of use.…

Independent school leaders are continually faced with the challenges of declining enrollment and expanding public options and currently lack a mechanism to understand what influences parents' reenrollment choices. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a theoretical framework for reenrollment decisions in secular and Catholic…

The purpose of this qualitative, exploratory multi-case study was to explore how leadership practices of principals, in relation to the ethical values of value-based leadership (VBL), influenced outcomes of decision-making and team learning of leadership teams in Arizona K-5 public charter schools. The problem was, it was not known how leadership…

Purpose: Understanding the relationship between distributed leadership and teachers commitment to change in the Chinese urban primary school context was the purpose of this study. Design/methodology/approach: Quantitative research method is used in this study. For ensuring comprehensiveness, this research employed a random sampling method. This…

This case study explores the utility of Expectancy Value Theory (EVT) as a framework for studying elementary teachers' beliefs and motivations with respect to reformed mathematics instruction. A model for coding and evaluating qualitative data using EVT is proposed and illustrated using interviews with three primary school teachers in an urban…

Despite longstanding attempts to intervene in their early social and academic development, Latino students' traditionally low achievement levels have not improved over time. Many believe success has been impacted by limited preschool participation as fewer than half of eligible Latino preschoolers are enrolled and actively benefitting from…

Minimal prior research has examined the school chaplaincy programme in Australia. This exploratory study sought to identify the values primary school chaplains feel are the most important to them personally, and in their role as chaplain. Eight chaplains working in government primary schools were interviewed. Inductive thematic analysis was used…

In this paper, I explore data collected from more than 300 Year 5 and 6 students in four government primary schools in urban Darwin. Students were asked to respond to real-world problem contexts involving fundraising as an example of an enterprise activity. The findings reveal that familiarity with the problem context, personal values, and…

This study aimed to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool to enhance ethical evaluation literature. The tool consists of two subscales named "Bases of ethical evaluation," and "Grounds of ethical evaluation." In order to determine the factor structure of the scales, both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were…

This article draws on data from cases of high-performing and improving schools in Hong Kong. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with principals, middle leaders, and senior teachers to identify key policies and steps taken for their enactment, and to solicit interpretations of the policies. Principals were found to actively select,…

Little research exists that examines the exercise of discretion by principals in their disciplinary decision making. This study sought to understand the application of values by principals as they engage in student disciplinary decision making within legally fixed parameters of their administrative discretion. This qualitative methodology used…