Organizational Conditions that Promote and Impede Research Engagement: The Principal’s Perspective

The researcher explored perceptions of the research-practice gap in education, the process through which central actors make decisions related to teacher retention and development, and the organizational conditions that promote and impede research-engagement in this qualitative study. The researcher limited the study to the role of the campus principal and used purposive sampling to select participants from 3 diverse districts in the state of Texas. Because there may be discrepancies between leaders’ perceptions and behaviors, the researcher conducted interview sessions with principals and principal supervisors and conducted observation sessions in principals’ natural work environments. The study results showed that good intentions, a willing disposition, access to research, and an open stance toward research evidence do little to narrow the divide between research and practice. The researcher concluded the distance between research and practice in education is not due not to attitudinal factors, but organizational structure. To facilitate research-engagement, the researcher recommended that organizational leaders (a) reimagine how and where principals work, (b) situate principals around transformational work, (c) build principals’ capacity to make better decisions at work, and (d) stabilize and reinforce the impact of innovative work. Keywords: decision-making, organizational context, research engagement, systems approach, teacher development, teacher retentio

We Had Good Things

my father and mother were drive

A Social Network Analysis Of Hamadryas Baboons

The study of animal sociality investigates the immediate and long-term consequences that a social structure has on its group members. Typically, social behavior is observed from interactions between two individuals at the dyadic level. However, a new framework for studying social behavior has emerged that allows the researcher to assess social complexity at multiple scales. Social Network Analysis has been recently applied in the field of ethology, and this novel tool enables an approach of focusing on social behavior in context of the global network rather than limited to dyadic interactions. This new technique was applied to a group of captive hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas hamadryas) in order to assess how overall network topology of the social group changes over time with the decline of an aging leader male. Observations on aggressive, grooming, and proximity spatial interactions were collected from three separate years in order to serve as `snapshots¿ of the current state of the group. Data on social behavior were collected from the group when the male was in prime health, when the male was at an old age, and after the male¿s death. A set of metrics was obtained from each time period for each type of social behavior and quantified a change in the patterns of interactions. The results suggest that baboon social behavior varies across context, and changes with the attributes of its individual members. Possible mechanisms for adapting to a changing social environment were also explored

Issues of customer satisfaction: A Study of Monroe County golf courses

The golf industry has experienced an explosion as it has grown over the years into a $30 billion a year industry. The Monroe County golf industry has also experienced growth with over 40 private, semi-private, and daily-fee in competition for golf customers. This study of 12 Monroe County golf course owners and managers asks for their beliefs regarding customer satisfaction issues. Lastly, this study will categorize the responses by industry segment to see if there are patterns to management beliefs on golf course competitiveness and customer service strategies

Modeling permafrost stability in peatlands with climate change and disturbance

Boreal and arctic regions are predicted to warm faster and more severely than temperate latitudes. They contain large stocks of below- ground soil carbon in peatlands and frozen soil, and the flux of the soil C to the atmosphere may be a strong feedback to climate change. Increases in air temperature due to climate change will increase surface soil temperatures, soil temperatures at depth, active layer depths, and growing season length, but not degrade permafrost by 2100 at this site. Both wildfire and climate change increase active layer depths by 25 cm, but effects of wildfire diminish following vegetation recovery