| This study investigated the relationship between dynamics and degree of implementation of a principal partners professional learning community (P3LC) in a professional development school (PDS). A PDS is a collaboration between one or more universities and one or more P–12 schools that has the interrelated goals of improved pre-service teacher education, ongoing faculty development, enhanced student learning, and continuous inquiry. A collaboration is not considered a PDS without the simultaneous inclusion of all of these goals. The P3LC is defined as consisting of five constituents—the coordinator/director, university faculty, P–12 administrators, P–12 faculty, and pre-service teachers. This group had not previously been defined as the unit of study in learning community research in PDSs. The six dynamics are collaboration, inquiry, leadership, parity, reflective dialogue, and shared vision. These were assessed on amount of occurrence on a Likert scale of 1–5. Degree of implementation was defined by number of items selected from a list of 129 items, where each item was a stem from the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) PDS Learning Community Standard. Reliability analyses were run on the dynamics and degree of implementation segments of the instrument. The sample for this study represents a national population. The participants were compiled form the membership lists of the Holmes Group, the National Network for Educational Renewal, and the Texas Centers for the Professional Development of Teaching. Individuals with acquirable email addresses were emailed a url, user name, and password to access the survey, which was housed on a Blackboard Course Management website at Duquesne University. Surveys were sent to 531 valid email addresses representing the five constituents. At the due date, 155 responses were received. In this sample, there was a statistically significant relationship between dynamics and degree of implementation of a P3LC in a PDS. A conclusion drawn from the results of this study is that the constituents in the P3LC perceive the degree of occurrence of the dynamics differently. This information can be used proactively to create stronger P3LCs in PDSs. |
