Date of Award

Spring 6-22-2010

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Education

First Advisor/Committee Member

Arthur K. Ellis

Second Advisor/Committee Member

Andrew Lumpe

Keywords

reflective thinking, reflection, reflective assessment, social studies, mixed methods

Abstract

The problem investigated in this study was whether instructional practices, which characterize reflective thinking, aided in the alignment of curriculum, instruction, and assessment at the classroom level. Participants included 259 seventh grade students, 126 female and 133 male, from 10 intact social studies classrooms. The investigator used an explanatory mixed methods design, which included a quantitative and qualitative phase.

The first phase involved testing the effects of an intervention, administered for 23 days, on students’ academic achievement according to a content-specific test. In addition, this phase involved a questionnaire used to assess student perceptions of the intervention. Results of the content-specific test and student questionnaire were contrasted between four treatment, four comparison, and two control classrooms. In the second phase, 12 students participated in interviews using standardized open-ended interview procedures.

Overall results showed nonsignificant differences between treatment and comparison classrooms. However, analysis of the content-specific posttest and students’ perceptions of teacher feedback showed a significant correlation at the .008 level, r(254) = .29, p < .001. Likewise, interview participants emphasized teacher feedback as an aid to learning and deemphasized lesson objectives as reflective writing prompts.

Copyright Status

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Additional Rights Information

Copyright held by author.

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