PERCEPTIONS OF THE PREPARATION OF EFFECTIVE MIDDLE SCHOOL PRINCIPALS

The primary purpose of this quantitative study was to examine middle school administrators’ perceptions of their preparation programs. The following research questions were addressed as a part of the study: 1. What skills, behaviors, and attitudes do middle school principals perceive to be important to be an effective middle school principal? 2. How do middle school principals perceive their level of preparedness in relation to the specific skills, behaviors, and attitudes? 3. To what degree do middle school principals believe that their level of preparation has influenced them to stay in their current role? 4. Which components of their preparation program do middle principals perceive to be the most valuable? 5. To what extent do middle school principals believe that the school district should design a program specifically to develop middle school principals? Middle school principals were selected to participate in this study. Quantitative data were gathered via online questionnaires. The research questions were addressed through analysis of the questionnaire data, using descriptive and inferential statistics. This study resulted in recommendations to provide a framework for the development of a principal preparation program designed to train effective middle school principals.

PREPARATION OF POLYELECTROLYTE MEMBRANES EMBEDDED WITH ZEOLITE NANOPARTICLES FOR ENHANCED PERFORMANCE IN FORWARD OSMOSIS

Water scarcity is a global issue that has already affected every continent. Membrane technology is considered as one of the most promising candidates for resolving this worsening issue. Among all the membrane processes, the emerging forward osmosis (FO) membrane process is osmotically-driven and has unique advantages compared with other traditional pressure-driven membrane processes. One of the major challenges to advancing the FO membrane process is the lack of a suitable membrane. Polyelectrolyte thin film prepared via layer-by-layer (LbL) technique has demonstrated its excellent performance in many applications including electronics, optics, sensors, etc. Recent studies have revealed the potential of polyelectrolyte thin films in acting as the active separation layer of FO membranes, but significant efforts are still needed to improve the membrane performance and understand the transport mechanisms. This dissertation introduces a novel approach to prepare a zeolite-embedded polyelectrolyte composite membrane for enhanced FO performance. This membrane takes advantages of the versatile LbL process to unprecedentedly incorporate high loading of zeolite nanoparticles, which are anticipated to facilitate water transport due to the uniquely interconnected structure of zeolites. Major topics discussed in this dissertation include: (1) the synthesis and evaluation of the polyelectrolyte-zeolite composite FO membrane, (2) the examination of the fouling resistance to identify its technical limitations, (3) the demonstration of the membrane regenerability as an effective strategy for membrane fouling control, and (4) the investigation of crosslinking effects on the membrane performance to elucidate the transport mechanisms involved in the zeolite-embedded polyelectrolyte membranes. Comparative studies have been made between polyelectrolyte membranes with and without zeolite incorporation. The findings suggest that the zeolite-embedded membrane, although slightly more susceptible to silica scaling, has demonstrated enhanced water flux and separation capability, good resistance to organic fouling, and complete regenerability for fouling control. Additionally, the embedded zeolite nanoparticles are proved to be able to create fast pathways for water transport. Overall, this work provides a novel strategy to create zeolite-polymer composite membranes with enhanced separation performance and unique fouling mitigation properties.