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201575 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.201575 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ All Rights Reserved 2025 2027-05-01T14:52:23 247 pages Doctoral Dissertation Academic theses en Ramos, Valerie Henderson, J. Bryan De Biase, Jessica Bell, Jason Arizona State University Partial requirement for: Ed.D., Arizona State University, 2025 Field of study: Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Fostering teachers' agency is critical for retaining teachers, yet many educational initiatives– especially new ones–overlook teachers' perspectives and sense of value. In this action research study, I turn to Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner's (2020) theory of social learning spaces (SLSs), to design an innovation aimed at centering value for teachers new to an Innovative Learning Lab program. Through a mixed methods design, using the theory's value creation framework and the Expectancy-Value-Cost in Professional Development Scale (EVC-PD), I explored how mentor-facilitated social learning spaces influenced participants’ sense of agency. Quantitative findings show that both mentors and teachers rated the innovation sessions as high in task value and low in perceived cost. Qualitative data present a more nuanced picture: teachers most often describe examples of immediate and potential value and mentors largely report enabling and orienting value. Overall findings show that developing relationships between mentor and mentee in advance of group mentoring meetings (PLCs) were central to participants' perceptions of value. Importantly, first-year teachers and second-year teachers reported markedly different experiences, which indicates a need for differentiated mentoring approaches. This study contributes a novel approach to measure agency in professional learning by bridging SLSs theory and the EVC-PD scale. Findings offer practical insights for developing agency-centered professional learning in education programs. Educational sociology Educational evaluation Educational technology Agency Community Of Practice expectancy value cost Mentoring Professional Development social learning spaces Examining Value Creation, Examining Agency: A Mixed-Methods Study of Teachers’ Experiences in Social Learning Spaces