Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Committee Chair

Sydney Brown

Abstract

This dissertation was designed to examine the degree to which the fidelity of implementation of the Renaissance Learning program impacts teacher instruction, as well as teacher perception of student reading motivation and achievement. The teachers at a western North Carolina elementary school used the Renaissance Learning program for over 15 years, with little training. The school's end-of-grade test scores in reading were below the state and district averages, indicating that many of the students were struggling readers. At the start of the 2010-2011 school year, the teachers attended a professional development seminar and were trained on the best uses of the program.

The researcher created a survey, conducted focus group and individual interviews, examined documents, and observed teacher practice at this school in order to determine the degree to which the Renaissance Learning program was being implemented with fidelity. In addition, the impact of school-wide change was examined, and teacher perceptions of student reading motivation and achievement were studied.

The results from this study led the researcher to conclude that the teachers first experienced an implementation dip, but that the implementation fidelity of the Renaissance Learning program was high. In addition, teachers perceived an increase in student reading motivation and achievement. The researcher's recommendations were for the school to pursue professional development on motivation theory, and to continue professional development on the many aspects of the Renaissance Learning program in order to maintain high fidelity standards.

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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