Dissertation writing help - Quality philosophy characteristics of the schools of the wisconsin evangelical lutheran synod
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The purpose of this study was to determine if elementary schools of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod reflect characteristics of quality. This study also explored whether a relationship exists between quality philosophy characteristics and student academic achievement. The conceptual framework organized the research across five organizational dimensions of characteristics of quality (instructional purpose, meeting needs, elimination of distractions, secure evaluation, and cooperative planning). The resulting process model was used to examine differences between high and low achieving schools. The schools of the study were categorized into three groups with similar socio-economic, cultural, and demographic characteristics. The school in each category with the highest average composite scores for the last three academic years in the Standardized Metropolitan Achievement Test areas of reading and mathematics was compared with the school in each category with the lowest composite scores.
The data were derived from self-administered questionnaires given to the principals, teachers, students, and parents of the study schools. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and an analysis of variance. Follow-up interviews were conducted to further clarify the differences.
The study found the schools to possess attributes consistent with quality school characteristics with higher achieving schools possessing quality characteristics to a greater degree than lower achieving schools. A common understanding of a school's purpose, the meeting of student needs within that purpose, and the elimination of distractions to that purpose were quality characteristics consistently rated highest by the respondents. Schools with similar quality characteristics but dissimilar socioeconomic, demographic, and cultural characteristics had differing levels of achievement indicating the existence of factors outside of school that strongly influence learning.