Year

2025

Season

Summer

Paper Type

Doctoral Dissertation

College

Silverfield College of Education and Human Services

Degree Name

Doctor of Education in Curriculum and Instruction (EdD)

Department

Education

NACO controlled Corporate Body

University of North Florida. Department of Teaching, Learning and Curriculum

Committee Chairperson

Dr. Pamela Williamson

Second Advisor

Dr. Raven Robinson-Wilson

Third Advisor

Dr. Katrina Hall

Fourth Advisor

Dr. Melissa Fraser

Department Chair

Dr. Christian Winterbottom

College Dean

Dr. Steve Dittmore

Abstract

In adult ESL empirical studies addressing a variety of problems of practice, the concepts of welcome, hospitality, or inclusion are frequently mentioned as important by teachers and learners. An absence of empirical studies on the experience of hospitality has been noted by researchers, hence the need for exploratory studies. Additionally, this study served to contribute to the limited body of research on church-based ESL ministries, and more future studies are needed to provide a better research-driven picture of their challenges and impacts.

The purpose of this mixed methods, constructivist grounded theory study was to develop a grounded theory consistent with volunteer teachers’ perceptions of their hospitable experiences, decisions about hospitable behavior, and what they consider when evaluating their hospitable space. In this study, an integrated theoretical framework was constructed to investigate connections between volunteer teachers’ conceptualizations of hospitality in church-based ESL ministry, hospitality ethics, hospitality factors, altruism theory, and the HEXACO-PI-R model of personality structure. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and the HEXACO-PI-R survey.

Results suggested that volunteer teachers perceived their work as an experience in hospitality that included multiple, overlapping elements including meeting a need, building relationships, sharing food, and celebrating. The HEXACO-PI-R provided a reliable measurement of variation in personality traits and theorized what potential impacts to hospitality may exist at different levels of each factor. This study found extremely high levels of Honesty-Humility, relatively low levels of Emotionality, and statistically significant differences in several facet-level traits among volunteer teachers.

The grounded theory model predicts that Honesty-Humility and Emotionality are thresholds which bound hospitable spaces and identifies which personality factor levels are likely to facilitate or inhibit crossing these thresholds between spaces.

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