Mary C. Rizzi

Date of Award

Spring 2020

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Educational Studies

First Advisor

Michael M. Grant

Abstract

The purpose of this mixed-methods action research study was to evaluate the impact of a technology integration professional development program on teachers who were new to the Ocean County School District. This study was conducted at one middle school with teacher-participants (n = 4) from different grade levels and subject areas. All teacher-participants were new to the district but not new to teaching. Each participant had access to a laptop computer and an interactive white board. The school district was a one-to-one device district, so students, too, had their own laptops to use in the classroom.

Professional development was provided to all teachers at the school by a district educational technology coach. This professional development was delivered in a whole group professional learning community setting. After this, teacher-participants took part in several other professional development sessions including one-on-one meetings, co- planning, modeling of lessons, and coteaching. Quantitative data were collected with the Teacher Technology Questionnaire in a pre-post design and Likert-type scales; and qualitative data were collected from in-depth semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and teacher observation reflections.

Questionnaire data were analyzed with descriptive statistics. Collectively, the participants’ scores increased across the study's duration and the instrument’s five subscales. However, individually, participants reported different perceptions. Using the qualitative data, initial descriptions of the participants’ classrooms, technology integration strategies, perceptions of their experiences with technology integration, and

experiences with the professional development were generated. After inductively analyzing the qualitative data, five themes emerged to describe the participants’ experiences. These were (a) persistent issues with technology that prevent teachers’ technology integration, (b) teachers’ positive and negative experiences that enable or prevent technology integration, (c) teachers’ perceptions of their current practices, readiness to integrate, and future plans for integration, (d) teachers' perceptions of technology and technology integration for students, and (e) teachers' perceptions of the professional development, and its effects on them and their technology integration. The findings of this study support the use of several different types of professional development to improve teachers’ perceptions of readiness, meet the needs of teachers, and increase technology integration in the classroom.

Rights

© 2020, Mary C. Rizzi

Download

Share

COinS