Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Fischler Graduate School of Education And Human Services
Advisor
T. Olin Huffman
Committee Member
James Ann Lynch
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Keywords
assessment rubrics, Bascomb Elementary School, content, developmental scoring guidelines, elementary schools, formal training, Georgia Writing Rubric, Grade 3, implementation, informal training, inter-rater reliability, personal expression, professional development, researcher, scoring rubrics, State of Georgia Writing Assessment, student writing samples, student writing scores, surface features, teacher knowledge, teacher surveys, teacher training, third-grade teachers, writing assessment, writing stages
Abstract
This applied dissertation was designed to determine whether teacher training would result in a 60% inter-rater reliability among 14 third-grade teachers at Bascomb Elementary School during the 2002-2003 school year. The State of Georgia Writing Assessment for Grade 3 contains developmental scoring guidelines for six stages of writing using content, personal expression, and surface features as indicators of stage development.
The writer hypothesized that a professional development program would enhance teacher knowledge of the State of Georgia Writing Rubric, allowing these teachers to assess accurately and therefore more effectively teach content related to the rubric. The researcher expected that the teacher survey would indicate an increase in formal and informal training when comparing hours spent in 2001-2002 as compared to 2002-2003. The researcher believed that the hours spent in training would increase by an average of 50%, contribute to inter-rater reliability of at least 60%, and result in improved student writing scores in third grade at Bascomb Elementary School.
An analysis of the data revealed that students improved in two of the six categories on the Georgia Writing Rubric. In addition, teacher inter-rater reliability was 56% for the same scores on student writing samples, 41% correlation for scores that varied by one point, and 3% for scores having a two-point variable. Teacher surveys revealed that both informal and formal teacher training increased by more than 50%. Teachers expressed their desire to continue the implementation.