The College of Education, Health and

Human Sciences

Announces the Final Examination of

Calvin McGlown

for the degree of

Doctor of Education

July 2, 2015 at 1:00 pm

123 Ball Hall, University of Memphis

Memphis, TN

Biographical Sketch

Bachelor of Business Administration, Business Education, LeMoyne Owen College Mississippi Valley State University

Master of Arts in Teaching, Teacher Education, Christian Brothers University

Master of Education Administration, Education Administration, Christian Brothers University

Advisory Committee

Larry McNeal, Ph.D., Professor chair, Department of Leadership, Committee chair

Reginald Green, Ed.D., Professor, Department of Leadership

Lou Franceschini, Ph.D., Research Assistant Professor, Department of Leadership

Charisse Gulosino, Ed.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Leadership

Major Field of Study

Leadership and Policy Studies

Period of Preparation: 2007-2015

Comprehensive Examination Passed: March 2013 (results April 2013)

A STUDY OF MOTIVES, CHALLENGES, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, AND BENEFICIAL OUTCOMES OF SINGLE-GENDER CLASSROOMS IN COEDUCATIONAL PUBLIC MIDD SCHOOLS

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the leading motivations, primary challenges, types of professional development engaged in, and positive outcomes perceived by administrators who have either initiated or inherited the practice of single-sex classes within coeducational middle school settings.

To address the four research questions presented within this study, the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to conduct multiple analyses that addressed four groups of dependent variables (motives, challenges, professional development, and beneficial outcomes of single gender education) on the independent variables initiators and inheritors of the single gender education initiative.

Although no statistically significant differences were observed for the two subgroups of respondents with respect to answering any of the research questions, there were clearly differences in the perceptions of all respondents as to which reasons most motivated their adoption of single-gender education, which challenges they regarded as the most serious, which types of professional development they most frequently engaged in, and which outcomes they most agreed their programs had achieved. For respondents in the aggregate, addressing learning style, improving student achievement, and decreasing the problems of low achievers were the reasons they selected as most important for taking on single-gender education, while the greatest challenges they indicated that they had faced were those connected to teacher professional development, whether with respect to single-gender education itself or more generally with respect to teaching low achieving students. In terms of their own professional development, administrators most frequently read articles and made observational visits to classes in their own schools but relatively rarely took university coursework related to instruction or made conference presentations. While all respondents agreed that their implementations of single-gender education had enjoyed a range of positive outcomes, improvement in student achievement was the one factor that was most often singled out.