This dissertation focused on the link between quality teaching and its potential impact on student achievement. National Board Certification is used to represent quality teaching and student achievement is measured by the Kentucky Core Content Test. Data were gathered on the reading and mathematics scores of students of National Board Teachers who were certified in literacy, early childhood generalist, or middle childhood generalist. These scores were compared to students assigned to teachers who were not National Board Certified Teachers.

This dissertation is comprised of five chapters. Chapter One provides an overview of the dissertation and establishes the rationale for the importance of the research. Chapter Two serves as a review of the pertinent literature related to similar studies which link National Board Certification to student results on state assessments, as well as research supporting the theoretical basis for the dissertation. Chapter Three focuses on the multi-level model of statistical analysis used in the study. This includes the number of years of experience the teachers have, the number of years the teachers have held National Board Certification. Also included were demographic information on the students (free lunch eligibility and ethnicity). An existing data set of scores on the Kentucky Core Content Test was used to analyze the achievement scores for students and an existing data set of National Board Certified Teachers in Kentucky was used to randomly identify the teachers for the study.

Chapter Four includes a discussion on the findings of the study as well as information related to the statistical significance of the analysis of data. The analysis of the data did not indicate any statistically significant difference between the student scores of National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) and the student scores of teachers who were not National Board certified.

And finally, Chapter Five includes a summary of the results of the study and links the findings of the study to its significance to professional practice and recommendations for future research. The chapter also provides a detailed discussion of each of the two specific research questions.