Education Commons^™

Across The Great Divide: The Effects Of Technology In Secondary Biology Classrooms, Johnny Howard Worley

Education Dissertations and Projects

This study investigates the relationship between technology use and student achievement in public high school across North Carolina. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a digital divide (differences in technology utilization based on student demographics of race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and municipality) exists among schools and whether those differences relate to student achievement in high school biology classrooms. The study uses North Carolina end-of-course (EOC) data for biology to analyze student demographic data and assessment results from the 2010-2011 school year from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The data analyses use descriptive and factorial univariate …

The Impact Of Teacher Self-Efficacy In Writing On Instruction And Evaluation Of Writing In A School District In Western North Carolina, Deanna Berrier

Education Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation was designed to examine the writing strategies and scoring practices of fourth-grade teachers on the North Carolina Fourth Grade Writing Assessment and local, county-wide writing assessments by collecting data from 13 elementary schools located in rural, western North Carolina.

Both qualitative and quantitative means of data collection were implemented. Inter-rater reliability was used to determine reliability of the fourth-grade teachers' scoring using the North Carolina Fourth Grade Writing Assessment Rubric. Qualitative data was collected through the use of two surveys administered to the fourth-grade teachers in the county. Interviews and a focus group were also used to determine …