Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Timothy Lafferty

Abstract

As school districts adopted Common Core State Standards (CCSS), content area teachers were expected to incorporate disciplinary literacy skills into their lessons. The problem for this study was that secondary school science and social studies teachers struggle to teach students how to read and understand informational text. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of teachers about the challenges of using disciplinary literacy skills to teach informational text and about the training and resources that may improve their knowledge and use of disciplinary literacy skills for informational text. With the CCSS as the conceptual framework, the research questions focused on content area teachers’ perceptions about the challenges of using disciplinary literacy skills to teach informational text and the training and resources that may improve their use of disciplinary literacy skills. A basic qualitative design was used to capture the insights of eight purposefully selected secondary level licensed science and social studies teachers with at least 2 years of teaching experience through semistructured interviews. Emergent themes were analyzed through open coding, and the findings were developed and checked for trustworthiness through member checking, rich descriptions, and researcher reflexivity. The findings addressed content area teachers’ challenges in teaching informational text and their need for supplemental teaching resources and professional development focused on reading instruction. This study has implications for positive social change by providing administrators with recommendations for program revisions to improve informational text reading instruction and to provide teacher training.

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