Assignment: Discussion Board 5

You are the principal of XYZ Elementary School, and your superintendent began an initiative requiring your grade-level lead teachers to be instructional leaders. This initiative required changes to the bell schedule that had been in place for many years. At the same time, the statehas instituted a new teacher evaluation scheme that has both teachers and evaluators on edge. After discussing the situation with your superintendent, you ask a professor at the local college to explore the attitudes of your teachers and teacher leaders about the changes. Discuss how this study should be conducted. Be sure to include the following:

The research focus would be exploring the elementary teacher's attitudes toward the upcoming changes, specifically, the current teachers and teacher leaders. Understanding the teacher's and teacher leaders' perceptions, attitudes, and experiences related to the changes to the bell schedule, the new teacher evaluation scheme, and how it has impacted their teaching practice and student learning.

The data I would collect would include observation, artifacts, relevant documents, field notes, open-ended and close-ended questionnaires, individual interviews, and observation. I would conduct semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of the teachers and teacher leaders to collect data. I would also distribute a survey to gather more information about implementing the changes and the teacher's and teacher leaders' perceptions of its impact. The survey would include both Likert scale questions and open-ended questions. To analyze the data, I would use content analysis to identify patterns, themes, and categories in the interview and survey responses. Additionally, I would use statistical analysis to identify any correlations between teachers' perceptions and attitudes, and the changes to the bell schedule and the new teacher evaluation scheme.

Researchers analyze patterns in observations throughout the entire data-collection phase. I would analyze by using the Constant Comparative Method. This method is an inductive data coding process for comparing and categorizing qualitative data. The coding would be used to group categories into themes, determine invariant parts, and reduce components into categories.

I would expect to receive mostly negative results due to teachers being anxious about the change or making too many changes at once. Some would be happy to comply while others would be upset at the possibility of additional workload. There would be resistance to the new evaluations and mild animosity toward the selection of team leads to instructional leads. I would also expect resistance from students and staff on the new bell schedule. The kinds of results I would expect to be able to report include teachers and teacher leaders' perceptions and experiences of the changes, the areas of teaching and learning that the changes have had the most impact on, and any challenges or limitations that the teachers and teacher leaders have encountered while working with the changes.

The reliability of results could be skewed due to some teachers not answering truthfully. The sample size is too small. Poor generalizability due to a narrow population. One potential limitation of the study is that teachers and teacher leaders who agree to participate may have different attitudes or perceptions than those who choose not to participate, which could lead to bias in the results. The Hawthorne effect may also affect the study, meaning the teachers and teacher leaders may change their behavior or attitudes because they know they are being observed. The study also may not consider other factors impacting teachers' attitudes and perceptions, such as prior experiences or workload.