Date

7-2019

Department

School of Education

Degree

Doctor of Education in Curriculum & Instruction (EdD)

Chair

Meredith Park

Keywords

Self-efficacy, Field Experience, Literacy

Disciplines

Education | Language and Literacy Education | Teacher Education and Professional Development

Abstract

Learning to read is an essential skill, yet many new teachers enter the profession unprepared to be effective literacy teachers. Teacher preparation has been at the forefront of many reforms in education. However, discrepancies still exist in how teachers are prepared to enter the profession. This study investigated preservice teachers’ sense of efficacy for primary literacy instruction by the amount of field experience. The levels of field experience included no/ introductory field experience, reading practicum experience, and clinical teaching experience. Participants were preservice teachers who had been accepted into the educator preparation program at small, private universities in Texas and were seeking Early Childhood-Grade 6 certification. The survey measured the preservice teachers’ sense of efficacy for literacy instruction by asking how prepared preservice teachers felt to teach different aspects of literacy. The Kruskal-Wallis H was used to determine if there are differences between the groups. The study included 59 students from six small, private universities in Texas. Results of the study indicated that median scores were statistically significant between groups. Based on this data, the researcher rejected the null hypothesis. Pairwise comparisons showed a statistically significant mean increase from no/introductory field experience to reading practicum experience and from no/introductory field experience to clinical teaching experience.

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