Influence of Academic Coaching on New Elementary School Teacher Performance in Rutherford County

• Main Author: Coulter, Scott
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2016
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Adult Basic Education; Adult Learning; Adult Students; Beginning Teachers; Data Analysis; Education; Educational Facilities Improvement; Educational Improvement; Educational leadership; Educational Strategies; Elementary education; Elementary School Teachers; Federal Programs; Informal Education; Instructional Improvement; Language Acquisition; Language Arts; Learning Processes; Learning Theories; Lifelong Learning; Student Needs; Teacher Improvement; Teaching Methods; Urban Schools
• ISBN: 9781369136913; 1369136919

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of academic coaches by investigating their effect on first-year elementary school teachers in Rutherford County, Tennessee. This evaluation was prompted by the passing of Response to Instruction and Intervention legislation in the state of Tennessee in 2013. This legislation added an instructional piece to the existing Response to Intervention process by mandating a building-level mentorship program for first-year teachers in all elementary and middle schools. Administrators in Rutherford County responded by placing this mentorship responsibility on academic coaches. Since coaches are required to mentor first-year teachers, this study focused on the academic coach influence on teaching and learning by comparing (a) first-year elementary school teacher mathematics Tennessee Value-Added Assessment Scores (TVAAS) for academic year 2013-2014 to first-year elementary school teacher mathematics TVAAS scores for academic year 2014-2015; (b) first-year elementary school teacher reading/language arts TVAAS scores for academic year 2013-2014 to first-year elementary school teacher reading/language arts teacher TVAAS scores for academic year 2014-2015; and ,(c) first-year elementary school teacher composite scores for academic year 2013-2014 to first-year elementary school teacher composite scores for academic year 2014-2015. The researcher compared these three variables, after assessing normality of the scale scores, using the Statistical Program for the Social Sciences Version 22.0. The researcher analyzed the collected study data using an independent sample t-test and an analysis of variance test to determine the mean difference between each elementary school’s mean score for each of the three sets of data. However, further analyses involving post-hoc tests were not conducted because at least one group had fewer than two cases. Two important implications for practitioners are that more attention should be given to value-added models before including them as a part of an educator’s evaluation, and local education agencies should either eliminate the new teacher mentoring duties out of the academic coach job responsibilities or develop a prescribed research-based mentoring program for academic coaches to follow. Areas of further research could include reproducing this study in other school systems that have specific academic coach qualifications and a prescribed program to assess significance of those academic coaches, or if no such program exists, creating a consistent training protocol and program implementation process for all academic coaches to follow.