Understanding The Experiences of School Principals Leading During Covid-19: An Interpretive Qualitative Study

Bret Wurzbach

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

Department

Educational Administration

Date of Award

1-10-2024

Abstract

School leaders have faced unprecedented challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. Though there is existing research into crisis management, the majority of the work focuses on other industries outside of education, such as the business sector, public management, government and military leadership, and nonprofit management. Thus, there is a continued need for research into school leadership through crisis. COVID-19, specifically, is a relatively new crisis school leaders have faced, and, therefore, there is a current lack of existing work describing the experience of school leaders, such as campus principals, guiding their schools through the pandemic. Most school leaders had never dealt with a crisis as long as COVID-19, a creeping crisis that, by nature, brought dangerous damage potential and developed slowly over time. There also exists a need for study in how school leaders grew and developed as a result of the pandemic, as learning has been determined to be an essential part of the crisis management process; however, many early studies focused primarily on the practical responses of the campus leaders during the pandemic. The purpose of this interpretive qualitative study was to understand how campus principals make sense of their experiences leading their schools during the COVID-pandemic. Additionally, the study sought to understand how campus principals make sense of their own change and growth as leaders as a result of leading their schools through the COVID-19 crisis. The interpretive qualitative methods allowed me to truly understand the experiences of principals from their own perspective. I accomplished these purposes through videoconference semi-structured interviews with 10 campus leaders who were principals in Texas during the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years. I conducted data analysis simultaneously alongside the data generation process using both inductive and deductive cycles of coding to identify recurring themes or patterns supported by the data. Through the data generation and analysis processes, I helped campus principal participants construct an understanding of their experiences leading their schools through the COVID-19 crisis. I developed nine themes, or roles, that emerged for research question one regarding the overall experience of campus principals leading during COVID-19. Additionally, I developed 13 themes that emerged from research question two regarding how campus principals learned and grew as a result of their experience leading a campus during COVID-19.

Advisor

Peter Williams

Subject Categories

Education | Educational Leadership

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