K12 Schools Research Articles

PARENTS’ DECISIONS IN CHOOSING K-12 EDUCATION DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: AN EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a major impact on K-12 schools. Therefore it is very important to examine the factors that shape parents’ decisions in choosing K-12 education for their children so that schools can meet parents’ expectations. As a result, student enrolment in K-12 schools can be increased. This study aims to determine the factors that shape parents’ decisions in choosing kindergarten, elementary, junior high, and high school (K-12) education levels for their children in the new normal era. The object of research is the Citra Blessing School in Surabaya. The method used is a quantitative research method. Data collection in this study using questionnaire research. The population is 1,142 parents from K-12. Sampling using a random sampling technique. 797 parents were used as the sample. The analytical method used is exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with the help of the SPSS application. As a result, there is 1 factor that is not appropriate from the 27 initial factors, so 26 factors are used as a factor for parents’ decision-making in choosing K-12 education. These 26 factors form 4 new factors, namely 1. Service and Ambience Excellence; 2. Student Competence; 3. Learning Management System, and 4. School Reputation. This finding becomes a reference for improving the performance of K-12 in Surabaya. In particular, so that the quality of education, the quality of alumni, student admissions, and student enrolment can be improved. It is in order to maintain the continuity of schools, especially K12 schools in the New Normal period. It is a reference for K-12 students to use flip classrooms or blended learning as learning methods during the teaching and learning process. In addition, it motivates K-12 to take part in competitions, thereby increasing the school’s academic achievement.

Exploring the Accountability Relationships of Turkish School Principals: A Qualitative Study

In developed countries, accountability mechanisms, external control and standardized testing to increase student academic achievement have fundamentally influenced school principals and their management styles. On the other hand, much is unknown about the Turkish principals’ experiences in their accountability environment. This is significant because accountability relationships might be even destructive for principals and the school learning environment despite the intended formative and supportive purposes. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the accountability relationships of Turkish K12 school principals. The data of seventeen purposefully-sampled Turkish school principals were collected through in-depth phenomenological interviews. Data analysis yielded five major themes with supporting sub-themes: bureaucratic accountability environment, market accountability environment, professional accountability environment, accountability intensity, and accountability impacts on principals, teachers, schools, students and parents. Knowing the nature of context-dependent accountability environments can help principals adopt new roles and help policymakers improve their ill-natured accountability relationships, principal preparation and development programs.

A conceptual framework for developing a glocalized school-based curriculum

The research was initially driven by an empirical requirement adopting foreign early childhood curricula for a K12 program from kindergarten to high school. After reviewing existing global or international curricula adopted and adapted in different research contexts, a handful of researches have been conducted in China’s context. However, the growth of internationalized K12 schools is rapid and the demand for glocalized school-based curriculum (SBC) is urgent in China. Therefore, a conceptual framework for developing a glocalized SBC was developed based on general curriculum development models, school-based curriculum development models, and the consideration of the contexts. The framework is expected can not only provide the current research with technical support in terms of integrating global curricula and local curricula for one specific kindergarten but it can also be applied by other researchers whose researches are related to curriculum development, specifically in the early childhood field and involving global and local context and curricula adaptation.

In-Service EFL teachers’ engagement in reflexive practice via video enhanced observation

ABSTRACT Building upon the interrelationship between learning and changing, this study investigates how cyclical engagement in reflexive practice influences the teachers’ professional development. We implemented our video-enhanced ‘Reflexive Practice Triplication Model’ which we developed in our specific context. We conducted the research with 8 secondary school teachers of English at a private K12 school in Ankara, Turkey. Drawing on multiple sources of data, we used a triangulation technique to reveal the qualitative and quantitative impact of reflexive practice. The findings showed that collaborative engagement in reflexive practice contributed substantially to EFL teachers’ professional development traceable in the changes in beliefs on reflexivity, attitudes towards collaboration, contextual and pedagogical knowledge. The study provides implications as to how reflexive practice can be used in local contexts where specific needs are to be considered.

Türkiye’deki Devlet Okullarında Pandemi Döneminde Dil Öğretiminde Dijital Gereçlerin Öğrenme Desteği Olarak Kullanımı

The study aims to investigate what digital tools were used to scaffold language teaching during the pandemic outbreak of Covid-19. In addition to the list of the digital tools used at K12 classrooms, the reasons to use these tools were examined to discuss their functions to scaffold language teaching dynamics. This study was designed as a descriptive study adopting a qualitative research method. To obtain objective observation data, 43 pre-service teachers attending teaching practice at different K12 schools participated in the study and their reflective observations regarding which digital tools they used, how and why they used them were analyzed. The qualitative analysis indicated that the teachers used different digital tools during online lessons and they varied the tools to increase student involvement and to offer extra interactive activities to revise the target structure. Utilizing these tools and implementations, their lessons were reported as more effective, fun and interactive.

