Abstract

With the increased number of English learners in the United States, teacher candidates need to be prepared to address their needs in their future classrooms. Teacher preparation programs around the nation are continuously exploring solutions to better develop teacher candidates' skills. Simultaneously, the rise in popularity of online education has pushed universities to identify and integrate technology tools which best promote students' learning. This study, connecting both challenges, aims to identify which type of interactivity promoted by technology, in an undergraduate online teaching English for speakers of other languages (TESOL) course, most benefits pre-service teachers in their ability to apply newly gained knowledge in practical situations. The types of interactivity studied were traditional, suggesting limited opportunities provided by the traditional setup of an online course; written, through Canvas discussion activities; and audiovisual, through Flipgrid activities. The participants, divided among three groups, were 103 undergraduate teacher-candidates enrolled in a TESOL online course. A repeated measures ANOVA was run to identify the differences of the over-time changes in teacher-candidates' application of EL instructional support practices between the three groups. A repeated measures ANCOVA was run to investigate potential differences of the over-time changes in teacher-candidates' application of EL instructional support practices between the groups exposed to written and audiovisual, after controlling for their activity scores. While the three groups have seen an improvement in scores, as the audiovisual group outperformed the traditional group, which outperformed the written group; treatment did not have any statistically significant effect. Sample size and mitigating factors (e.g., age, gender, prior experience with technology, motivation, persistence, courseload.) might have led to this result. This study provides more insights on the ability for technology to promote various types of interactivity and how beneficial they can be in teacher-candidates online courses or programs.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2022

Semester

Fall

Advisor

Nutta, Joyce

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Community Innovation and Education

Department

School of Teacher Education

Degree Program

Education; TESOL Track

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0009340; DP0027063

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0027063

Language

English

Release Date

December 2022

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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