Thesis advisor: Joseph J. Pedulla / There is no question that teachers play an important role in student learning. In the last decade, researchers have shown evidence pointing to the prominence of teachers compared to other factors that are known to influence student achievement (Wright, Horn, and Sanders, 1997). They have empirically demonstrated that teacher effects are large and persist for up to four years (Kain, 1998; Mendor, Jordan, Gomez, Anderson, and Bembry, 1998; Rivers, 1999). Multiple variables are known to influence teacher quality, including teacher preparation. This dissertation explored the relationship between the teacher education pathway and teaching effectiveness. Although multiple measures of teacher effectiveness exist, this study focused on reformed instructional practices as its measure of teaching effectiveness. In teaching mathematics, in particular, constructivist-based, inquiry-oriented approaches have been shown to be more effective than traditional methods (Abbott and Fouts, 2003; Klein, Hamilton, McCaffrey, Stecher, Robyn, and Burroughs, 2000). Using two groups of novice teachers (N=22) from two preparation pathways, this observational comparative study also investigated the relationship between school composition and teaching practices. There is a large body of literature showing that urban schools serving high proportions of non-white, poor, and low performing students (Darling-Hammond, 1995; Kain and Singleton, 1996; Presley White, and Gong, 2005) tend to have higher percentages of less qualified teachers compared to their suburban counterparts. In light of this, the current study also explored the relationship between school composition and teachers' use of reformed teaching practices. The findings of this investigation indicate that the instructional practices of teachers working in the urban school district where this study was conducted were generally reformed, and did not vary based on the student demographics of the schools in which they taught. In addition, no statistically significant relationship was found between teaching pathway and teachers' instructional practices. Many similarities were found in the instructional practices of teachers from the two preparation pathways. The similarities in the teachers' instructional practices were attributed to the significant congruence in the teacher preparation programs' curriculum, requirement of clinical experience, selectivity, and the programs' explicit social justice missions. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_101836 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Salomon, Yves P. |
| Publisher | Boston College |
| Source Sets | Boston College |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, thesis |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. |
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