Arkansas' Teachers Perceptions of the Common Core State Standards

Author

Alexandra Vasile, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Date of Graduation

12-2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Curriculum and Instruction (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Curriculum and Instruction

Advisor/Mentor

Christian Z. Goering

Committee Member

Jason L. Endacott

Second Committee Member

Elizabeth R. Lorah

Keywords

common core standards, curriculum development, policy, reform, teacher perception

Abstract

The Common Core State Standards were created in 2009 in order to unify the states’ own standards and provide a specific set of learning goals for English Language Arts and Mathematics that students should achieve by the end of each schooling year, to ensure an increased college and career readiness, by emphasizing skills rather than specific content knowledge. The current quantitative study seeks to determine the perceptions that Arkansas teachers have towards the Common Core Standards by posing two main research questions: 1. Do Arkansas teachers perceive the Common Core State Standards as beneficial to their students? and 2. Do Arkansas teachers perceive the Common Core State Standards as beneficial to them, as teachers? The study uses a stratified random sampling process to select sixty Arkansas districts, with a total of 665 survey respondents.

The results suggest that Arkansas teachers have an overall favorable perception of the impact that the Common Core State Standards have on their students, and slightly negative in terms of the impact of the Standards on themselves as educators. Novice teachers and teachers in larger classrooms are more positive toward the benefit the Standards will have on both students and teachers, while teachers in high performing districts and Democrat/Independent teachers are more inclined to perceive the Standards as having a positive outcome on their students.

Citation

Vasile, A. (2019). Arkansas' Teachers Perceptions of the Common Core State Standards. Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/3501