Many military children face obstacles during their lives, and these obstacles can affect their classroom environment due to their mobility, social-emotional behavior, and academics. The purpose of this study was to identify challenges, if any, that teachers indicate exist while educating military-connected students in public schools and teacher actions to address any challenges. Existing literature on military connected students and teacher perceptions of military-connected challenges was reviewed.
This study examined teacher perceptions of the challenges, responses to challenges and training these teachers experienced while teaching military-connected students.
A Likert-type survey of questions was administered through an online survey tool to elementary school teachers in two public school divisions in Virginia. The survey instrument was developed by Mittleberg (2014). After collecting the data, the researcher examined and analyzed data based on the survey responses. The following research questions were addressed:
What challenges do teachers identify related to educating military-connected students?
What practices do teachers use to address the perceived challenges?
What do teachers indicate as their level of training to teach military-connected students?
The study concluded with eight findings and eight implications. The findings provided teachers with the tools necessary to address the needs of military-connected students as well as provided schools and school divisions with information that could impact their professional learning decisions.
Findings included but were not limited to how teachers perceived that assessment of students' background knowledge was a challenge when teaching military-connected students, how filling in students' knowledge gaps was a challenge, and how adjustment to students leaving and arriving at various times during the school year were a challenge when teaching military-connected students. A few implications were, school leaders should investigate ways to assist teachers in assessing students' background knowledge. It should be a consideration that personnel be provided with resources to help focus on meeting the needs of the students who have knowledge gaps and the development of a handbook of team building and getting to know you resources should be given to teachers to assist in building a strong classroom environment. / Doctor of Education / There are many public school divisions in the United States that service military-connected students. Of the 132 school divisions in the Commonwealth of Virginia, there is at least one military-connected student in each school division. According to Wykes (2015), Virginia is one of the top 10 states for military presence with 10% (Wykes, 2015, p. 23). Teachers in these school divisions face perceived challenges that need to be addressed. Some of those challenges include mobility, academics, and the social-emotional well-being of the military- connected student. This quantitative study focused on the perceived challenges public school teachers face when teaching military-connected students. Data were collected using a Likert-type survey with participants from two school divisions who service military-connected students. There were limitations in this study beyond the researcher's control such as the accuracy and honesty by the respondents and response rate.
This study produced eight findings and eight implications. Of the eight findings, three were teachers perceived the adjustment to students leaving and arriving at various times, having a routine in place when new military-connected students arrive into the classroom after the start of the school year, and receiving the level of training needed to prepare them to support parents/guardians of military connected students in their classroom were a challenge. A few of the implications included, the need for teacher preparation programs to address the challenges military connected students face, the development of a handbook of team building activities for teachers to use in the classroom as a resource and the need for resources that could focus on meeting the needs of students' knowledge gaps to support those military connected students.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/97905 |
| Date | 24 April 2020 |
| Creators | Hicks, Priscilla Lafond |
| Contributors | Counselor Education, Cash, Carol C., Browder, Bobby R., Price, Ted S., Earthman, Glen I. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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