Date of Award

2013

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Committee Chair

Dennis Triplett

Abstract

This study surveyed current third-, fourth- and fifth-grade teachers in two small school districts in the southeast. One school district has initiated a technology initiative in its elementary schools. The other school district involved in the study incorporates technology but does not have a specified technology initiative. This dissertation was designed to provide information about the attitudes and beliefs of current third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade teachers about the necessity of teaching cursive handwriting. Many schools today either no longer teach cursive handwriting or do not spend the amount of time teaching cursive handwriting as in years past. With the age of new common standards and technology, many teachers feel they do not have the time to spend teaching cursive handwriting. Knowing that teachers' attitudes and beliefs affect what is taught in the classroom, the researcher developed a survey to determine the attitudes and beliefs of third-, fourth- and fifth-grade teachers and how those attitudes and beliefs affect their current instruction in the area of cursive handwriting. The survey was evaluated by parametric statistics using an independent t test and an ANOVA as well as nonparametric statistics using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann Whitney U. The t test and Mann Whitney U were used to determine the difference in attitudes and beliefs among the two school districts. The analysis of variance and Kruskal-Wallis were used to determine the differences between the grade levels and years of experience among the teachers. The independent t test and Mann Whitney U showed a statistical difference in the attitudes and beliefs between the two different school districts about cursive handwriting. A statistical difference was also found among the number of years of teaching experience using an Analysis of Variance and the Kruskal-Wallis test. However, a statistical significance was not found between the grade levels using an Analysis of Variance or the Kruskal-Wallis test. Qualitative data were also gathered using embedded open-ended questions in the survey. The results from the qualitative data supported the quantitative data found in the statistic results.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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