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Summary
Teaching, Learning, and Computing surveyed teachers from a national probability sample of schools and from two
targeted samples of schools--high-end technology-using schools and schools that participate (or where one or more teachers participate) in 52 identified national and regional educational reform programs.
In both the probability sample of schools and the purposive samples, the teachers selected were a combination of a probability sample and a purposive sample of teachers who are either participants in reform programs or designated by their principal as exemplary users of constructivist/cognitive approaches.
The research began in the Spring of 1997 with a validation study of self-report measures of teacher beliefs and practices and exploratory studies of
survey measures of changes in teaching practices and technology use and school-level investments in technology hardware, software, and training and teacher support. The validation study provided self-report
data from 72 teachers in 24 schools and detailed classroom observation and interview data with those same teachers.
At the school level, pilot versions of surveys were used in order to test measurement approaches for studying technology expenditure information, hardware and software acquisition, and investments of time and money in teacher training and support activities.
The data collection itself was the second stage of the project, taking place from January through June of this year, and conducted by the Battelle
Centers for Evaluation and Health Research.
Data collection encompassed an initial district contact information letter, followed by a school mailing, in which teachers were rostered and sampled; a subsequent mailing of questionnaires for teachers, the school-level technology coordinator, and the principal; and several waves of mail and telephone followup, editing, coding, data entry, and data cleaning. The teacher respondents were asked to complete a survey booklet about their teaching practice and teaching beliefs that was 21 pages in length and required approximately 60-75 minutes. Four different versions of the teacher survey booklet were used, with overlapping sets of questions. The school technology coordinator's booklet was approximately the same length as the teacher survey and principally concerned the investments their school has made in computer hardware, software, and teacher training and support, measured both financially and in units of time, materials, and equipment. The principal's survey booklet was half as long, and inquired about technology-related school policies and efforts in school restructuring and reform.
The third stage of the project involves data analysis, preparation of reports, and the release of national data files for secondary analysis.
Selection of Schools:
The national probability sample of schools consists of 898 public, private, and parochial schools selected from a national database of 109,000
schools supplied by the firm of Quality Education Data (QED) of Denver, CO, a marketing information division of Scholastic Corporation. Schools were sampled according to their size (estimated number of
full-time teachers of grade 4 and above) and according to how much computer technology they had (using an index incorporating ten different measures of per-capita technology presence).
The two purposive samples were compiled from a multitude of sources.
The "educational reform" purposive sample (470 schools) came from rosters compiled of 52 different educational reform efforts gathered over the past several months. Twenty-nine of the programs are schoolwide reform programs; four are limited to either mathematics or science; and 19 enroll specific teachers as participants. Lists of participating schools or teachers were obtained directly from the programs in 43 of the cases; in the other 9 they were obtained from public sources--lists of participants on World Wide Web sites or in books. (In some cases, these were not actually programs--just schools identified as exemplary in the public source.) Forty programs provided more schools than were needed so that probability sampling was employed to select the particular schools that would be incorporated into the study. (In some cases, additional selection criteria were used prior to the sampling.)
The high-end technology purposive sample (258 schools) was compiled from three types of sources: publicly available information from school Web
sites and books, from one high-end technology education reform program, and from the Quality Education Data database (the schools with the highest technology presence index).
Selection of Teachers:
At each of the 1,616 studied schools, samples of 3 (elementary) or 5 (middle and high school) teachers were drawn through probability sampling
methods. A Teacher Roster form was sent to the school principal as the first major mailing to the school (following an introductory letter).
That form asked the principal to roster either 10 (elementary) or 15 (secondary) teachers of grade 4 or higher (in some cases limited to the same subject taught by a reform program-participating teacher), starting with teachers with last names beginning with a randomly selected letter of the alphabet and proceding alphabetically. The roster form asked for 4 additional pieces of information about the rostered teachers that were used to assign sampling weights to each rostered teacher (e.g., subject taught, use of computers, use of projects in teaching).
In addition, two other sources of teachers are incorporated as purposive samples. Approximately 250 teachers were individually selected from
the purposive school samples based on reports (public or program-supplied) of their participation in educational reform activities.
And finally, approximately 800 teachers were chosen through nominations by principals (as part of the Roster form) as exemplary practitioners of constructivist approaches to teaching.
Attained Sample:
With a 75% response rate at the Roster stage and close to a 70% response rate at the individual level, the survey database includes information from
1,150 schools including completed questionnaires from approximately 4,100 teachers, 800 technology coordinators, and 850 principals.
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