Teacher self-efficacy and teacher work engagement for expats at international K12 schools in China: A correlation analysis

The purpose of this study was to evaluate if teacher self-efficacy predicts teacher work engagement for expatriate teachers in international schools in China. Results from simple linear regression indicated a statistically significant predictive relationship between teacher self-efficacy and teacher work engagement. Multiple linear regression analysis indicated that the student engagement dimension of self-efficacy was the most statistically significantly predictive of study participants’ overall perception of their level of work engagement and that the emotional engagement and social engagement with students domains were the most statistically significantly predictive of study participants’ overall perceptions of self-efficacy. The data suggest that investigating teacher self-efficacy and teacher work engagement can address the problem of expat teacher retention and training at international schools in China.

Elucidating Organizational Readiness of K12 Schools in United States for Online Education

Elucidating Organizational Readiness of K12 Schools in United States for Online Education

The Positive Influence of the Popular Music Movement

The documentation of popular music curricula in K12 schools is used to suggest the secondary ensemble directors in schools can learn more about the role of popular music in the lives of students. Further, ensemble directors are encouraged to consider bridging music-making in school to young adulthood by way of providing encouragement and experience playing solo instruments and developing skills on secondary instruments that may lend themselves to inclusion of popular music styles. A list of suggestions is offered for developing confidence and proficiency in individual performance.

The Impact of Covid-19 on Online Learning in K12 Indonesian Schools: Macro, Meso, and Micro Levels

The Covid-19 had changed the causal relationship of the responses about the effective planning of competency, academic, mental health, and technology usage from government, teachers, and students in Indonesian schools. The primary objective in this research was to investigate the problems, the solutions, and the impact of macro level (policies, strategy, and official curricula from Indonesian government), meso level (Indonesian teachers in K12 schools), and micro level (Indonesian students K12 schools) during COVID-19 pandemic and Indonesian online learning policy by comparing K12 Indonesian schools. The study was a qualitative method of the phenomenological approach. The sample of this study was 272 teachers and 3988 students of Indonesian K-12 schools in North Sumatera, Indonesia. The data was obtained through an online survey by using google form and Circular Letters from the Indonesian government by using newspapers. The findings proved that Indonesian teachers and students agreed with the effectiveness of online learning training programs and activities to improve competency and academic progress even though there were some barriers to technology usage. All these findings proved that the transitions of macro, meso, and micro levels in institutional to society-wide level had demonstrated digital pedagogy and students' learning decision-making process changed the organization of Indonesian school management.

Textbook Reliance: Traditional Curriculum Dependence Is Symptomatic of a Larger Educational Problem

The complexities of adapting traditional educational courses to a virtual setting highlighted numerous inequalities within the current United States’ K12 school system. Students in low socioeconomic communities have suffered a more significant academic slide in core competencies due to poor lesson integration, online learning fatigue, poor learning environments, and low technological proficiency. Policymakers, believing achievement gaps result from teaching performance, have argued for additional academic controls that promote rigorous standardized instruction to reduce existing achievement gaps. However, a state-mandated textbook-driven curriculum that prioritizes test-taking strategies will only exasperate previous educational deficiencies. As numerous schools face significant financial constraints, technological and resource investment is severally limited, and teacher professional development is marginalized. Without appropriate tools or skills to adapt curriculum, classes devolve into simple rote-learning of textbook content lacking any semblance of differentiated instruction. Students in impoverished communities disassociate with taught content as textbooks lack a multicultural presentation; thus they perceive school environments as unwelcoming and hostile towards their lived-experiences. Performance-based funding through high-stakes accountability further incentifies underfunded schools to abandon student-centric learning designs and prioritize a textbook dependent ‘one-size-fits-few’ strategy to avoid sanctions to meet state benchmarks. While a return to traditional classroom instruction may signal a return to normal, without increased state funding, reduced emphasis on standardized testing, improved teacher professional development, and incorporation of multivoiced textbooks, a return to normal will additionally signal a return to existing educational inequalities in the US.

