Date of Conferral

2020

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Mary Hallums

Abstract

In middle schools in central Pennsylvania, instructional coaching has increased as a job-embedded professional development to support teachers in increasing their capacity and performance. The local problem was middle school principals were unsure of the effectiveness of their instructional coach on mathematics teacher capacity and performance. The purpose of this study was to explore middle school principal perceptions of the effect of instructional coaching on mathematics teacher performance. This study was guided by the social constructivist framework, which considers learning a unique sense-making experience filled with opportunities for self-reflection and growth. The research question focused on how middle school principals perceived the effect of instructional coaching on mathematics teacher performance. A basic qualitative design was implemented to capture the perceptions of four middle school principals, identified by convenience and snowball sampling methods, through semistructured interviews. Emergent themes were identified via axial coding, and findings were developed and examined for validity and credibility through member checking and a peer debriefer. The findings revealed participants perceived instructional coaching to be effective on mathematics teacher performance yet, did not implement it with consistent structures to maximize the effectiveness. From these findings, a principal-centered professional development was designed, focused on the foundations of instructional coaching to prepare principals to effectively implement and evaluate its success. This study has implications for positive social change as the new professional development will allow opportunities for principals to partner and collaborate in order to make new learning more powerful and a safe space to grow.

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