Volume 4 - Issue 1 - DBU Journal of K-12 Educational Research - Page 37

Journal of K-12 Educational Research 35 worked with principals who had taken part in charter school specific principal preparation programs in an attempt to determine potential best practices and determine which elements of those programs are most beneficial. Currently, most principals come to the role through university-based principal preparation programs (Grissom & Harrington, 2010). However, those programs are typically not adequate in preparing principals to be successful, much less meet the unique needs of charter school principals (Banks, 2015; Campbell & Grubb, 2008; Lynch, 2012). Several entities are attempting to respond to this issue, including charter schools themselves. Nine components of preparation programs for charter schools were previously identified as problem-based learning and scenario-based learning, internships and shadowing, campus operations, training collaboration with principals, instructional leadership, mentoring and coaching, content aligned with professional standards, being organized into a cohort, and budget training. Of those competencies, problem-based learning, internships, and campus operations arose as important within a recent study of charter school principals (Mooney, 2019). That researcher suggested a study of the components within charter school principal preparation programs is needed within his recommendations. Methodology The current study is a mixed methodology research, using QM as the main source of data. There were four stages of QM: designing a series of statements that were sorted using an expert panel to make recommendations for changes; having participants force sort statements by their perception of positive or negative feelings along a normalized curve; intercorrelation and factor analysis which scales the Q-sorts; and revelation of emergent themes once the factors were interpreted from the sample (Watts & Stenner, 2012). In an effort to support charter school principals during their preparation programs, the following research questions were identified: Research Question 1 (RQ1) What are the elements identified within charter school principal preparation programs? These elements were identified through the expert panel in the work to prepare the concourse. In total, 49 elements were agreed upon after the review of the initial elements, which helped lead the initial conversation. These elements were a necessary Round 1 as a means of determining the elements to be able to provide to the participants. Research Question 2 (RQ2) What are charter school principal preparation program participants’ perceptions of which elements of those programs most increase principal effectiveness? Participants ranked each of the elements from most helpful to least helpful using Q Method Software on a grid within a normalized curve. The researcher then used the 15 responses to develop an understanding of what participants perceived to be the most helpful elements, least helpful elements, and two unique groupings of elements that aligned to preferences regarding those elements. In QM, the distribution of sorts is numbered from positive to negative values (Watts & Stenner, 2012). QM gives the researcher more information and insight into the elements than a simple ranking because it provides much more precise comparative information, which significantly increases the reliability (Nunnally, 1970). The data are analyzed through a factor analysis process, which allows the data set to be broken down from a large set into much smaller sets, based on correlations of the underlying data (Brown, 1980; Stephenson, 1953). Using PQ Method Software for data analysis, the data are uploaded and the software uses a varimax process to create factor arrays, showing significant and non-significant factors (Dancey & Reidy, 2011). These factor arrays are used to create crib sheets to begin the process of revealing emergent themes of each of the factors (Watts & Stenner, 2012). The data collected show the polarization of the data, commonalities, and differences. Using the crib sheets, the researcher then used abduction to begin developing a story of the emergent