Professional Learning Communities (PLC) for Mathematics Education in Middle Schools
The Social Network Survey was administered to all certified staff in each of the ten middle schools in Lincoln, Nebraska. School-level response rates ranged from 70% to 94% for teaching staff, and slightly lower for administrators and other certified staff.
The survey collected data on each dimension of the PLC. Seven sets of measures, comprised of 46 items in total, measured teachers' views on the social norms within their school. Data were collected on the following norms:
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Trust among teachers (6 items, Cronbach alpha of 0.86)
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Trust between teachers and the Principal (8 items, Cronbach alpha of 0.94)
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Teachers' evaluation of Principal's instructional leadership (7 items, Cronbach alpha of 0.93)
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Collective responsibility for student learning: peer-assessed (7 items, Cronbach alpha of 0.90)
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Collective responsibility for student learning: self-assessed (7 items, Cronbach alpha of 0.72)
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Teachers' control over classroom practice (5 items, Cronbach alpha of 0.69)
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Openness to innovation (6 items, Cronbach alpha of 0.88)
Network data were collected in order to measure the structural and content aspects of the PLC. Network ties were measured by asking respondents to list the people "to whom they go for advice and information" about several topics. All teachers were asked about mathematics and reading/writing/language arts (RWLA). Additionally, all subject-specific teachers were asked about their primary subject. For each tie listed by a respondent, data was collected on the tie's designated role, the frequency of contact between respondent and advisor, the influence of the advisor on the respondent's practice, and the content of the interaction between respondent and advisor. Content was measured along five dimensions: deepening your content knowledge, planning or selecting course content and materials, approaches for teaching content to students, strategies specifically to assist low-performing students, and assessing students' understanding of the subject.
In addition to variables measuring the three aspects of the PLC, data were also collected on respondents' formal roles and responsibilities, allowing us to analyze the PLC data by comparing it to the formal structure of the school. Analysis of subject-specific network data focused on the following statistics: average number of advisors (out-degree), average frequency of contact, average influence, network density within departments, reciprocation rates, average number of advisors external to the school, and network concentration.
