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Purpose: Austerity approaches in higher education require choosing the highest leverage strategies of increasing student satisfaction. Attending to student perceptions of program/service quality (SERVQUAL) is a means to identify areas that have the greatest return on investment. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach: This study explores how a program has applied the SERVQUAL model and survey to identify areas for growth. Findings: The survey of 57 students in a cohort-based doctoral program demonstrated the smallest gaps (highest satisfaction) with the domains of empathy (1.33) and responsiveness (1.30) and the lowest with reliability (2.03), tangibles (1.97) and assurance (1.90). Practical implications: While not all of the five dimensions are within the purview of a program to address (some may require funding that is determined at a college or university level), many of the gaps can be addressed by adopting procedures and policies that increase transparency so that students can moderate their expectations and faculty and staff can provide reliable information. Additionally, the use of the SERVQUAL model provided this program with specific, actionable information that could be used to improve the program. Originality/value: The study includes a review of studies that have applied the SERVQUAL model in higher education. The application of SERVQUAL to a cohort-based doctoral program to identify program improvements and steward program image fits into a gap in the extant literature. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

In an effort to develop and support high quality urban school leaders, this study examined what factors affect pre-service urban school leaders’ perception of preparedness for performing instructional leadership activities. The findings revealed that participating in a leadership training program is the only significant factor that predicts urban educators’ scores on instructional leadership readiness measures. By examining perception of preparedness of aspiring urban school leaders the findings contribute to our understanding about some perspectives to prepare and develop urban school leaders solve large and complex problems related to the curriculum, instruction and assessment. Implications for preparing performance ready school leaders in high need urban schools are further discussed. © Official Publication of EARDA-Turkish Educational Administration Research and Development Association.

Effective leadrship talent management practices are important components of successful organizations. This correlational quantitative study is designed to inform educational leadership training programs in their work to revise their curricula and to utilize the candidates’ perception data to ensure successful program delivery and outcomes. Particularly, the findings of this study aim to inform educational leadership preparation practices on developing talent managers who can recruit, hire, retain, and support the most talented and high qualified teachers, as well as support staff available in the education job market. Results indicate that after completing the first year of educational leadership training only around half of the aspiring school leaders felt performance or impact ready to serve as talent managers, in order to select and develop highly qualified educators to increase the success of all students. The findings also suggest the importance of understanding how various factors predict an individual’s perception of preparedness to perform talent management leadership activities. Therefore, the study results may serve to enrich conversations of educational leadership training programs, guide program evaluation efforts, and help ensure candidates in educational leadership programs are exposed to talent management and strategies in their coursework. This may help future school leaders clearly and purposefully apply their knowledge and skills.

This article contextualizes mindfulness and examines a portion of the literature on mindfulness based interventions in the classroom. Mindfulness or the result of intentional, moment-tomoment awareness in a kind and discerning way can be cultivated with practice. There are many different mindfulness practices which can be utilized in a classroom environment. Some of the popular mindfulness practices are grounded in Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program which incorporates sitting meditation, mindful yoga, mindful eating and the body scan. Mindfulness practices can be modified to fit the classroom setting and the grade level of students. With a growth in the number of studies involving mindfulness in the classroom this article explores the question of its efficacy with children and seeks to answer the question: is mindfulness in the classroom effective and what are the studies reporting?

This paper explores the perceived social emotional learning needs of students in high poverty schools. Social emotional learning (SEL)is recognized within the literature as critical to success in school and in life. Emergingwork supports the acquisition of a SEL skillset within grades kindergarten through twelve ( K-12) schools. This survey examines the perceptions of social emotional needs as reported by students, parents and school faculty members across four different high poverty schools in the USA. Findings provide effective strategies and valuable data for school leaders, educators, and counselors in addressing the social emotional needs of urban students.

Framed in terms of global policy pressures, this study explored differences in educator attitudes towards the inclusion of children with mild to moderate disabilities in the general education setting in Australia, Barbados, Romania, Turkey, and the United States. The purpose of this study was to investigate how educator attitudes towards the inclusion vary between nations that have disparate forms of special education systems. A sample of 1679 educators was analysed using the Attitudes Towards Teaching All Students (ATTAS-mm) and a triadic model of attitudes. Significant differences were found between nations. In addition to a statistically significant difference in the overall attitude scale, the three subscales: cognitive, affective and behavioural also demonstrated statistically significant differences with moderate effect sizes. These results support the differentiation of professional development for educators dependent on the setting and admonish against policy makers exporting educational policies as best practices regardless of context. (18) Not my responsibility: The Impact of separate special education systems on educators' attitudes toward inclusion. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324545240_Not_my_responsibility_The_Impact_of_separate_special_education_systems_on_educators%27_attitudes_toward_inclusion [accessed Apr 24 2018].

