Date

5-2016

Department

School of Education

Degree

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Chair

Charles Schneider

Keywords

Classical Christian Education, Classical Model, Instructional Practices, Student Engagement, Teacher Self-efficacy, Traditional Christian Education

Disciplines

Adult and Continuing Education Administration | Curriculum and Instruction | Curriculum and Social Inquiry | Education | Educational Administration and Supervision | Other Education

Abstract

Teachers in a classical Christian environment oftentimes are not taught in the classic manner themselves, requiring different training from that in teacher-education programs. This study compared teacher self-efficacy between traditional Christian-education environments and classical Christian-education environments. The purpose of this quantitative study was to discover if teachers’ perceptions of student engagement and instructional practices differ between a classical Christian environment and a traditional Christian environment. The research questions in this study explored whether teachers perceptions in traditional or classical education settings significantly differed with regard to student-engagement and instructional-strategies self-efficacy. This study was a causal-comparative quantitative research study with a nonexperimental design. The instrument, the Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale-Long Form (TSES-LF), contains two subscales used to measure the dependent variables of instructional-strategies teacher self-efficacy and student-engagement teacher self-efficacy. Results yielded no statistically significant difference between teachers in a classical Christian environment and a traditional Christian environment in answering the research questions pertaining to student-engagement self-efficacy and instructional-strategies self-efficacy. In conclusion, although no statistically significant differences emerged between the two groups in instructional-strategies teacher self-efficacy or student-engagement teacher self-efficacy, this study will help administrators put forward future professional-development efforts that align with teachers’ needs, based on teaching environment and how teachers believe they are performing.

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