Volume 2 - Issue 1 - DBU Journal of K-12 Educational Research - Page 17

Journal of K-12 Educational Research 15 Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study was multifaceted and examined the per- ceptions of campus administrators and classroom teachers for the following areas of concentration: 1) The benefits of participating in the formative practice of reflective conversations to improve classroom instruction and student learning; 2) The most effec - tive leader on the campus to conduct reflective conversations; 3) How often reflective conversations should take place; and 4) If reflective conversations provide opportunities to discuss areas of strength and need, establish attainable professional goals, develop action steps to meet those goals, and identify professional devel- opment options that lead to improved classroom instruction and student achievement. Setting, Target Population and Sample The study focused on the perceptions of administrators and teach- ers in a north central region of Texas encompassing ten counties including 77 school districts, 52 charter campuses, approximately 66,000 educators and more than 551,000 students. School dis - tricts in this area included urban, suburban, and rural districts and campuses ranging in size from a large urban school district with 142 campuses and over 80,000 students to small rural districts with one campus serving a total of 80 students in Pre-Kindergar - ten through grade eight. The campuses represented early child - hood, elementary, intermediate, middle school, and high school campuses that provide and support programs characteristic of educational systems across the state of Texas. The researcher’s sample database contained a total popula- tion of unique district and charter e-mail addresses for 24,404 teachers and 4,413 administrators. As the target population of teachers was very large, the researcher used the procedure of sys- tematic sampling to select every 5 th teacher to create a sampling frame of 4,880 participants. The researcher received 458 usable responses: 246 classroom teachers and 212 campus administra - tors. Instrumentation and Measures The researcher created and used a web-based survey question- naire which included demographic, attitudinal, and “semi-closed- ended” questions (Creswell, 2015, p. 390). The survey instrument contained two sets of attitudinal questions designed for: 1) respondents participating in reflective conversations as a campus practice; and 2) respondents not participating in reflective conver - sations. As the survey was designed by the researcher, the instru - ment was pilot tested for both content validity and reliability. The researcher used a combination of descriptive and com- parative statistics to analyze and report the data. Descriptive sta - tistics were used to communicate the occurrence in percentages and averages. Independent-samples t -tests were used to explore the difference in perception on reflective conversations of the teachers and administrators for Research Questions 1-8. A series of two-way between-groups analysis of variances (ANOVA) were conducted to explore the impact of the demographic influence of years of experience, gender, campus type, campus size, district size, campus location, and role on campus on the perception of whether reflective conversations are beneficial to improving classroom praxis. Research Questions Findings and Mean Differences Table 1 shows a summary of the research questions and the asso- ciated statistical findings. (See Table 1 on page 16) Summary of Findings There were 458 completed surveys returned for the study. Of the 458 participants sampled, there were two comparison groups: campus administrators and classroom teachers. The survey par - ticipants were divided into two response groups, those practicing reflective conversations and those who were not. Of the total participants sampled, 74% responded they were participating in reflective conversations, while 26% responded they were not. Of the 74% of participants who responded they were currently par - ticipating in reflective conversations, 164 were campus adminis - trators and 173 were classroom teachers. The 26% of participants who responded they were not currently participating in reflective conversations were made up of 48 campus administrators and 73 classroom teachers. The study showed that 88% of all participants believed par - ticipating in reflective conversations can lead to improved class - room instructional practice. There was a difference in agreement within the 88%; 97% of campus administrators responded they agree to strongly agree, while only 80% of teachers responded similarly. However, of the 26% of the respondents not currently participating in reflective conversations, 93% agreed this practice should be taking place on the campus, with 98% of administrators