Date of Award:

8-2026

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

School of Teacher Education and Leadership

Committee Chair(s)

Suzanne H. Jones

Committee

Suzanne H. Jones

Committee

LeAnn G. Putney

Committee

Alyson Lavigne

Committee

Max L. Longhurst

Committee

Carly Fox

Abstract

Teachers and educational leaders face numerous obstacles that can seem insurmountable but overcome through collaboration. “High-hope thinking provides a special advantage when we face obstacles in our goal attainment” (Snyder, 1994). Effective PLCs provide the fertile ground for teacher collaboration, influencing schoolwide communities and student learning (DuFour et al., 2016; Hord, 2004; van Es, 2012). Collaboratively identifying challenges and coming up with solutions with the support of others (what effective PLCs do) is an ideal setting for observing hope.

This study explored how hope is fostered among teachers during their weekly professional learning community meetings. Further, this study examined how teachers describe enacting hope as they teach students in their classrooms. In addition, this study explored the role of the principal in facilitating hope enactment among fifth-grade teachers. Employing qualitative methods, research was conducted using the Teacher Hope Scale adapted from Snyder’s (1994) Adult Hope Scale as well as individual interviews, focus groups, and observations. Spradley’s (1979) domain and taxonomic analysis was used to code the data and then transformed into categories, themes, and patterns.

Findings from this study provide concrete examples of how teachers foster hope in PLCSs, the impact this has on individual classrooms, and the role of the principal in facilitating hope among teachers. It illustrates how this PLC group fostered high levels of collective hope (Jones et al. 2025, Snyder, 2019) through their shared sense of willpower, waypower, and agency. In terms of willpower, teachers shared consistent affirmations with one another and built strong relationships. PLC members fostered waypower as they constructed multiple pathways to accomplish their goals, were flexible, shared and learned from one another, and valued one another’s differences. In terms of agency teachers expressed their choice to teach in ways that met their personal expertise and students’ needs. It also illustrated how teachers recognized the value of being unified in topical structure for the day or week while also feeling the freedom to enact teaching in their own unique way, authentic to them.

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