Christopher Murrah Final Dissertation Defense

 

 

The College of Education, Health and

Human Sciences

Announces the Final Examination of

Christopher Ike Murrah

for the degree of

Doctor of Education

 

April 8, 2014 at 1:00 pm

123 Ball Hall, University of Memphis

Memphis, TN

 

Biographical Sketch

Bachelor of Science, Biology, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Master’s Degree, Educational Leadership, Arkansas State University

Advisory Committee

Reginald Green, Ed.D., Professor, Leadership, Committee Chair

Larry McNeal, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Leadership

Mitsunori Misawa, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Leadership

Beverly Cross, Ph.D., Holder of the Chair Excellence, Education, Health and Human Science

Major Field of Study

Educational Leadership

2008-2014

Comprehensive Examination Passed: Fall 2011

Principal Observation of Practice and Stakeholder Perception:  A Correlative Study of Alignment and Their Relationship to Teacher Effectiveness as Measured by the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System

Abstract

This study was focused on the strength of legacy Memphis City School’s model for measuring effective teaching, known as the Teacher Effectiveness Measure.  The Teacher Effectiveness Measure was comprised of five measurable components and weighted accordingly:  Teacher observation, 35%; teacher content knowledge, 5%; stakeholder perception, 5%; student achievement, 15%; student growth, 35%.  The purpose of this correlational study was two-fold.  First, the researcher wanted to determine whether the Principal’s Observation of Practice and the Stakeholder Perception Survey measurements aligned.  Secondly, the researcher wanted to understand the relationship, if any, between TVAAS and these two observation measures.  For each of the 1,783 teachers in tested areas, data were collected and analyzed based on Principal Observations of Practice against a common rubric, Stakeholder Perception surveys, the Tripod Student Perception Survey aimed at assessing a student’s classroom experiences with a specific teacher, and a value-added measurement, TVAAS, designed to illustrate the impact a teacher has on a student’s academic growth.

The results of this study suggested that the way in which principals rate teacher effectiveness and the way in which stakeholders, in this case students, rate teacher effectiveness were not the same.  The results suggested that the ratings principals and students gave a teacher were only occasionally supported by equivalent academic growth results as measured by TVAAS.  Finally, the results of this study suggested that while Principal Observation of Practice resulted in weak TVAAS predictive power, the addition of Stakeholder Perception did not increase TVAAS predictive power in a meaningful way.

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