The McGovern Center extends its congratulations to Angela P. Gomez, EdD, MBA, for her recent completion of a Doctor of Education degree in Developmental Education Administration in the Department of Educational Leadership. Dr. Gomez graduated this summer from Sam Houston State University with an EdD from the Department of Educational Leadership. Her dissertation, entitled “Exploring the Relationship Between Technology Use and Student Performance in Developmental Mathematics,” was a quantitative research study using institutional-level data to scratch the surface of whether the State of Texas mandate for technology use in developmental education programs has been successful in terms of student performance measures.
The study employed chi-square analyses to identify whether there were statistically significant associations between the reported use of instructional technology in developmental mathematics courses and students’ earned credit in these courses as well as their subsequent grades in college-level mathematics. Overall technology use was statistically significantly associated with student performance as well as for five of the seven instructional technologies explored in developmental mathematics; however, these were not associated in college-level mathematics courses. Despite this finding, using a learning management system and e-textbook did exhibit a slightly positive relationship for students once enrolled in college-level mathematics. Ultimately, these findings suggested that, while there were some relationships, technology use did not always or consistently translate into improved performance among the students. Dr. Gomez’s next step is to publish portions of the literature review and revisit the results using logistical regression to strengthen this approach for generating evidence that may support or challenge similar technology policies.
Dr. Gomez has been with the McGovern Center for more than 12 years and currently is Senior Coordinator of Special Programs and the Assessment Director for UTHealth’s Quality Enhancement Plan, “Healthcare Policy for Health Professionals (HP2).” She is also completing a Master’s of Science degree in Educational Research with a concentration in Research, Measurement, and Statistics in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University. She will graduate in Spring 2022.