2026 Theses Doctoral

Professional Learning Communities in Non-Public Tri-State Area Schools: A Mixed Methods Investigation

Wang, Yanjun

As schools navigate rapid technological change and evolving educational demands, teachers need sustained, collaborative structures for professional growth. Professional learning communities (PLCs) address this need by weaving continuous inquiry and collective problem-solving into teachers’ everyday instructional practice.

This study examined the implementation of PLCs in ten non-public schools in the New York metropolitan (Tri-State) area using an explanatory sequential mixed methods research design. This study surveyed 78 educators and interviewed 28 of them to understand PLC implementation, the contextual factors affecting its implementation, the alignment between practice and research-based benchmarks, and changes that teachers believe their PLC participation has brought about.

The results show that PLCs in this sample mainly foster professional learning through collegial interaction, rather than the inquiry cycles and accountability structures described in the literature. This study argues that this pattern reflects the structural and resource conditions of the sample schools rather than deficient implementation of research-based models and offers practical implications for strengthening PLC design within real-world institutional constraints.