The Impact of High School Principal's Technology Leadership on the Sustainability of Corporate Sponsored Information Communication Technology Curriculum

• Main Author: Gottwig, Bruce Ryan
• Other Authors: Matt John
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: The University of Montana 2013
• Subjects: School of Education
• Online Access: http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-07082013-134240/

The proliferation of information communication technology (ICT) has placed educational institutions in the forefront in educating and training students as skilled consumers, engineers, and technicians of this widely used technology. Corporations that develop and use ICT are continually building a skilled workforce; however, because of the growth and ultimately the need for a strong, skilled workforce they are reaching out to educational institutions to help bridge the gap in building this need. Corporations such as <italic>Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, VMware</italic>, and others developed curricular programs that offer both K - 12 and higher education a means to educate and train students to become educated users, engineers, and technicians with the use of their products. The purpose of this mixed method study is to examine the high school administrator`s impact on the sustainability of corporate-sponsored ICT curriculum programs specifically within the State of Montana. The quantitative research examined the impact of high school principals` scores on the <italic>Principals` Technology Leadership Assessment (PTLA)</italic> scores and the number of months high schools participated in corporate-sponsored ICT curriculum (sustainability score); specifically the Cisco Networking Academy program. This study used the <italic>Spearman`s Rank-Order Correlation Coefficient</italic> in order to evaluate the PTLA and sustainability scores both for the State of Montana as a whole and by separate high school class sizes. The qualitative research was based upon a case study of the <italic>Cisco Networking Academy (CNA)</italic> program for Montana high school administrators on their impact on the sustainability of the CNA program within their individual high schools. This was combined with a post hoc item analysis of the PTLA scores primarily for the purpose to understand the eighteen (18) participants better. The results of both the qualitative and quantitative studies helped to develop factors that described the sustainability of corporate-sponsored ICT curricula in Montana high schools.