Search results

The authors explore the outcomes of health-care professionals' participation in a vendor-hosted online community by combining qualitative and quantitative data collected in two separate studies. The authors aim to shed light on the potential value outcomes of community participation covering the reduction of service costs by professionals' community participation.

The authors explore the outcomes of health-care professionals' participation in a vendor-hosted online community by combining qualitative and quantitative data collected in two separate studies. The authors also introduce GABEK® as a unique method of qualitative empirical content analysis. In the quantitative study, the authors refer to customer survey data and transactional data.

The results show that participation in online communities by professionals emerges as a dual concept, consisting of both help-seeking and help-providing behaviors. These behaviors in turn facilitate the creation of economic and relational value, as well as influencing the perceived usefulness of the online community, resulting in higher satisfaction with the community among the participating professionals. Customer survey data and transactional data were gathered from a major medical equipment vendor hosting an online community, and those data confirm that participation also decreases service support costs to professionals by reducing the number of necessary service visits by the vendor's service technicians.

The resulting model of participation and corresponding benefits in an online community for health-care professionals reflects and informs current developments in the health care industry.

The combination of qualitative as well as quantitative studies relying on the data of a world leading medical equipment vendor hosting an online community provides unique and innovative insights into participation and value creation within B2B communities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore supportive and shared leadership structures at schools as a function of school culture policies and procedures.

A qualitative study was conducted at three secondary schools in the Midwestern USA. Administrators and teachers were interviewed, professional learning communities observed and artifacts collected to explore school culture policies, procedures and leadership in the implementation of professional learning community practice.

This study concludes that school leaders must provide supportive and shared leadership structures for teachers in order to ensure a positive school culture and effective professional learning communities that impact school improvement. Leaders in schools must work directly with teachers to create policies and procedures that provide teachers the leadership structure to directly impact school improvement through professional learning community collaborative efforts.

This study builds on the school culture and professional learning communities literature by exploring existent policies and practices in schools as unique cases. Much of the literature calls for specific case studies to identify issues in the implementation of effective practice. This study is important to the community as specific cases that may inform educational leaders on mechanisms that may be leveraged to ensure successful implementation of policies and procedures outline in school culture and professional learning community literature.

Although the numbers of online community members continue to increase every day, most of the user-generated content in online communities comes from only a small percentage of members who are motivated to participate and contribute. While studies have been conducted on other professional online communities (e.g. teachers, mathematics practitioners, software developers, etc.), the online community for ServiceNow practitioners is not fully understood. Studies of this group could be useful to organizations that seek to understand ServiceNow practitioners’ motives to participate in these communities, fulfill their specific needs, and build and maintain a thriving community of users.

A qualitative case study method was used to learn what motivates ServiceNow practitioners to contribute and participate in ServiceNow communities. Data were collected from interviews with the participants, their stories and testimonials and physical artifacts created and used by them. Data analysis was carried out using data triangulation and continuous coding process.

Three primary motives were identified: find answers to questions or issues, learn about ServiceNow products and services, and share knowledge and expertise with others.

As a single-case research method was used, findings of this study may not be generalized to a larger population.

Results should encourage and increase participation by ServiceNow Community's members, create a repository of knowledge and relationships that can improve their value and effectiveness, and help their organizations maintain competitive advantage.

Research suggests effective immersive simulations that rely on augmented reality enhance teachers’ self-efficacy and skills (Badiee & Kauffman, 2015). However, there is a gap in the literature as studies have largely ignored their uses in educational leadership programs (Bradley & Kendall, 2015). This study investigated the relationship between application of critical skills within an immersive simulation environment and 26 school or district leaders’ perceptions of self-efficacy in leading a professional learning community (PLC). Two overarching themes materialized from participants: improved general confidence in leading a PLC, and a sense of refined or expanded skills in the context of new approaches to leading PLC. Further studies are needed on the use of immersive simulation as a pedagogical tool and to examine impact for educational leadership practitioners.

