Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation - NSU Access Only

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice

Advisor

Jo Campbell

Committee Member

Matthew Delaney

Committee Member

Kimberly Durham

Keywords

teacher evaluation, Advanced Placement, College Board, equity

Abstract

This applied dissertation was designed to investigate a belief shared by teachers whether using Advanced Placement data for teacher evaluations was equitable. Teachers are assigned to teach different groups of students and are compared to teachers at other schools for their evaluation rating. Not all schools have the same practices with placing students into these courses. Close and Amrein-Beardsley (2018) make evident that the disparities of how students are assigned to teachers contributes to the concerns teachers have about the fairness of using student assessment data as a basis for performance evaluation. There has been little study into the effect of using Advanced Placement test scores as a factor of a teacher’s evaluation.

The study proposed to assess the equity of using Advanced Placement data to evaluate a teacher’s performance and aimed to add to the existing body of research by analyzing whether there was a correlation between teachers receiving high evaluation ratings and whether the school had a practice of allowing access to all students to Advanced Placement coursework. A public records request provided enrollment data for Advanced Placement courses and aggregate evaluation scores for the teachers at each school. The request also obtained the requirements for each school to allow students to participate, which then allowed each school to be classified based on whether they limit students or allow access to all students.

The investigation indicated that teachers assigned to schools that restrict access to Advanced Placement coursework were more likely to earn a higher evaluation rating. Teachers assigned to schools that allow access to all students to Advanced Placement coursework score lower on their evaluations when compared to the other subgroup of teachers.

Download
To access this thesis/dissertation you must have a valid nova.edu OR mynsu.nova.edu email address and create an account for NSUWorks.

Free My Thesis

If you are the author of this work and would like to grant permission to make it openly accessible to all, please click the Free My Thesis button.

Share

COinS