Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Programs for Higher Education
Advisor
John Reynolds
Committee Member
John Lustig
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Keywords
administrators, blind study, child readiness, correlation coefficients, curriculum, demographics, early childhood education, Expectations for School Readiness Checklist, Florida Department of Education, formal schooling, Hardee County, instructional strategy plans, kindergarten, nontreatment group, preschool, school personnel, school readiness, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, t-tests, teacher effectiveness, treatment group
Abstract
The applied dissertation was designed to improve early childhood education strategies in Hardee County 4-year-old preschool programs. By comparing 2 preschool 4-year-old groups (N = 48), this study addressed the need to increase a child’s readiness for school. The purpose of this study was to determine if teachers who utilized the Florida Department of Education developed Expectations for School Readiness Checklist ratings results to develop individual instructional strategy plans would improve the effectiveness of teachers in preparing children for kindergarten (formal schooling).
The 2 school groups were nonequivalent but held similar characteristics and demographics. The study was a blind study because the nontreatment group in School A was unaware of the treatment in School T.
The findings of the comparison of statistical significance testing between treatment and nontreatment group difference were significant at the p < .01 level. Correlation coefficients were computer generated using t-tests for independent samples of group procedures in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, Release 4 (1999) software. This study will assist administrators and school personnel with the implementation of preschool 4-year-old programs in Hardee County.