Educational Leadership Coaches' Development of Domain Specific Expertise: A Phenomenological Study

1 online resource (128 pages) : PDF

2015

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Districts and schools having high poverty and low achievement experience the highest rates of administrator turnover. A recent paradigm shift promotes "coaching" as a supportive and focused intervention that might move the district and/or school forward. Leadership coaches , possessing specialized expertise in addressing school achievement "turnaround" and apparent leadership "failures", may be enlisted to coach these administrators. This study examined how leadership coaches working with superintendents and principals in k-12 education developed expertise over time, specifically through deliberate practice and reflective practice. This study investigated the following questions: (a) how did coaches engage deliberate practice to develop domain specific expertise, and (b) how did coaches engage reflective practice to develop domain specific expertise? A phenomenological study using data from comprehensive interviews, background information shared by the coaches and a coaching career mapping exercise performed by the coaches, was conducted. Five leadership coaches participated in the study. Data were coded, thematized, and triangulated. Three emergent themes were found which contributed to domain specific expertise through deliberate and reflective practices: 1) knowledge base; 2) building relationships; and 3) personal development. While there was no attempt to qualify any participant coach as an expert or not, based on these participants’ experience the composite portrait of a coach derived from a synthesis of all responses indicates some confirmation of the role of deliberate practices (skills, strategies and tools) and deliberate reflection as developing expertise.

doctoral dissertations

Educational leadership
Educational evaluation
School management and organization

D.Ed.

Coaching Principal
Coaching Superintendents
Deliberate Practice
Expert Performance
Leadership Coaching

Educational Leadership

Driscoll, Lisa
Lyons, James

Lock, Corey
Watson, Jim
Hutchison, Charles

Thesis (D.Ed.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2015.

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