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This qualitative study examines academic procrastination among Israeli Master of Education students writing their theses. The majority of the the participants (80% of the 145) reported behaving differently on this task than on other assignments. One of the primary factors influencing procrastination derives from the complexity of the assignment. Considering the research literature describes tight relationships between academic procrastination and academic achievement, one surprising finding concerns the fact that respondents saw no relationship between their procrastination and their final grade. A gap was found between students’ self-perception and their actual performance. Approximately 75% of the students perceive themselves as academic procrastinators, but in actuality nearly half of them completed the assignment on time. The starting date was found to be significant. Students who immediately began work upon receiving the assignment strongly tended to submit it on time. Students who did not begin early completed the project later than the scheduled date, if at all.

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The COVID-19 pandemic changed schools’ reality and posed a wide range of challenges for school leaders, such as a re-examination of principals’ and teachers’ authority and leadership in the schools’ virtual spaces. Teaching methods and social-emotional aspects of learning were challenged as well. The school faculty had to redesign their pedagogical environments to provide an extensive and complete response to these new challenges. The main difficulty lay in the need to create an immediate distance-learning environment that would provide solutions for the pedagogical, emotional, and social challenges in the new and virtual space that had been created. We investigated teachers’ perceptions of their and their principals’ roles as digital educational leaders (e-leaders) in the schools’ virtual spaces. The research was conducted using a qualitative method with a population of 16 female teachers in elementary schools in Israel. Data analysis yielded four major themes: new virtual space in the school's organization, principals’ and teachers’ roles in managing virtual spaces, opportunities in virtual space management, and challenges and difficulties. These themes were closely interrelated in the context of schoolwork. Findings highlight the importance of more fully understanding the role of extensive digital leadership, i.e., the management of virtual school spaces. It is proposed that management of schools’ virtual spaces can enhance overall school effectiveness, which in turn can help achieve better cooperation between school faculty and the surrounding community.