Beyond composition: What the study of diversity in K12 schools can learn from research in higher education

AbstractSeveral decades of interdisciplinary research have demonstrated the benefits of racially and ethnically integrated K12 schools. However, there is still much we do not know about what happens inside diverse schools that lead to these outcomes. In this article, we argue that the study of diversity in higher education, with its greater focus on internal institutional dynamics and a broader range of outcomes, can help K12 researchers fill in these gaps. However, the framework for studying diversity in higher education cannot be applied to K12 schools without first accounting for developmental and structural differences across students and sectors. To that end, this article summarizes the main components of the framework for studying diversity in the higher education literature—compositional, interactional, and organizational diversity—as well as the broad range of outcomes including not only academic achievement but also skills for lifelong learning and dispositions for citizenship in a multiracial democracy, and suggests how they can be adapted for K12 research. We argue that with this comprehensive but adapted framework, research on K12 education can inform practice and policy by providing more insight into the underlying mechanisms of school diversity and its consequences.

Decision-making, leadership and performance links in private education institutes

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the relationships between participative decision-making, ethical leadership and leadership performance, which might make school leaders quit autocratic behavior and enhance their performance at private K12 schools in Iraq.Design/methodology/approachThe researchers collected data through a questionnaire using a stratified sampling methodology from 207 educators of 10 institutions. The research methodology included demographic analysis, factor analysis, structural equation modeling and mediation analysis.FindingsThe participative decision-making affected moral, knowledge and attitude that contributed to leadership performance. Besides, the only attitude mediated the relationship between participative decision-making and leadership performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited to private K12 schools in Iraq. Therefore, the findings cannot be generalized. It might guide educational institutes to change their management style.Originality/valueThe study delivers a unique insight into education in Iraq.

University Innovation Hubs & Technology-Enhanced Learning in K12 Environments.

Colleges and schools of education serve K12 educators very well in many areas and there are instructional design programs housed in traditional academic units that produce high-caliber scholars and researchers that impact our field. However, this article suggests that partnerships between university innovation hubs and K12 schools fill a gap of programming focused on developing practical skills related to digital transformation of learning environments. This article presents a case study of an innovation hub developing such programming. Anderson University (SC)‘s Center for Innovation and Digital Learning (CIDL) staff began offering external professional development offerings for K12 educators and leaders who were seeking to use design thinking and emerging technologies as the university had been doing with its own initiatives, such as its one-to-one program. Over time, these relationships led to the development of a uniquely structured professional master’s degree intentionally aligned to national K12 and post-secondary educational technology association standards as well as state online teacher endorsement criteria. The program is administered and taught by instructional design personnel in the CIDL, a university innovation hub outside of a traditional academic unit. The article offers insight into the development and alignment of external programming as well as specific insights from the learners, instructors, and the program leaders: (1) the importance of having practitioners as faculty in digital transformation programs; (2) the role of practitioner-faculty in professional community development; and (3) the organizational advantages and impact. Implications and further research opportunities around this type of programming will be identified as well.

The Distribution of School Spending Impacts

We use estimates across all known “credibly causal” studies to examine the distributions of the causal effects of public K12 school spending on test scores and educational attainment in the United States. Under reasonable assumptions, for each of the 31 included studies, we compute the same parameter estimate. Method of moments estimates indicate that, on average, a $1000 increase in per-pupil public school spending (for four years) increases test scores by 0.044 , high-school graduation by 2.1 percentage points, and college-going by 3.9 percentage points. The pooled averages are significant at the 0.0001 level. When benchmarked against other interventions, test score impacts are much smaller than those on educational attainment—suggesting that test-score impacts understate the value of school spending. The benefits to marginal capital spending increases take about five-to-six years to materialize, but after this, are similar to those of non-capital spending increases. The marginal spending impacts are much less pronounced for economically advantaged populations. Consistent with a cumulative effect, the educational attainment impacts are larger with more years of exposure to the spending increase. Average impacts are similar across a wide range of baseline spending levels—providing little evidence of diminishing marginal returns at current spending levels. To speak to generalizability, we estimate the variability across studies attributable to effect heterogeneity (as opposed to sampling variability). This heterogeneity explains about 40 and 70 percent of the variation across studies for educational attainment and test scores, respectively, which allows us to provide a range of likely policy impacts. A policy that increases per-pupil spending for four years will improve test scores 92 percent of the time, and educational attainment even more often. We find suggestive evidence consistent with small possible publication bias, but demonstrate that any effects on our estimates are minimal. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

SIGNIFICANCE OF TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN RESPONSE TO THE CURRENT GENERAL EDUCATION REFORMS IN VIETNAM: PERCEPTIONS OF SCHOOL PRINCIPALS AND TEACHERS

Teacher professional development (TPD) plays a vital role in enhancing student achievement and the education quality improvement at general education schools. Vietnam is carrying out the general education reforms including the curriculum, teaching methodology and textbook replacement. In order to make those reforms succeed, a lot of things have been done so far in which TPD is considered a key measure. This qualitative case-study research aimed to find out the perceptions of principals and the teachers in three selected K12 schools on TPD in response to the education reforms implementation in Vietnam using the data from the open-ended interviews with the principals, the questionnaires from teachers, and the school policy-related documents. The importance of TPD related closely to the general education reforms implementation at three schools was highly perceived and highly appreciated by the principals and teachers in similar vein. These made a strong link between their beliefs and TPD practices at their schools for promoting the education reforms. Keywords: education reforms, qualitative case-study, teacher professional development, Vietnamese K12 school.

