Campus Location
Dallas Campus (Online)
Date of Award
4-2024
ORCID
https://orcid.org/0009-0007-2851-4424
Document Type
Dissertation
Department
Organizational Leadership
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Committee Chair or Primary Advisor
Timothy B. Jones
Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor
Sandy Harris
Third Committee Member or Committee Reader
Robert Voelkel
Abstract
This qualitative case study examined best practices in professional learning communities (PLCs) that influence teacher self-efficacy. Participants were primary and intermediate teachers and teacher leaders from a large suburban elementary school in Texas. Participants had to have at least 1 year of teaching and PLC experience. The semistructured teacher and teacher-leader interviews were recorded and transcribed in real time using Otter.ai software. After members checked the transcription, the transcription was uploaded into the NVivo software for coding and identifying common themes. The findings were separated into themes based on the study’s research questions. Research question 1 explored what teachers and teachers find effective and ineffective in PLCs. The results revealed the perspectives of teachers and teacher leaders aligned into four themes: collaboration/sharing, topics of PLCs, campus expectations, and team expectations for PLCs. The second research question addressed the best practices in PLCs that influence teacher’s self-efficacy. The interview results converged to reveal the five most common themes throughout the responses: choice of topics, sharing ideas, understanding everyone, setting expectations, and helping others. The results of this study gain more perspectives of participants by studying what constitutes best practices to increase self-efficacy and student achievement from PLC participants in a suburban elementary school.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Hornsby, Silian Molly, "Best Practices in Professional Learning Communities That Influence Teacher Self-Efficacy" (2024). Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 762.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/762