Date of Conferral

2020

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Jennifer Seymour

Abstract

The problem in a medium-sized school district is the lack of data regarding what currently accessible technology and technology learning activities (TLAs) teachers use, have access to, and for which technology and TLAs they desire professional development (PD). There is a gap in practice in that technology directors lack data-based plans for PD. The purpose of this nonexperimental quantitative study was to analyze teachers’ ratings of technology access, use, and desire for PD including the correlation between teachers’ use of technology and their previous PD hours as well as between teachers’ desire to use technology and their location in their different school buildings. Vygotsky’s constructivism theory stipulates that teachers construct their perceptions and understanding of technology through engagement. From 300 teachers, 87 responded to email invitations to take the researcher-developed survey that was piloted. The content and face validity feedback were positive, and the reliability was sufficient with Cronbach’s alpha of .621. The results indicated that there was statistically significant correlation at the p<.05 level between use of technology and the number of previous PD hours, r = .298. Overall, there was statistically significant correlation at the p<.05 level between a desire for PD and the teachers’ location in a school building, r = .189. The descriptive results indicated that teachers did not want PD for most of the technology and TLAs, with the exceptions of Virtual Field Trips and Parent Letters. The results of the survey will be disseminated to the district and stakeholders through a white paper that will serve as resource for the PD instructors. This social change may be district technology coordinators tailoring PD to the teachers’ desires from this survey which may increase use of technology in classrooms, which in turn, may increase technology integration that might increase in student learning.

Download

Share

 
COinS