Date of Award:

5-2015

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

School of Teacher Education and Leadership

Department name when degree awarded

Teacher Education and Leadership

Committee Chair(s)

Michael K. Freeman

Committee

Michael K. Freeman

Committee

Sylvia Read

Committee

Susan A. Turner

Committee

Steven O. Laing

Committee

Matthew L. Sanders

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to use a leadership theory to explore the professional work of three school-based instructional technology coaches. The leadership theory is drawn from Thomas Sergiovanni’s Moral Leadership: Getting to the Heart of School Improvement.

The study used typical qualitative data gathering techniques: participant observations, informal and formal interviews, and the collection of representative workplace professional documents. A single researcher spent two school years in district office meetings and in three secondary schools gathering qualitative data.

The data were analyzed for bureaucratic, psychological, technical rational, professional, and moral sources of authority for leadership. The data were examined with selected codes and indicators of each source of authority for leadership. Data analysis determined that instructional technology coaches do not use bureaucratic or moral sources of authority for leadership. The study also found that coaches are aware of and used technical rational and professional sources of authority, and that the participants may use some of the features of psychological sources of authority for leadership. Finally, this research and dissertation verified that all five theoretical sources of authority were present in the schools, but that the participants—instructional technology coaches—may not be aware of or use all five sources.

This study also used the components of diffusion research to establish context of the study. The diffusion components were the variables of time, innovation, social networks, and communications channels. This was not a diffusion study, but the components of diffusion were used as context for the research.

This study suggests directions for future research, including tests of the consequences of each source of authority for leadership, questions about the use of diffusion theory in combination with leadership theory, directions for leadership in the diffusion of professional learning communities, and comparative analysis between the selected sources of authority leadership framework and the 2014 Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards for school leaders.

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