EDU 505 : Educational Leadership: Theory and Research

EDU 505 explores the theory and research of leadership across a variety of cultures, genres, perspectives, and individual cases, where the kind and degree of leadership is essential for achieving educational objectives. As aspiring educational leaders, students consider the most challenging and controversial issues within school systems, familiarize themselves with data-driven best practices in school leadership, and become intelligent consumers of research as it impacts the theory and practice of leadership generally. This course will lay the foundation for future research, giving students hands-on and theoretical experiences to design, manage, and conduct their own projects. Students will build upon their literature review search skills through added understanding of databases, peer review process, predatory publishing, and other bibliometric tools. The class will also cover various research methodologies and approaches, such as participant sampling, case selection, interviewing, observations, field notes, ethics, and coding. Through the course’s technical, theoretical, and practical explorations, academic studies on education and leadership will be demystified and deconstructed in order to foster confidence in student research skills.