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This study examined the value of using near-peer video-based feedback to help train aspiring school leaders in coaching strategies. This research is part of a larger study in which feedback was solicited from both aspiring teachers and aspiring school leaders. The current study focused on the responses provided by the aspiring school leaders.

This study utilized a phenomenological design. Undergraduate students enrolled in a public university in the Southwestern United States were recorded delivering instruction during their final semester of student teaching. These videos were uploaded to a secure website using EdPuzzle. Graduate students aspiring to be principals who were enrolled in a supervision course at the same university observed these classroom videos and provided feedback.

In regard to what participants learned about using video recordings, responses of aspiring principals fell into three themes as follows: establishing trust, providing critical feedback and broadening perspectives.

This study is limited by it being a small-scale study conducted at one public university in the Southwestern United States. Accordingly, the findings of this study are limited in their generalizability.

This study highlights the usefulness of collaborations between educator preparation programs and principal preparation programs to enhance the learning of both student groups.

This research adds to the small but growing body of literature regarding near-peer video-based feedback and its potential value in helping aspiring principals practice coaching skills using written feedback.

This chapter presents findings from a study into reading interests and habits of prisoners in six Croatian penitentiaries, and their perception and use of prison libraries. The study was conducted with the help of self-administered print survey. A total of 30% of prison population (male and female) in selected prisons was included in the study and a total of 504 valid questionnaires were returned (response rate of 81.3%). Findings indicate that reading is the respondents’ most popular leisure activity and that they read more now than before coming to prison. Respondents read more fiction than non-fiction. Most frequently they read crime novels, thrillers, and historical novels. To a lesser degree, they read religious literature, biographies, spiritual novels, social problem novels, self-help, war novels, science fiction, erotic novels, romances, spy novels and horrors. Respondents would like to read daily newspapers and magazines, and books about sport, health, travel, computers, hobbies, cookbooks, etc. Respondents have wide reading interests (both in relation to fiction and non-fiction) but they do not have access to them in their prison library. Respondents reported that reading makes their life in prison easier and their time in prison passes faster with books. Only about a quarter of respondents are satisfied with their prison library collection. Almost a fifth of respondents does not visit the library at all because it does not have anything they would like to find there: newspapers, modern literature, non-fiction, reading material for visually impaired and computers.