There can be no doubt that mobile technologies are here to stay. Global mobile traffic grew 74 percent in 2015 alone, with 563 million devices and connections added -- most of them tablets and Smartphones. This growth has been 4000-fold in the past 10 years and 400 million-fold in the past 15 years (Cisco, 2016). Mobile technologies permeate the lives of 21st century citizens as mainstays of organizational and institutional day-to-day operations, commerce, and communication and as tools used to support individuals' personal, social, and career responsibilities. In both the corporate and educational worlds, e- and m-learning and marketing with mobile technologies are moving forward at breakneck speed with, in many cases, a blurring of traditional sector boundaries. As neither the technology nor the uses are static, exploring practices and policies that underpin this quickly shifting mobile technology context is crucial for ensuring its intelligent, purposeful, and equitable use. This edited book provides a venue for researchers to share their work on mobile learning with a focus on uses for mobiles in informal settings and PK-20 classrooms, language learning, mobile gaming, leadership and policy issues, and what mobile learning in the future may be. It assists researchers and educators to consider and answer questions such as: What is "mobilelearning" today How can mobiles be used to enable learning How is mobile learning crossing or connecting economic, social, and/or cultural sectors How do specific cultural practices with media influence mobile learning (e.g

Despite their entree into the physical space of general education classrooms and the expected instruction of the core academic standards, students with disabilities may still be excluded. Successful inclusion requires a commitment at district, school and classroom level. The attitude of the general education teacher toward the inclusion of students with disabilities is a critical component in the success of inclusionary efforts. The attitudes toward teaching all students (ATTAS-mm) instrument are a nine-item scale with strong reliability and validity that measures educator attitudes. The three subscales: believing all students can succeed in general education classrooms (cognitive), developing personal and professional relationships (affective), and creating an accepting environment for all students to learn (behavioral) explain nearly 80% of the variance in scores. The unstandardized Cronbach alpha for the entire ATTAS-mm scale was 0.83. The three subscales also demonstrated acceptable reliability values (Cognitive, 0.72; Affective, 0.93; Behavioral, 0.84). With strong internal reliability and validity established through a panel of experts and alignment with cognitive psychology literature, the ATTAS-mm was determined to be a valid and reliable instrument for measuring the attitudes toward teaching all students. © 2018 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

In recent years, student populations within public schools in the United States have become increasingly diverse, both culturally and linguistically, and are projected to continue to grow in diversity in the future. Consequently, educators must be prepared to support the needs and education of students with multicultural backgrounds who may differ from them. School administrators play an important role in creating safe, accepting school environments and guiding the education of diverse student populations. However, there is a need for additional guidance for school leaders in cultivating schools that promote equity for all students. Using the National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA) Professional Standards for Educational Leaders as a guiding framework, this paper provides practical suggestions regarding culturally responsive strategies and practices that school administrators might employ in leading diverse school communities.

This article explores trust relationships in schools that involve disparities in power. Trust is a key factor in developing a positive school culture and strong leadership in schools. Even with the flattening of hierarchies through more distributive models of leadership, disparities in power exist and they influence the trust relationships in schools. Through both French and Raven’s and Follett’s conceptualisations of power, five brief autobiographical stories about trust in schools are deconstructed. Lessons for leadership are gleaned from the power relationships in the autobiographical stories of trust shared by public school educators. In addition, general recommendations are offered that are relevant for all levels of school leadership including but not limited to the instructional coach, the curriculum supervisor, the building principal, and the classroom teacher.

Disparities in college access for underrepresented urban students are one of the most urgent educational problems of America’s education system. In response to growing national concern, this longitudinal study investigated how school leaders worked collaboratively with key stakeholders to implement research-supported student services in order to improve college access for underrepresented urban students. The quantitative investigation showed that when educational leaders and key stakeholders worked collaboratively to deliver comprehensive student services, urban students in a high-poverty school district experienced measurable benefits in terms of their college enrolment. This study may be of particular value to policymakers, school leaders, and educators concerned with the low college access rates of students in urban schools, as well as to those who are seeking to understand what works betterto prepare urban students for post-secondary education.

There is a continued emphasis on the importance of building collaborative working relationships between school principals and counsellors to address the growing academic, career and college readiness, and social-emotional needs of students in K-12 schools. This study explored and analysed 1466 school principals' perceptions around important school counselling priorities, perceptions, and activities that are carried out in Turkish public and private schools. The study additionally explored school principals' expectations of school counsellors' roles and responsibilities as aligned with traditional and transformed school counselling programmes and practices. This study may be of value to school leaders, policy makers and educators interested in revising and improving their school counselling services to meet the complex academic and counselling needs of students in contemporary schools.