Date Approved

2-13-2017

Embargo Period

2-13-2017

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

EdD Educational Leadership

Department

Educational Services and Leadership

College

College of Education

Advisor

Coaxum, James

Committee Member 1

Sawaya, Bassel

Committee Member 2

Thomas, Loren

Keywords

NCLB, standardized testing, writing to learn

Subject(s)

Language arts--Correlation with content subjects; Common Core State Standards (Education)

Disciplines

Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Junior High, Intermediate, Middle School Education and Teaching

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative study was to institute student growth and achievement in standardized test scores in the district with the use of writing to learn strategies. The objective of the study was to ensure growth and comfort for students with standardized testing and to train teachers to implement an approach to pedagogy (writing to learn strategies) centered on skills needed to increase standardized test scores. Using experimental research embodied in an action research design, five teachers were asked to take on different experimental and control groups of students in remediation periods known as either the twilight period (after school) or zero period (before school). The quantitative instrumentation involved in the study was the 2013 NJ ASK baseline exam, all pre-tests and all post-tests for the NJ ASK and PARCC, the 2014 standardized exam (NJ ASK) and the 2015 standardized exams (NJ ASK and PARCC). The qualitative data included teacher interviews, focus group interviews, and participant observation/field notes. The findings showed growth in standardized test scores of students in the experimental groups that received writing to learn strategies in comparison to the control groups that did not receive the strategies. In addition, the results revealed P Values obtained from a one-tailed T-Test suggesting a small significance and correlation between writing to learn strategies and improvement of students' standardized test scores.

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