Michael Jones

Defense Date

5-20-2005

Graduation Date

2005

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

EdD

Department

English

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Lynda A. Cook

Committee Member

Robert B. Bartos

Committee Member

Robert W. Clark

Keywords

education, Pennsylvania

Abstract

New federal and state regulations and a changing workforce are forcing comprehensive full-time Career and Technical schools (C and T) to examine the academic component of their programs. This study examined the effect of "week about" and "half-day about" instructional delivery systems (IDS) on students' general attitude toward learning academics. In the "week about" IDS, instruction is delivered through rotating weeks of academic and C and T classes. In the "half-day" about IDS, instruction is delivered by providing one-half day of academics and one-half day of C and T instruction.

Juniors and seniors in three C and T schools in Pennsylvania were surveyed using a one-page questionnaire prepared by the researcher and three one-page surveys that are part of the Academic Perceptions Inventory (API) developed by Soares (2002). A statistically significant relationship was found to exist between students' perception of school and the "half-day about" IDS. Students enrolled in a school with a "half-day about" IDS have a significantly better perception of their school than students enrolled in a school with a "week about" IDS. Students enrolled in a school with a "week about" IDS assign a significantly greater value to the importance of learning academics than students enrolled in a school with a "half-day about" IDS. Regardless of IDS, females have a higher concept of themselves as students than do males. Instructional delivery systems do affect students' attitudes toward learning academic subjects; however, student attitude does not affect academic achievement as measured by grade point average (GPA). Student attitudes only accounted for 1.4% of the variance in GPA. The implication is that IDS may not have any effect on students' academic performance.

Format

PDF

Language

English

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