Date of Award

10-2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Education

First Advisor

Jackie Ramey

Second Advisor

Lynda Leavitt

Third Advisor

Roger “Mitch” Nasser

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools closed to in-person instruction and forced teachers and students into virtual learning environments. Schools and districts had to create new ways to deliver curriculum to their students, and most chose to switch to an online/virtual learning environment. In this learning environment, the teachers taught from a distance, and students received their instruction through synchronous and asynchronous methods. This change in content delivery was a new experience for most educators. Teachers worldwide expressed their frustrations with virtual instruction and dissatisfaction with student engagement through social media and mainstream media outlets. The study aimed to determine teachers’ perceptions of the virtual learning environment to assess Teacher Efficacy and ideas for possible improvement for that type of learning environment. Participants answered survey questions about teacher self-efficacy, collective Teacher Efficacy, school effectiveness, technology proficiency, and professional development needs through a qualitative study. These survey questions ranged from Likert-type scale and open-ended questions to allow participants multiple ways to express their feelings about teaching in a virtual environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. After analyzing the data, the results indicated that teachers were primarily confident that they could impact student achievement while stressed over the virtual learning environment. They suggested a need for time to plan for virtual learning with their colleagues and focused professional development on the most important digital tools required for virtual instruction.

Rights

Copyright 2022, Tina Lauer.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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