Date of Award
9-22-2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Educational Leadership, Ed.D.
First Advisor
Ibrahim Duyar
Committee Members
Brook Meiller; Twila Patten
Abstract
Workplace stress among teachers, accompanied by diminished self-efficacy, particularly in virtual environments, may lead to higher teacher turnover and hinder school improvement efforts. This qualitative, phenomenological study examined teachers’ lived experiences at a virtual charter school federally designated as a Comprehensive Support and Improvement school to understand whether this designation influenced workplace stress and, in turn, whether that stress affected teacher self-efficacy in the areas of classroom management, instructional strategies, and student engagement. More specifically, the study explored how federal designation influenced teachers’ workplace stress and whether this stress influenced teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. The conceptual premises of Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory (1986), which emphasizes the reciprocity between environmental factors, personal beliefs, and behaviors, guided the study. The study focused on Oklahoma’s largest virtual charter school, which has been federally designated as a Comprehensive Support and Improvement school due to a graduation rate below 67%. A phenomenological research design was employed. Fourteen high school teachers participated in semi-structured iii interviews conducted via Zoom. Data was coded and analyzed using Creswell and Poth’s data analysis spiral to identify themes from the participants’ lived experiences. Four research questions guided this study. Data from participant interviews revealed six overarching themes. The first research question, which explored workplace stress, yielded two themes: knowledge of designation and varying levels of workplace pressures. Research questions two, three, and four focused on teacher self-efficacy in the areas of classroom management, instructional strategies, and student motivation. Four themes emerged from interviews related to these areas of self-efficacy: creation of supportive environments, use of diverse instructional strategies, use of assessments, and multifaceted approaches to student engagement. Participants commonly shared student absenteeism and workload as primary sources of workplace stress. The stress was linked to diminished self-efficacy in the areas of instructional strategies and student engagement due to student absenteeism. Notably, workplace stress did not appear to influence self-efficacy in classroom management. This study concluded that even when participants were unaware of the federal designation, the pressures associated with it influenced their workplace stress, and this workplace stress, in turn, affected their self-efficacy in areas such as instructional strategies and student engagement. These findings suggested a need for clear communication regarding federal designation status, professional learning focused on relational strategies in a virtual setting, and the need for ongoing, job-embedded support systems for teachers. Future research should examine the role of collective efficacy and explore broader contextual variables across multiple school settings. iv Keywords: Teacher self-efficacy, workplace stress, virtual high schools, federal designation of comprehensive support and improvement
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Seybolt, Kimberly Michelle, "Examining The Influence of Schools’ Federal Designation Of “Continuous Support and Improvement” On Teachers’ Workplace Stress and Self-Efficacy" (2025). Student Theses and Dissertations. 1098.
https://arch.astate.edu/all-etd/1098
