Evaluating Ruralnet: Teaching with the Internet

Abstract

The West Virginia K-12 RuralNet Project has provided training to public school teachers on the use of Internet resources in a manner consistent with the West Virginia State Science Curriculum Framework and the National Science Education Standards. This article presents a summary of quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the RuralNet Project. We validated instruments to assess Level of Use of Internet (LOU) and Personal Internet Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Scale (PITEBS) with inservice teachers who were participants in this Internet based professional development project. The instruments were then used to assess differences among completers and non-completers of summer workshops and different level users of Internet technology. The LOU and PITEBS appear ready to be utilized for future research and evaluation studies.