The purpose of this study was to examine teacher screening and selection tools currently being utilized by public school districts in Pennsylvania and to compare these tools to the research on qualities of effective teachers. The researcher developed four research questions that guided her study. The Pennsylvania Association of School Personnel Administrators (PASPA) granted the researcher permission to survey their members. PASPAs Executive Director sent an e-mail describing the study and invited his members to participate in the electronic survey. The e-mail asked members to click on a link that took them to a 10-15 minute survey about teacher selection tools. Fifty-five members completed the survey, with a total response rate of 32 percent. Quantitative data were analyzed using, percentages, means and standard deviations. Qualitative analysis was used to interpret data obtained from open-ended questions.
The results of the study indicated that approximately 71% of reporting Pennsylvania public schools were utilizing some type of electronic on-line warehousing database for which to search and screen potential teacher candidates. However, a low number of reporting school districts were not using any type of commercial product for screening or interviewing candidates. Further, 93% of reporting school districts were using locally created interview questions. Finally, participants indicated that the top three factors considered when hiring a teacher were the candidates: knowledge of teaching and learning, content knowledge, and knowledge of good classroom practices. There were insufficient data to determine if the commercial or locally created teacher selection tools were linked to the qualities of effective teachers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-11202009-123554 |
| Date | 15 December 2009 |
| Creators | Vitale, Tracy L |
| Contributors | Sean Hughes, PhD, Mary Margaret Kerr, EdD, Michelle Miller, EdD, WIlliam E. Bickel, PhD |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-11202009-123554/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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