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Leadership coaching has been a means to build the capacity of leaders within the business community for numerous years (Bono et al., 2009). Over the last 10 years, leadership coaching has become an avenue to support professional development and capacity building for school leaders. Although the coaching concept is not new to the education field, instructional coaches and peer coaches have been proven to support professional development for teachers; leadership coaching is steadily gaining ground. The skill set required to be a principal is vast. As the demands of being a successful principal have changed, the professional learning opportunities available to principals must also adapt. With the growing demand placed on educational leaders coupled with the shortage of highly qualified educators, a perfect storm is forming. This qualitative phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of six secondary public school principals who participated in leadership coaching. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

A growing body of research exists on core values. However, limited scholarly research exists on core values in higher education institutions that operate in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments. And yet, society entrusts higher education with our nation's most important resource--our future leaders. University adopted core values serve as guideposts for institution stakeholders. Core values are important for an organization's identity by providing concise and powerful guidelines for collective stakeholder action. Core values provide a true north values vector, especially when ambiguity and uncertainty exist. This, in turn, helps increase judgement and decision-making skills that are clearly aligned with codified values. This dissertation research focuses on the perspectives of four key internal stakeholder populations--students, faculty, staff, and administrators--at a Midwestern university. However, in this study administrators provided limited feedback; therefore, the analysis is limited. The participants' perspectives relate to understanding their familiarity with the institutional core values and to what extent stakeholders internalize core values to guide their daily actions as members of the campus community. The four populations are critical to day-to-day higher education institutional operations. Quantitative data collected from the four stakeholder groups totaled 209 completed responses that were statistically analyzed utilizing 12 core values. This analysis determined level of familiarity and the extent of agreement with the core values. All stakeholder groups were familiar with UND Core Values and UND President shared values in differing degrees with faculty, staff and students providing the highest percentages in order. Of the six UND Core Values, "community and discovery" achieved the highest level of familiarity and the extent of agreement. While "creating a caring campus community" rated the highest from all stakeholders within the six UND President shared values. Statistical evaluation of both UND Core Values and UND President shared values did not produce statistically significant results when comparing all stakeholders' responses to familiarity. The research serves as the basis for future manuscripts from multiple stakeholder perspectives. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Language development is integral to a child's early childhood foundational skills. This research study aimed to determine how early childhood teachers' language use impacts young children in early childhood classrooms. The study examined the extent to which a relationship existed between the daily average number of conversational turns, as measured by Language ENvironment Analysis technology, and language growth in early childhood environments. A quantitative research design was used to conduct this study. For this ex post facto study, learning accomplishment profile language and Language ENvironment Analysis technology data were collected from the 2018-2019 school year from Porter Leath, an agency that operates early childhood programs in a large urban county in West Tennessee. The learning accomplishment profile language and the Language ENvironment Analysis technology data used were from 87 participants aged 24 months to 36 months old for this study. An independent-samples t-test, linear regression, and Pearson r correlation were conducted. Statistical analysis revealed no correlation between Language ENvironment Analysis technology and learning accomplishment profile language growth. Additionally, the study's results revealed no significant differences in learning accomplishment profile language growth when compared to students who used Language ENvironment Analysis technology compared to students who did not use Language ENvironment Analysis technology. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Research over the past two decades has documented the rise of a phenomenon known as academic entitlement (AE). Students throughout the United States and the world have exhibited entitled beliefs, such as expectations of good grades for little effort (Kopp & Finney, 2013) and entitled behaviors, including cheating, displays of anger, and aggression towards instructors (Schildkraut et al, 2018; Twenge, 2014). Previous studies have been conducted with college and university students, and some researchers have recommended examining AE in the lower grades in an effort to begin to learn more about when AE appears and how it evolves over time (Achacoso, 2002). This qualitative study explored evidence of AE in elementary students. A sample of fifth-grade students attending two Christian schools in central Virginia participated. Students completed a survey, adapted from an AE survey developed by Michelle Achacoso (2002) for a study with undergraduate students at a large southwestern university, as well as several open-ended questions that were coded using a generic qualitative technique to extract themes that might suggest a direction for future research with K-12 students. The data were analyzed, and the findings discussed, using object relations theory for guidance. The results of the study found little evidence of AE in the sample, and recommendations for future study were made. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]