Date of Conferral

2019

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Education

Advisor

Patricia Anderson

Abstract

Teacher perspectives and judgments of students' race and gender are known to influence their assessment of primary and secondary students' academic achievements. However, little is known about the effect on children's academic achievement of preschool teacher perspectives and judgments of students' race and gender, which forms the basis for this study. The purpose of this study was to analyze teacher assessment of preschool children's mathematics and science skills on the Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP) and Teacher Strategies GOLD (TSG), along with teacher comments written in preparation for each child's parent-teacher conference, to determine if there was a relationship between preschool teachers' assessment and comments and the race and gender of the child. Wason's theory of confirmation bias formed the theoretical foundation of this study. The research questions addressed the relationship between preschool teacher assessments recorded on the DRDP and TSG regarding children's mathematics and science skill and teacher comments coded from Racasens linguistic model and those children's race and gender. Archival data from 2 Head Start centers in a western and southwestern state were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test, and the point-biserial Pearson correlation. The Mann-Whitney U test found no statistically significant differences in DRDP and TSG scores by students' race and gender. The point-biserial Pearson correlation found no statistically significant correlation between race or gender and teacher comments. This study contributes to positive social change by confirming observational assessments to be free from teacher bias, supporting their continued use with preschool children to promote their learning and development.

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