Abstract:
This dissertation is motivated by the research question “do years of teaching experience, educational status, and grade of instruction affect teachers' perceptions of univocal discourse usage, dialogic discourse usage, and general discourse usage”? This research is a survey design with foundations from Truxaw, Gorgievski, and DeFranco's (2008) instrument on classroom discourse usage. The goal of this study was to assess group differences in teachers' perceptions of univocal, dialogic, and general discourse, as well as differences due to the level of experience and education were explored. There were two statistically significant main effects for teaching experience as well as one statistically significant effect for grade band. For teaching experience and the dialogic discourse score, teachers with 11 or more years of experience had a mean dialogic discourse score (M = 35.85, SD = 5.30) that was significantly higher on average than teachers with 0 to 10 years of experience (M = 34.14, SD = 5.93). The mean of the elementary group (M = 34.78, SD = 5.65) was significantly lower than the mean of the middle grade level band group (M = 38.00, SD = 4.15). For teaching experience and the general discourse score, teachers with 11 or more years of experience had a mean general discourse score (M = 12.46, SD = 1.76) that was higher on average than teachers with 0 to 10 years of teaching experience (M = 11.83, SD = 2.05). The results and future research were discussed, and the findings support a need for further change centered on dialogic discourse.