Date
12-2018
Department
School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education in Curriculum & Instruction (EdD)
Chair
dagorman@liberty.edu
Keywords
DAP, Daily Classroom Activities, Early Childhood, Kindergarten, ESSA, NCLB
Disciplines
Education | Educational Methods | Elementary Education
Recommended Citation
Heery, Christopher A., "A Correlational Study of Teacher Practice versus Belief" (2018). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 1927.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/1927
Abstract
The purpose of this research study was to examin the correlation between what kindergarten teachers identified as developmentally appropriate practices in kindergarten classrooms and what is included in their actual daily classroom practices. This quantitative research used a correlational research design to investigate the strength of the relationship between what teachers identied as their beliefs in developmentally appropriate practices for early childhood education and their self-reported use of developmentally appropriate practices within their own classrooms. The population included kindergarten teachers who currently teach in the northeastern counties of Pennsylvania. The participants completed an online survey developed for teachers of kindergarten children that identified Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP) as presented in the revised 1997 National Association for the Educators of Young Children (NAEYC) guidelines. The teacher belief scores and the teacher practices scores identified the strength of the relationship between teacher beliefs in DAP and actual daily uses of DAP in their kindergarten classrooms. Results indicated that there was a significant weak positive relationship between teachers’ beliefs in the use of DAP and their actual daily uses of DAP in their kindgergarten classrooms. A second analysis compared teachers’ years of experience to their reported practices to determine whether or not their years of experience predicted their actual daily uses of DAP in their kindergarten classrooms. Results indicated that there was a significant strong positive relationship between teachers’ years of experience in kindergarten and their actual daily classroom use of developmentally appropriate practices.
