The Relationship of Instructional Technology to Minority Student Successful Course Completion at a Regional University in the Rural Southwest

• Main Author: Bussell, Teresa Lynn
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2020
• Subjects: Educational administration; Educational evaluation; Educational technology; Higher education; Multicultural Education
• ISBN: 9798664726930

This study was designed to examine whether instructional technology use in the face-to-face classroom supported minority student course completion in higher education. The use of instructional technology in the classroom by faculty and students can provide enhanced instruction to support increased critical thinking and a student-centered learning environment for minority students in higher education. The group identified as minority students for this study included Native Americans, African Americans, and Latino/Hispanic. The researcher utilized a teacher technology integration survey and the minority student pass rate to examine the relationship. The researcher collected TTIS scores using Survey Monkey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/) and data on race and pass rate in the courses of the faculty volunteers from the Registrar’s Office. The value of Cronbach’s Alpha (0.89) indicated an overall internal consistency of this assessment, however, there was slightly less consistency for teacher use (0.70) and more for student use (0.94). The data was recorded in scatterplots using tools in Microsoft Excel. Pearson correlation coefficient and the p-values were calculated by the researcher for each of the research questions. Through analysis of each of the research questions, the researcher found there was some evidence of weak to moderate or moderate to large, but negative correlations between technology use and pass rate for some of the minority populations. There were statistically significant relationships between some of the correlations, including technology use with Hispanic and Native American pass rate. While there were statistically significant relationships between technology use and pass rate for some of the population groups found in this study, the higher TTIS score did not show a relationship to a higher pass rate. However, the measure of teacher use and student use indicated by the scores on the TTIS did show there was less use of technology by students. This information could indicate the pedagogy used by the teacher did not utilize technology effectively to provide instruction to support learning. While the teacher’s comfort, perceptions, beliefs, access, as well as tasks requiring greater skill and engagement could be related to the use of technology, they do not explain the relationship to pass rate. Further studies could measure how technology use can increase engagement and critical thinking to improve learning for minority students. Evidence from the analyses presented in this study indicate a need for further research on utilizing technology to improve learning outcomes and how it can contribute to pass rate.