Education Commons^™

Are The Leadership Behaviors Of K–12 Leaders In Mid-Western Urban School Districts Influenced By Their Beliefs And Attitudes Regarding Spirituality?, Ericka M. Taylor

Dissertations

Working in a stressful and chaotic environment can be difficult for building principals in urban school districts (DeNisco, 2013; Stokley, 2002; Thompson, 2004). Presumably, the job is only expected to get more arduous with the increasing demands to improve student achievement (Allison, 2012; Kimball & Sirotnik, 2000; Queen & Schumacher, 2006). What is quite apparent today is that the role and responsibilities of the principal have changed dramatically over the past twenty years (Carlson, 2012; Hill-Yeverton, 2003) shifting from a factory model of management of learning to one in which teachers and principals have to create more student-centered and project-based …

The Challenge Of Leading Change: How Sources Of Authority And Change Management Models Intersect To Promote School Improvement, Samantha Joyce Lam

Dissertations

A gap in research exists that demonstrates how principals use their authority to make decisions and how that intersects with change management models. The purpose of the study is to examine how one elementary school principal has led change and how teachers perceive the effectiveness of the change. The study seeks to explore principal's and teachers' perceptions of the impact of the change on the school.

Through a bounded, qualitative case study design, the researcher used several techniques to gather data: teacher survey, principal interview, teacher interview, and document analysis. Multiple sources of data were used to adequately shed light …