The Existence of a Knowing-Doing Gap In Liberty Public School District’s Implementation of Professional Learning Communities

Abstract

There were two overarching purposes for this study: First, through a survey, thisstudy examined the Liberty Public Schools (LPS) staff members’ knowledge ofProfessional Learning Community (PLC) components and compared staff’simplementation of the PLC process and its integral concepts and practices. The surveycontained 32 questions organized by the three big ideas in a PLC; a focus on studentlearning, a focus on building a collaborative culture, and a focus on results. Surveyresponses from the 32 questions addressed the three key ideas of a PLC were organizedinto six subscales: LearningKnow & LearningDo, CollaborationKnow &CollaborationDo, ResultsKnow & ResultsDo. Secondly, this study examined specificbarriers that blocked PLC implementation. The researcher explored such barriers as talksubstituting for action, memory as a substitute for thinking, fear of job loss preventingaction on knowledge, measurement obstructing good judgment, and internal competitionturning friends into enemies. These barriers were identified and adapted from Pfeffer andSutton’s (2000) research.A survey tool was made available to all 407 certified staff members in Liberty’spre-school and elementary buildings during the 2011-2012 school year. The researchercompleted a one-factor ANOVA of the six subscales (LearningKnow & LearningDo,CollaborationKnow & CollaborationDo, ResultsKnow & ResultsDo) to determine if asignificant difference existed between staff members’ PLC knowledge and staffmembers’ level of PLC implementation. Tukey’s post-hocs were conducted to analyze ifthe differences were statistically significant. Finally, staff members were surveyed onpossible existing barriers they felt hindered PLC implementation in their schools and in LPS. Independent sample t-tests were conducted to measure the mean score of thepotential barrier to a mean score of 4.0 to find if a statistically significant barrier existedin PLC implementation in LPS. Through analyzing the results, the researcher foundevidence of a knowing-doing gap with PLC implementation in Liberty Public Schools.In addition, results from the research study also support the existence of barriers thatmight potentially hinder the implementation of PLCs in Liberty Public Schools.