This study examined how stakeholders in one school district located in a remote town perceived the instructional improvement efforts of the district, as well as the constraints and enablers of implementing instructional reforms. A qualitative approach, consisting mainly of interviews with teachers, principals, district administrators, and other…

A very large and important subgroup of student-athletes is ethnic minority in Title I high schools. Understanding the decision-making process of this subgroup is important to the high schools that prepare these students to enter college and to the colleges that recruit them. The college choice factors of 207 student-athletes at three Title I high…

Coaching is a professional development approach that is utilized to support classroom teachers' implementation of research-based teaching strategies and methods. Studies have shown that coaching supports classroom teachers' implementation of teaching strategies and methods; however, there is little research on what coaches do to support…

The current study examined the application of implementation adherence monitoring and group feedback procedures with teachers implementing the Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI; Fountas & Pinnell, 2008a). Using a repeated measures design across time, changes in implementation adherence levels were examined as teachers participated in…

The area of professional development, within the educational setting, is critical to on-going learning for teachers and ultimately, higher student achievement. The literature on professional development is vast; however, the empirical research on implementation of skills learned from the training to the classroom is lacking. This study looked at…

This is a study of 10 adults participating in one-to-one mentoring and/or coaching. Participants were selected for interviewing through a purposive sampling process from leading international mentoring and coaching organizations. Selection criteria included (a) being an adult, (b) participating in a dyadic learning, and (c) regarding that…

Qualitative studies of classroom teachers involved in literacy coaching are crucial to provide direction for future literacy coaching practice and research. Using a grounded theory design, this study examined the experience of four elementary level classroom teachers and one coach as they engaged in a year-long literacy coaching program. Teachers…

The purpose of this qualitative study was twofold. First, using a qualitative, single case study design, I explored the roles and responsibilities of a middle school reading coach to understand how the coach distributed her time to support content area teachers in improving literacy instruction within their content areas. In addition to…

Ensuring equity in education and academic success for all students requires a highly skilled principal engages others in continually improving the instructional program in order to meet the needs of students. Over the past few years, a number of reports have indicated that the role of principal is becoming more challenging. School districts are…

In 2007, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported in their 2004-2005 Teacher Follow-up Survey that nearly 20% of U.S. teachers leave the profession after their first year of teaching and almost 30% leave after the fourth year of teaching. These percentages are even greater for mathematics teachers. The inability of schools to…

The purpose of this qualitative multiple participant case study was to understand the impact of a nine month collaborative literacy coaching (CLC) initiative on middle and high school content teachers' personal and general sense of efficacy for literacy teaching. A variety of data, including but not limited to transcripts of weekly…

Educators and policymakers have demonstrated interest in finding ways to better equip mathematics teachers so they can help students achieve at a higher level. Academic coaching has been identified as an effective professional development activity for teachers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the difference between students'…

For more than 35 years, the first-year experience movement has been working to improve the first-year experience for freshmen and decrease first-year and subsequent dropout rates. The purpose of this study is to examine student perceptions of the role of peer advising in the first-year experience. Through emphasis on support, involvement, and…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to discover how the behaviors of Indiana School district-level leaders create a culture of instructional, peer coaching in the district. An additional purpose was to discover any similarities between how district level leaders and leaders from different sized corporations behaved to create a climate of…

Empirical evidence has identified emotional intelligence competencies as part of the transformational leadership style. The development of emotional intelligence competencies has been reviewed in the context of a leadership development learning intervention encompassing the model of assessment, challenge and support. The exploratory study…