GWU

As a former master’s student, my thesis was focused on understanding the role that governance and policy play in enabling and sustaining school improvement in the context of a networked improvement community with a hub in Lebanon founded by a research and development project called TAMAM. From that study, I walked away having gained an understanding of how important relationships developed between central officers and school practitioners are for the implementation of education policies and the sustainability of school improvement. Inspired by this emergent finding and having gained the needed technical language in my doctoral program, I further explored this interest in two of my course assignments and developed a mixed-methods conceptual study and a qualitative research proposal to investigate the influence that relational linkages between district personnel and school principals have on the implementation of Maryland’s Pre-K to third grade literacy curriculum policy, and it is an interest that I plan on further refining and narrowing down for my dissertation. While the nature of both my former and current research as a graduate assistant has been predominantly qualitative, I’ve also taken several advanced quantitative courses and would like to further strengthen and apply the skills I’ve gained from these courses to hands-on projects.