Date of Award

1-1-2012

Document Type

Campus Access Dissertation

Department

Educational Leadership and Policies

Sub-Department

Curriculum and Instruction

First Advisor

Rhonda Jeffries

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of incorporating information and communication technology in the form of the academic networking site Edmodo on student engagement and responsible learning. This study seeks to evaluate whether or not Edmodo is a legitimate teaching strategy that should be employed by more teachers hoping to encourage a student-centered technology driven learning environment where students are actively engaged and practicing the tenets of responsible learning. The study was conducted at a suburban high school in the Southeastern United States. The participants were 42 high school chemistry students who were enrolled during the spring 2012 semester.

This research study used a mixed method design of both qualitative and quantitative methods. A researcher designed survey was administered to gather both quantitative and qualitative data about both student engagement and responsible learning. Quantitative data was collected via closed-ended questions with answers associated with a 4-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagrees to agree strongly. The survey itself was developed using Google docs and was emailed to the student's school email address. The survey was completed by 42 participants. Qualitative data collection methods included open-ended survey questions and document analysis of student entries on Edmodo.

Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, while the qualitative data was coded using a priori coding methods. The results of the study show that incorporating Edmodo encourages both student engagement and responsible learning when particular Edmodo features are employed. Future studies should look at how teachers of other disciplines use Edmodo within their classes to encourage student engagement and responsible learning and a study should be conducted using a control group for comparison to look deeper at the impact on student GPA's for classes that use information technology and those that do not.

Rights

© 2012, K'Shaun Sherice Sanders

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