The Impact of Online Professional Development on the Assessment Efficacy of Novice Itinerant Teachers of Students with Multiple Disabilities Including Visual Impairments

The primary question for this dissertation was: Does online professional development increase novice itinerant Teachers of Students with Visual impairments' (TVI) efficacy for assessing learning and literacy media for students with multiple disabilities including visual impairments? The literature suggested novice TVIs might experience low efficacy when implementing strategies unique to their job after leaving teacher-training programs. Working in an itinerant position can intensify perceptions of low efficacy. One area of low efficacy was conducting and reporting on the assessment of learning and literacy media (ALLM).
Using a quasi-experimental pre/post-design, data were collected from pre/postintervention knowledge questionnaires about the assessment process and pre/postintervention written ALLM reports. Eleven participants with 1-5 years of experience as TVIs were divided into control and intervention groups. Four online modules were delivered to the intervention group. The data were analyzed using two dependent and two independent sample t tests. The results indicated the change scores between the control groups pre- and post-submissions did not improve. The change scores between the intervention groups pre- and post-submissions did significantly improve after participation in the online modules. The change scores overall between the intervention and control groups' pre/post submissions were statistically significant. The intervention group completed an acceptability rating scale regarding the feasibility of the modules and the results had an average score of 3.5 (4 = strongly agree). The primary limitation of this study was the small sample size and, therefore, did not allow for generalization.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-5445
Date05 June 2018
CreatorsDaniels, Jacqulyn Anne Donnenwirth
PublisherPDXScholar
Source SetsPortland State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceDissertations and Theses

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