Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

5991

Date

2017

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Major

Leadership and Policy Studies

Concentration

Educational Leadership

Committee Chair

Dr. Charisse Atibagos Gulosino

Committee Member

Dr. Orrin Cooper

Committee Member

Dr. Reginald Leon Green

Committee Member

Dr. Louis A. Franceschini

Abstract

On February 8th, an announcement came across the intercom to remind teachers and staff of the mandatory faculty meeting held in the library at 2:30, immediately after post duty. During the meeting, the principal distributed Declaration of Intent Form for the upcoming school year to every person in attendance to complete. As a part of the Instructional Leadership Team, I was privy to administration information. Out of 75 teachers and staff members, all selected to return next school year with the exception of two who intended to retire at the end of the school year. As the school year approached the end, over 35 teachers who indicated intent to return either resigned or transferred. The principal began to ponder, "Where did I go wrong?" The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the rates at which teachers intent to "stay" at their schools and the manner in which their schools resolve the tensions and tradeoffs illuminated by the Competing Values Framework(CVF). To answer the study's five research questions, a secondary analysis that applies hierarchical multiple regression to an existing dataset is taken. The dataset in question combines information from the 2013 administration of the Teaching, Empowering, Leading, and Learning (TELL) survey in 1,425 Tennessee schools with concurrent school demographic and student achievement data archived on the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) website. As the CVF would predict, the "balance" profile is very strongly linked to the percentage of school "stayers", but without the outcome's ambiguous association with the percent of students on free and reduced lunch. Controlling for seven other confounding variables in a hierarchical multiple regression, CVF "balance" is the one most strongly associated with the outcome and by itself explains roughly 10% of the variability in the outcome. The percent of school "stayers" is also associated with CVF profiles that privilege the flexible over the stable, the internal over the external, and their confluence in the "human relations" quadrant. Likewise, school climate due to working conditions is associated with teachers' intention to stay. However, the connection between an emphasis on these CVF orientations and student achievement--- particularly student achievement at "high poverty" schools--- is complex and further study of these relationships is recommended.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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