An investigation of educator professional development delivery preferences
Keywords
Computer assisted instruction, Distance education
Abstract
The purposes of this study were to: (a) determine the professional development preferences of educators in a selected school district, (b) discover to what extent and under what circumstances these educators desired the use of Web-based distance education for professional development purposes, and (c) discover the obstacles to implementation of Web-based instruction professional development within the school district. In addition, demographic and informational data thought to be pertinent were solicited. A survey instrument developed for this study was administered to 1,843 site-based educators; 1,455 (78.95%) surveys from all (N=39) of the targeted schools were returned. Analyses of the data provided by respondents indicated the following major findings: (a) 90.2% preferred to use district-provided in services for recertification training; (b) 64% reported a high computer and Internet comfort level; (c) 74% preferred learning with peers over solitary training; (d) 44.5% favored traditional in service delivery over Web-based instruction; (e) appropriate subject matter was deemed the most important element in the selection of training, followed by training when needed, stipends, training location, and training with peers, respectively; (f) 61% indicated an interest in utilizing Web-based instruction for recertification purposes and 61.3% for required subjects; (g) 65.1% would use Web-based instruction if a menu of practical topics were offered; and (h) 62.7% would use Web-based instruction if training was provided. Inadequate marketing of online courses and user fear of insufficient instructor assistance (26.7%) were found to be barriers to implementation. No statistical significance was found between chosen demographic data (age, gender, grade level, and job category) and desire for Web-based instruction. Training in the use of technology and Web-based instruction was deemed desirable prior to the implementation of online delivery.
Notes
This item is only available in print in the UCF Libraries. If this is your thesis or dissertation, you can help us make it available online for use by researchers around the world by STARS for more information.
Graduation Date
2002
Advisor
Bozeman, William C.
Degree
Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)
College
College of Education
Department
Educational Research, Technology and Leadership
Format
Language
English
Length of Campus-only Access
None
Access Status
Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)
Identifier
DP0020824
Subjects
Dissertations, Academic -- Education; Education -- Dissertations, Academic
STARS Citation
Teachout, Maggie W., "An investigation of educator professional development delivery preferences" (2002). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 1715.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/rtd/1715
Accessibility Status
Searchable text