The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine which dimensions of teacher preparation contribute to creating effective reading specialists. These dimensions include educational factors, such as certification (Darling-Hammond, 1999), educational experience which points to teacher quality (Ferguson, 1991) and demographic factors such as age, type of teacher preparation programfour year, five year, or Master of Arts in Teaching. Participants were the reading specialist candidates during the 2002-2003 school year at a metropolitan university.
This study used reading specialist candidates Grade Point Average, Praxis test scores, teaching experience, class performance rating, and performance rating in the field to examine what background, characteristics, and instruction contribute to the preparation of effective reading specialists.
Analyses of data showed that teaching experience, age of candidate, and Praxis certification tests correlated with the outcome measures of coursework, performance rating, and Praxis reading specialist scores. Interviews of reading specialist candidates provided in-depth understanding of how candidates viewed the program.
Results of the study contribute to a better understanding of the individual dimensions of the reading specialist candidate. This understanding, in turn, provides further information for the improvement and evaluation of the program, and adds to research about the preparation of reading specialists.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-07062006-112350 |
| Date | 28 September 2006 |
| Creators | Kennedy, Nancy George |
| Contributors | Gregory A. Morris, Ph.D., Margaret M. Kimmel, Ph.D., Douglas K. Hartman, Ph.D., Rita M. Bean, Ph.D., Louis A. Pingel, Ph.D. |
| 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-07062006-112350/ |
| 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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