Education reform is the driver for changes in principal leadership practices. Instructional coaching is a common lever used to meet reform mandates but has had inconsistent results. The problem in practice is little is known about how principals use leadership practices to establish effective instructional coaching in their school building. The…

School districts across the nation are employing coaching for teachers as a means to improve teacher quality and increase student achievement. Looking specifically at instructional coaching as an intervention for teacher support, this study considers the literacy growth data of coached teachers compared to the literacy growth data of uncoached…

Interruptions are already ubiquitous throughout society, and the attention-driven economy may be training us to constantly switch tasks and refocus our attention without ever lingering on one activity. Previous studies of interruptions during work have found many negative outcomes (e.g., more errors, higher workload, slower task time) and some…

To support first-year principals as they transition into their new leadership role, more and more school districts are enlisting principal coaches to help principals through this period in order to help them achieve greater success in their first year and beyond. The purpose of this study is to understand the perspectives of current principal…

This thesis is an historical account of the band program at Auburn University from 1991--2021. The Auburn University Band Program has experienced a long history of rich traditions and continued excellence, so much so that the school's fight song even contains the line "On to vict'ry, strike up the band." What started as a small ensemble…

While countless studies have collected data on the effectiveness of various problem-solving models, few have attempted to identify which components of the training process are helpful to participants. Two teacher teams consisting of seven participants were trained in an adapted version of the Team-initiated Problem Solving (TIPS) model, observed…

The place of inquiry implemented a School-Wide Positive Behavior Intervention (SWPBIS) program during the 2018-19 school year to the large number of students receiving exclusionary discipline at the primary level. Even with the supports in place, a large number of students continued to be removed from class. When students are removed from class,…

Charter schools began as an experiment to improve public education in the United States of America (Weil, 2000). The theory was that these schools would operate outside of traditional public schools and would be free of the oversight and regulatory requirements constraining the current educational systems, in exchange for increased accountability…

The prevailing hypothesis for observed post-rest motor reaction time improvements is offline consolidation. In the present study, we present evidence for an alternate account involving the accrual and dissipation of reactive inhibition. Four groups of participants (N = 159) performed a finger-tapping task involving either massed (30 s per trial)…

As unfunded pension liabilities grow, governments experiment with ways to curb costs. We examine the effect of a representative cost-cutting reform on the retention and productivity of workers. The reform reduced pension annuities and increased penalties for early retirement, projected to save 8 percent of revenues. We leverage administrative…

Performance-funding for higher education diffused across the U.S. following the Great Recession that led to funding cuts for the system. Postsecondary funding never returned to pre-Recession levels, and public colleges are held to higher expectations even as the funding they might use to meet these expectations has diminished. This is a challenge…

Purpose: The present study primarily aims to investigate the role of the high-performance work system (HPWS) in shaping learning orientation (LO). Moreover, the study delves into the examination of affective commitment's (AC) role as a mediator. Additionally, the research extends to exploring the potential moderating impact of workplace settings,…

Several times each year the teaching performance of academics at higher education institutions are evaluated through anonymous, online student evaluation of teaching (SET) surveys. Universities use SETs to inform decisions about staff promotion and tenure, but low student participation levels make the surveys impractical for this use. This scoping…

This is a reflective Account of Practice paper that delves into the author's role as an Action Learning coach, emphasizing the crucial role of intuition in facilitating breakthroughs and creating an environment conducive to problem-solving. It narrates a transformative 2019 coaching session where the author used unconventional techniques to…

One aim of vocational education is educating students for occupations by fostering the development of students' capacities to become successful practitioners. During their education students are usually afforded work experience. When this is the case, students learn both at school and at the workplace. Learning at the workplace requires…