The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive study is to explore how assistant principals describe their choices regarding survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun regarding whether to seek promotion to principal in southern Arizona. A principal shortage exists in the United States in part because assistant principals qualified to be…

This study examines the complex dynamics of teacher retention within Catholic schools, seeking to understand the motivations, factors and alignment of reasons provided by teachers for their decision to stay or leave their positions. Utilizing Sher's Theoretical Framework (1983) as its guiding principle, the study examines the factors that motivate…

Decision-making within school environments is critical to the continued improvement of services for all populations. Despite this high level of importance, there is limited information related to how systemic decisions are made in charter schools. There is also limited information on how charter school leaders interact with teachers and the impact…

Scripted/narrowed curricula are tangled in the webs of school reforms and standardization. Teachers are experiencing a monumental challenge: the deprofessionalization of their roles as educators. I sought teachers' understandings of how scripted/narrowed curricula impact their curriculum autonomy, specifically, their professional responsibility…

A growing concern in graduate medical education (GME), research indicates that some graduating residents are unprepared to enter unsupervised practice. The aim of this qualitative phenomenological study is to illuminate the resident experience surrounding the development of autonomy in clinical decision making relative to teaching practices.…

Following a 15-year decline, the United States is experiencing the lowest educator job satisfaction ever recorded amidst a critical teacher shortage. Discussions of how to retain teachers are part of everyday conversations in education. Although much research has been conducted on the many factors influencing job satisfaction, one factor that has…

It was not known if, and to what extent, differences exist in decision-making, impact, status, autonomy, professional development, and self-efficacy dimensions of teacher empowerment for high school teacher race, gender, and administrative staff gender composition among high school teachers in the Southeastern United States, as measured by the…

This dissertation study investigated secondary mathematics teachers' designing and enacting lessons to draw on students' multiple mathematical knowledge bases. The ultimate objective of incorporating open spaces in mathematics lessons is to support students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in developing mathematical…

This dissertation investigated teacher agency in a rural elementary school. Agency is a construct of understanding how individuals become connected or disconnected with their environment, which influences their interactions with other people, places, and things (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998). At this time, agency is important to study because it…

This dissertation investigated teacher agency in a rural elementary school. Agency is a construct of understanding how individuals become connected or disconnected with their environment, which influences their interactions with other people, places, and things (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998). At this time, agency is important to study because it…

This dissertation investigated teacher agency in a rural elementary school. Agency is a construct of understanding how individuals become connected or disconnected with their environment, which influences their interactions with other people, places, and things (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998). At this time, agency is important to study because it…

Academic advisors play a critical role in student success within United States institutions of higher education. Although uniquely positioned to contribute to important institutional and student outcomes, academic advising is identified in the literature as an emerging profession, often delegitimizing advisor authority and limiting their…

This qualitative case study explored instructional decisions exemplary primary teachers (kindergarten-third grade) made in order to engage students in mathematics. The phenomenon of teachers altering, supplementing, or utilizing district-given materials to support student engagement and understanding was studied. Specifically, this involved…

I set out to understand how memorial site educators conceptualize Holocaust education and how notions of history, memory, and place shape their ideas. I explored the teachings of four veteran memorial site educators at a site of memory of the Holocaust in Germany. The analysis was grounded in theories of collective memory broadly (Assmann, 2010;…

Teacher decision-making has been widely studied; however, teacher decision-making specifically with students who have been identified as aggressive has not. This qualitative case study investigated teacher decision-making with three traditional public-school K-12 teachers through case study methodology. Data were gathered through a semi-structured…