Date of Award

1982

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Program

Higher Education Administration EdD

First Advisor

Edward A. Streeter

Second Advisor

Wilfred W. Liske

Third Advisor

Jerome D. Thayer

Abstract

Problem. Scarce resources and declining student achievement, heighten the need for schools to examine the resource allocation function more closely than ever to ensure that resources are being used most effectively. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of selected school controlled variables on student achievement in Seventh-day Adventist elementary schools and to develop guidelines for the resource allocation function relative to these selected variables.

Method. Thirty schools on both grades three and six served as the population sample. Achievement scores were used as the determiner of school effectiveness. Three basic multiple regression procedures were used in the analysis of data: (1) zero order correlations, (2) individual stepwise multiple regression, and (3) group stepwise multiple regression. The last two procedures were repeated using the previous achievement status as control variables.

Conclusions. Major conclusions of the study were: (1) The best predictor of future achievement was the previous achievement status of the student. (2) Most of the variables entered into the prediction equations offered results that conflicted with their zero order correlations. (3) Urban schools rendered strongly negative associations with achievement. (4) Increasing the number of sponsoring churches (and thereby pooling resources) rendered negative associations with achievement. (5) Teachers with bachelor's degrees and/or additional experience were associated with achievement gains on the third-grade level. Opposite results, though somewhat mixed, tended to be true on the sixth-grade level. (6) The group of financial variables offered the weakest correlations with achievement when previous achievement was not controlled; when achievement was controlled, the three groups (school, personnel, and financial) offered approximately equally strong correlations.

Recommendations. (1) Whenever and wherever possible, schools should be located away from urban areas. (2) Schools should have as few sponsoring churches as possible. (3) When hiring teachers for the third-grade level, teachers without graduate degrees and/or with the most experience should be given preference. (4) Schools need to have a variety of positively correlated variables associated with their programs to offset the influences of a few strongly negatively correlated variables.

Subject Area

Seventh-day Adventist elementary schools--Finance

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/dissertations/244/

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