Expectations and Experiences of Technology-Rich Classrooms of Preservice and In-service Teachers in China

Technology-Rich Classrooms (TRCs) have been increasingly constructed in K12 schools. Existing studies revealed that to what extent TRCs play a role in shaping teaching and learning depends on what teachers expect to do and what they do with TRCs. This study aimed at exploring the gap between teachers’ experiences of existing TRCs and their expectations of ideal TRCs. A total of 194 preservice teachers studying at Beijing Normal University (BNU) and 149 in-service teachers who enrolled in a master program at BNU participated in the study. The Smart Classroom Inventory (SCI) a ten-component inventory revised from the previous study, was used to collect the data. Independent-samples t-tests and paired-samples t-tests revealed that: (a) both preservice teachers and in-service teachers reported significantly lower experiences of TRCs than their expectations of ideal ones in terms of most dimensions, with the only exception that preservice teachers’ Technology usage. (b) Whether in existing TRCs, or in ideal ones, both preservice teachers and in-service teachers reported relative lower scores of Flexibility, Learning data, Differentiation, Investigation, and Cooperation than other dimensions. (c) Preservice teachers reported significantly higher scores of Flexibility, Technology usage, Learning data, Differentiation, Investigation, and Cooperation than in-service teachers, while in-service teachers reported significantly higher scores of Physical design, Student Cohesiveness, Equity, and Learning experiences than preservice teachers.4) Preservice teachers reported significantly higher expectation of ideal Physical design, Differentiation than in-service teachers, while they reported significantly lower expectations of ideal Flexibility, Student Cohesiveness, Equity, and Learning experience than in-service teachers. Implications for preservice teachers’ education and in-service teachers’ professional development were discussed.

Programming Education and Tools for K12 Schools in Japan

Programming Education and Tools for K12 Schools in Japan

That’s Not Something We Have to Discuss: Interrupting Silences About Multiracial Students in Teacher Work

The author asserts that the field of teacher education must begin a critical conversation to better prepare and support teachers in attending to the complexities of racialized identities, experiences, and perspectives of multiracial students in K12 schools. The author offers a review of literature relevant to multiracial students, and draws from the emerging theoretical framework of Multicrit (Harris in Int J Qual Stud Educ 29(6):795–813, 2016) to present monoracism, ahistoricism, colorism and intersectionality to analyze excerpts from three respective research studies. Each excerpt demonstrates an imperative to build a critical understanding of multiracial students within teacher work. The author concludes with implications for future research and practice.

Virtual Supervision of Student Teachers as a Catalyst of Change for Educational Equity in Rural Areas

This paper presents an in vivo naturalistic case study of an education college in a Midwestern state university that implemented Cisco TelePresence high-definition teleconference technology in supervising student teachers in rural schools. Guided by a clinical supervision triad model, this approach includes synchronous virtual observation and video-based non-synchronous reflective practice within a triad of university supervisor, student teacher, and cooperating teacher. Results demonstrate that important factors for implementing virtual supervision in rural schools include multiple personnel involvement in teacher education programs and K12 schools and collaboratively developed goals, procedures, and outcomes. It also finds out that virtual supervision serves as a lens to the rural world for student teachers and a catalyst for educational equity for rural schools and districts. Technological aspects of supervision such as equipment description and costs are also provided.

Economic insecurity and the rise in gun violence at US schools

Frequent school shootings are a unique US phenomenon that has defied understanding1,2. Uncovering the aetiology of this problem is hampered by the lack of an established dataset3,4. Here we assemble a carefully curated dataset for the period 1990–2013 that is built upon an exhaustive review of existing data and original sources. Using this dataset, we find that the rate of gun violence is time-dependent and that this rate is heightened from 2007 to 2013. We further find that periods of increased shooting rates are significantly correlated with increases in the unemployment rate across different geographic aggregation levels (national, regional and city). Consistent with the hypothesis that increasing uncertainty in the school-to-work transition contributes to school shootings, we find that multiple indicators of economic distress significantly correlate with increases in the rate of gun violence when events at both K12 and post-secondary schools are considered. Pah et al. analyse gun violence incidents at US schools for the period 1990–2013 and find heightened rates in the period 2007–2013. Indicators of economic distress significantly correlate with increases in the rate of gun violence.