Research suggests effective immersive simulations that rely on augmented reality enhance teachers’ self-efficacy and skills (Badiee & Kauffman, 2015). However, there is a gap in the literature as studies have largely ignored their uses in educational leadership programs (Bradley & Kendall, 2015). This study investigated the relationship between application of critical skills within an immersive simulation environment and 26 school or district leaders’ perceptions of self-efficacy in leading a professional learning community (PLC). Two overarching themes materialized from participants: improved general confidence in leading a PLC, and a sense of refined or expanded skills in the context of new approaches to leading PLC. Further studies are needed on the use of immersive simulation as a pedagogical tool and to examine impact for educational leadership practitioners.

After many years working with mentors for beginning teachers, both through a formal, Ministry-sponsored program, known in Ontario as the New Teacher Induction Program (NTIP) and through a university-based Faculty of Education practicum, the authors cultivated an understanding of the value of both mentoring and the communities that foster it. The authors observed that pre-service mentors are not offered the same level of support as their induction mentor counterparts. The purpose of this paper is to explore the aforementioned gap by bringing together a small group of pre-service mentor teachers with several highly trained induction mentors from the NTIP program in two full days of professional development: one day of learning and community building among mentors, and the second day of collaboration by pre-service mentors alongside their teacher candidates (TCs). The authors learned that pre-service mentors need and desire professional learning and community mentoring support to develop foundational understandings about the role of mentors and the skills and strategies that support an effective mentoring practice. As a result, the authors advocate for sustainable professional development that leverages existing programs and the clarification of the pre-service mentoring role through continued study and collaboration over time.

This qualitative study was designed to explore, understand, and interpret pre-service mentor teachers’ experience of professional learning about mentoring and the role of the mentor, including their responses to participating in a like community of learners. This study brought together educators serving as pre-service and induction mentors to engage them in formal professional learning about mentoring, within an environment that created the conditions for collaboration and community in the context of learning about mentoring.

This study surfaces the insights related to the types of knowledge and skills that mentors developed in this study in addition to pointing toward the knowledge and skills they perceive to be necessary to their effective participation in their roles as mentors. The study also identifies both the value that pre-service mentors perceived as a result of being invited into a learning space and the dynamics of professional learning and dialogue in collaboration with their induction mentor counterparts and their pre-service mentees.

This research study explores a research gap in the area of mentoring as it relates to pre-service mentors or cooperating teachers. Its unique feature involves bringing together two previously segmented groups of mentors: pre-service mentors supporting developing TCs and induction mentors supporting novice teachers. It describes the value and impact of mentoring as understood by pre-service mentors, in particular identifying the reciprocal benefits they experienced. The authors also investigate and shed light on the value and impact of pre-service mentor participation in a community that is intentionally created to support their professional learning about their role. It provides recommendations for practice and indicates areas of potential research.

This study surfaces the potential benefits of professional learning and community for pre-service mentors who play an integral role in supporting TCs in the completion of their education degrees. It makes practical recommendations which point to uniting pre-service and in-service mentors as participants in learning communities that build leadership capacity and advance mentoring knowledge and skills to impact the mentoring relationship. This study advocates for a restructuring existing practice in the area of pre-service mentoring to encourage professional learning and interaction that connects the work of pre-service and in-service mentors, bridging two currently separate mentoring communities.

This study offers a re-visioning of mentoring as a community endeavor. It advances the notion that, supported by a targeted program of professional development and participation in communities of inquiry, knowledge creation and mobilization, mentors can build their mentoring and leadership capacity and extend their professional impact.

The goal of this narrative synthesis is twofold. The purpose of this paper is to understand the barriers and constraints that hinder or prevent the growth of professional community. The author also want to form an empirical understanding of how educators can be successful in meeting these challenges. In both cases, the author wish to grow this knowledge in the complexity of schooling and the rapids of continuous school improvement. The conceptual architecture for the review is a mixture of research on change and implementation, school improvement, and community.

