Term of Award
Fall 2009
Degree Name
Doctor of Education in Education Administration (Ed.D.)
Document Type and Release Option
Dissertation (open access)
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Department
Department of Leadership, Technology, and Human Development
Committee Chair
Charles Reavis
Committee Member 1
Samuel Hardy
Committee Member 2
Bryan Griffin
Abstract
This study was conducted to provide information concerning the attributes of professional learning communities, i.e. supportive leadership, shared values and vision, collective learning and application, supportive conditions-relational, supportive conditions-structural, and shared personal practice and their correlation with teacher efficacy, satisfaction, and morale. These six characteristics of learning communities were studied to ascertain the association of those characteristics or attributes with teacher measures. The underlying premise for the study was that teachers who feel supported in their classroom practice are more committed and effective than those who do not. When teachers have a strong sense of efficacy, they tend to adopt new classroom behaviors and stay in the profession longer. Pearson Correlation analysis and regression analysis were performed on nine constructs to determine their associations. The three dependent variables were teacher measures of efficacy, satisfaction, and morale. The independent variables were the six constructs of professional learning communities, i.e. supportive leadership, shared values, collective learning, conditions-relational, conditions-structural, and shared personal practice. The three control variables were teacher experience, teacher autonomy, and teacher salary contentedness. The results of Pearson Correlation analysis showed that all six constructs of PLCs were significantly related to teacher efficacy; four of the six constructs, i.e. supportive conditions-structural, supportive conditions-relational, collective learning, and shared values of PLCs were significantly related to teacher satisfaction; and, all six of the PLC attributes were significantly related to teacher morale. Regression analysis determined that there were no significant relationships with teacher efficacy and professional learning community dimensions, one significant relationship with satisfaction and the PLC dimension of supportive conditionsstructural, two significant relationships with morale and PLC dimensions of collective learning and supportive conditions-structural.
Recommended Citation
Weathers, Shirley Robinette, "A Study to Identify the Components of Professional Learning Communities that Correlate with Teacher Efficacy, Satisfaction, and Morale" (2009). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 313.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/313
Research Data and Supplementary Material
No
