A Study of Motives, Challenges, Professional Development, and Beneficial Outcomes of Single-Gender Classrooms in Coeducational Public Middle Schools

McGlown, Calvin. Ed.D. The Universityof Memphis. December 2015. A Study of Motives, Challenges, Professional Development, and Beneficial Outcomes of Single-Gender Classrooms in Coeducational Public Middle Schools. Major Professor: Larry McNeal, Ph.DThe 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-gender 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 (initiators and inheritors) 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. The greatest challenges they indicated, were those connected to teacher professional development, with respect to single-gender education and teaching under achieving students. In terms of their own professional development, administrators most frequently read articles and made observational visits to classes in their own schools. Administrators rarely took university coursework related to instruction or made conference presentations. All respondents agreed that their implementation of single-gender education produced a range of positive outcomes, such as improvement in student achievement