Date of Award
Spring 3-17-2022
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education in School Leadership
Department
Center for Leadership & Learning
College
College of Education
Committee Chair
Dr. Bounds
Second Committee Member
Dr. Freeman
Third Committee Member
Dr. Owoh
Program Director
Dr. Freeman
Dean of Graduate College
Dr. Gordon
Abstract
For decades, mandates have driven the way we educate our students. Seemingly ever since the inception of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), schools across the nation have struggled to meet federal standards for student success. However, when many schools still failed to show a significant amount of achievement, they became labeled "Priority" or "Focus" schools under the federally mandated laws of NCLB. The vital need to promote best educational practices leads to the educational strategy of teacher collaboration. Research calls for higher levels of teacher collaboration in the educational setting as a strategy to address lackluster performance trends (Anrig, 2015). One form of collaboration that has been trending for decades is a strategy called Professional Learning Communities. Carpenter (2015) stated school improvement and student achievement have been positively connected to teacher professional learning communities (p. 682). This study explored the relationship between teachers’ perceptions on the implementation of professional learning communities and student achievement. Other dependent variables such as gender, number of years teaching experience in the district, number of years teaching experience total and content matter were also analyzed to determine if these variables play a factor in teacher’s perceptions on the implementation of professional learning communities. A cross-sectional survey design was utilized, and the participants were administered the PLCA-R survey created by Hipp & Huffman (2010). Descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA were used to answer the research questions. Data analysis revealed several statistical significances between the listed dependent variables and various dimensions and attributes. However, a relationship between student achievement and professional learning communities could not be concluded at this time due to the selected high school not functioning as a professional learning community. Recommendations were made for ways the selected high school could strengthen their professional learning communities' implementation.
Recommended Citation
Arnett, Marian, "Teachers’ Perceptions on the Implementation of Professional Learning Communities and the Relationship to Student Achievement" (2022). ATU Theses and Dissertations 2021 - Present. 32.
https://orc.library.atu.edu/etds_2021/32