The paper can best be described as an integrative review or a narrative synthesis – an interpretation of the literature (Vescio et al., 2008), a method that is especially useful when combing qualitative and quantitative research findings. The author follow guidance from Hallinger in explaining the construction of the paper. The goal is to explore the broadest landscape possible to distill knowledge and understanding on the one hand and provide usable material on the other. In the words of Battistich, the aim is “to develop integrative explanatory concepts that provide people with a useful framework for considering action under particular circumstances.”

The paper concludes that there are dynamic cultural and well-entrenched structural barriers that make the realization of professional community problematic. Some of these elements are visible. Many others are deeply buried in the meta-narrative of school improvement. The author also finds that absent direct attention to these conditions, efforts to nurture professional community in schools will be seriously handicapped.

Narrative syntheses offer the hope of deep understanding of domains of school improvement. They permit the inclusion of findings garnered from an array of methodologies. At the same time, this mode of investigation lacks the precision associated with more structured methods of knowledge accumulation. Even when done well, it places considerable responsibility on investigators in making sense of findings.

By examining research from a wide area of domains, the author is able to construct a comprehensive map of the world of bringing professional community to life in schools for researches, policy actors, developers, and practitioners.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the #SSChat community's recognition of cohesion and shared learning goals within the #SSChat community. Specifically, the author sought to gauge the #SSChat community's “sense of community (SOC) ” (e.g. measuring participants' perceptions of membership, influence, fulfillment of needs and a shared emotional connection related to the community) and sustainability (e.g. information contribution and consumption, self-disclosure and intention to leave the community). Additionally, the author aimed to examine “SOC” as a construct supporting the #SSChat community's sustainability.

This study employed a quantitative survey research design that was guided by McMillan and Chavis' (1986) SOC theoretical framework. The instrument included two reliable and valid surveys. Descriptive and inferential statics were used to investigate the three research questions.

Findings from this study highlight refinement and reinforcement areas framed using McMillan and Chavis' (1986) SOC theoretical framework to support the continued development and growth of the #SSChat as virtual learning community for social studies education professionals.

There is a dearth of research that investigates the dynamic underpinnings and foundations of informal virtual learning communities for social studies educators and whether they are sustainable. While this study is not the first to investigate the relationship between sustainability and SOC, it does extend previous research by evaluating the specific SOC tenets and their individual relationships to sustainability.

The purpose of this exploratory case study was to investigate the role of School Leaders (SLs) in building Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) in schools, as well as to expand a literature-driven PLC model within the Pakistani context.

The study involved the purposive selection of two schools affiliated with a university. The sample comprised one school leader, one academic coordinator and five teachers from each school, altogether 14 participants. The participants shared similar demographic characteristics. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data, which were analysed thematically.

The findings of the study revealed that both schools have created PLCs to some extent and that school goals and culture were contributing factors in building these communities. Additionally, the SLs played a key role in promoting PLCs by encouraging teacher collaboration. The study concludes that SLs have the potential to strategize their actions to foster positive professional relations among teachers and ensure their well-being.

The study contributes to the literature on professional communities in Pakistan by validating a literature-driven PLC model. The model emphasizes collaboration among teachers, which can be facilitated by SLs. As such, the study implicates SLs in prioritizing the professional development of teachers to enhance student learning and achieve school success.

This study is unique in expanding a literature-driven PLC model within the Pakistani context, with a focus on teacher collaboration as facilitated by SLs. The model has the potential for replication in other contexts and can serve as a useful tool for future research.

Using the example of medication safety, this paper aims to explore the impact of three managerial interventions (adverse incident reporting, ward‐level support by pharmacists, and a medication safety subcommittee) on different professional communities situated in the English National Health Service (NHS).

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with clinical and managerial staff from two English NHS acute trusts, supplemented with meeting observations and documentary analysis.

Attitudes toward managerial intervention differ by professional community (between doctors, nurses and pharmacists) according to their existing norms of safety and perceptions of formal governance processes.

The heterogeneity of social norms across different professional communities and medical specialties has implications for the design of organisational learning mechanisms in the field of patient safety.

The paper shows that theorisation of professional “resistance” to managerialism privileges the study of doctors' reactions to management with the consequent neglect of the perceptions of other professional communities.