Campus Location
Dallas Campus (Online)
Date of Award
4-2023
ORCID
https://orcid.org/0009-0007-8254-4448
Document Type
Dissertation
Department
Organizational Leadership
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Committee Chair or Primary Advisor
Maria Mongillo
Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor
Sandy Harris
Third Committee Member or Committee Reader
Karen Maxwell
Abstract
This qualitative, phenomenological study examined the nature of conflict within professional learning community (PLC) collaborative groups and the teacher leader’s management of the conflict from the teacher, teacher leader, and administrator perspective at suburban secondary schools. Purposive, criterion sampling based on job title and having at least one year of experience at a PLC campus qualified participants to capture the phenomenon’s characteristics. Semistructured interviews of three administrators, four teacher leaders, and two teachers were recorded and transcribed before an initial round of open coding. After analyzing open codes, the data were analyzed using closed coding, which established common themes. The findings described conflicts resulting from curriculum differences, personality differences, and external pressures with campus structures directly affecting the level of conflict. Participants described teacher leaders as managing the conflict by absorbing, tackling, or deferring the conflict, with rationales for the choices being levels of experience, levels of clarity, lack of options, and lack of training. The conflicts and the teacher leader’s conflict management affected task completion, relationships, and the overall function of the PLC, resulting in productive or destructive conflicts. The results of this study could be used to improve the training and support of teacher leaders guiding the day-to-day functions within PLC collaborative groups.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Dunn, Amanda B., "Professional Learning Community Conflicts and Teacher Leader Conflict Management From Multiple Stakeholder Perspectives" (2023). Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 565.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/565