| The purpose of this concurrent, mixed-methods research, based on organizational and professional learning community theory, was to investigate student underachievement in a high school. In 2006, the New Brunswick government shifted school improvement efforts to focus on student learning and began promoting professional learning communities. The study was intended to better understand factors influencing high school teachers' use of such professional learning communities to create effective school improvement plans. Quantitative data were collected by surveying teachers using the Professional Learning Communities School Instrument. Qualitative data were collected through semistructured interviews, reviews of teacher-generated materials, and nonparticipant observations of subject-specific team meetings. Descriptive statistics, phenomenological reduction, horizontalization, and imaginative variation were used to identify school strengths and barriers to professional learning communities. School strengths included perceptions of professional treatment, principal collaboration, developing expertise, and the school-based delivery model for professional development. Barriers included an absence of mission, lack of time for teacher collaboration during the instructional day, level of collaborative skill, and the connection of district to school-based professional development. A research-based plan was created using school strengths to address barriers, with the goal of increasing high school teachers' uses of professional learning communities. Such an increase in the use of learning communities could improve student achievement, support provincial plans, and produce social change. |
