Date
4-2022
Department
School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership (EdD)
Chair
David Vacchi
Keywords
Movement, Brain Research, Embodied Cognition, Education Reform
Disciplines
Education
Recommended Citation
Strickland, Mary Catherine, "A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study of Teacher Perceptions of the Effects Movement Strategies Have On Student Learning" (2022). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 3472.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/3472
Abstract
The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand teachers' use of movement strategies to improve students' learning. The theory guiding this study was Shapiro's embodied cognition theory, which asserts that the body plays a significant role in cognitive processing. The study attempted to answer the central research question: How do teachers perceive and understand movement and learning in the classroom? The teachers who participated in the study came from a private school in the Southern United States and were chosen using purposeful criterion sampling to ensure their familiarity with movement as a strategy. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with each participant, observations of participants using movement strategies in their classrooms, and a focus group. Data was analyzed using van Manen’s phenomenological reduction, which included extracting themes from the data and writing to synthesize the data. The themes extracted from the data were the importance of movement, frequency of movement, types of movement, direct and indirect connections to learning, and teacher support. The findings indicated that movement is a viable classroom strategy and teachers’ experiences with movement yield a positive connection to learning. This study's significance was to add to the available literature that examined movement strategies but could not solidify a link to learning.
