Abstract
This dissertation explored Finnish comprehensive schools as professional learning communities. Professional learning communities are internationally broadly studied, and continuous research indicates global interest in the topic. Professional learning community is a strategy and an approach to school development, which emphasizes the professional development of instructional staff, collaboration, the sharing of expertise and leadership to improve student outcomes. It is also a multidimensional theoretical construct. This dissertation focusses on studying Finnish comprehensive schools as professional learning communities from the perspectives of teachers, teaching assistants and principals. Perceptions were studied through three critical capacities and eight underlying contributory factors. Critical capacities consisted of personal, interpersonal, and organisational capacities. Furthermore, the aim with this thesis was to explore the extent to which Finnish comprehensive schools exhibit the characteristics of professional learning communities. Dissertation comprises three studies and was designed as mixed method study, with fully mixed sequential equal status design, which combines the elements of quantitative and qualitative research. Survey data sets were analysed by correlation, cluster, and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA). The interview data were analysed with qualitative thematic content analysis. Schools’ common key strengths related to culture and relationships. The experience of most of the instructional staff members was that relationships were based on trust and respect and school cultures were grounded on collegiality and commitment. Teachers reported that they were receptive to the presence of other professionals in their classrooms and staff members were willing to share and talk about professional practices, instruction, and student learning. Additionally, most of the teachers were reported to have expertise in collaborative skills such as conflict resolution, consensus building, problem solving and team building. The main challenges were found within organisational capacities. The daily schedules and lack of time were aspects reported as limiting instructional staffs’ collaboration and schools’ schedules did not support collective learning and sharing of practice. Results indicated that specific characteristics of schools with high readiness as professional learning communities mainly regarded organisational and interpersonal capacities. Leadership, culture, climate, and relationships in these schools were regarded as being strong characteristics and related to well-functioning practices. Leadership was grounded on shared visionary and shared instructional leadership. A significant number of teaching assistants experienced being excluded structurally from collaboration and that school leaders did not treat all staff members equally. Most of them did not participate in staff meetings, in multiprofessional meetings and they were not members of the schools’ professional teams. They reported in accordance with teachers that structural factors on professional collaboration should be addressed better in schools. Teaching assistants were less satisfied about professional development opportunities and in-service training than teachers.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Supervisors/Advisors |
|
Place of Publication | Helsinki |
Publisher | |
Print ISBNs | 978-951-51-9986-7 |
Electronic ISBNs | 978-951-51-9987-4 |
Publication status | Published - 19 Jan 2024 |
MoE publication type | G5 Doctoral dissertation (article) |
Fields of Science
- 516 Educational sciences