Education Commons^™

Teachers’ Response To Infants’ Nonverbal Communication And Use Of Response To Facilitate A Dialogue, Stephanie Stephens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Beginning with birth, typically developing children use strategies to communicate, and the functions of their language change with maturation and interaction. Since communication cannot exist if both parties do not participate, it is important to not only study the ability of the child, but also the behavior of the adult. Numerous studies have examined the behavior of the parent or other domestic adult, but few have included the study of teacher behaviors.

This study investigated teachers’ response to four types of nonverbal communication attempts made by infants. The gestures included: deictic, affect signaling, object-related, and conventional. The type of response ...

Teachers And Their Perceptions About Adaptive Skill Training Within An Early Childhood Comprehensive Development Classroom For Students With Intellectual Disabilities, Jennifer R. Lynberg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigated teacher perceptions about adaptive skill training within an early childhood comprehensive development classroom for students with intellectual disabilities. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding about adaptive skills from a teacher's perspective. The aims of the study were to help educators understand the role of comfort level, importance of adaptive skills, planning for adaptive skills, and connecting adaptive skills to an academic outcome. A quantitative, cross-sectional design was used, and an online survey was completed by 254 special education teachers. The participants that completed the survey were 93% female and on average ...

Bearing Witness To The Lived Experience Of Chinese Exclusion: An International Baccalaureate Inquiry Unit For Critical Literacy Through Photovoice, Wesley Schoenherr

Master's Projects and Capstones

This field project used Kurasawa (2007)'s action-theoretical framework of "modes of practice" for human rights, together with Ewald (2012)'s "Memories of Past Centuries" unit to create an outline of an inquiry unit for a Humanities course within the International Baccalaureate's MYP. As the intended students are at IB schools in Xi'an, China, bearing witness to the lived experience of Chinese Exclusion at the Angel Island Immigration Station was chosen as the content.

An Alternative Pathway To Elementary Teaching, Lotta Larson, Tom Vontz

Educational Considerations

This article describes an alternative pathway to elementary teaching through the MAT online program at Kansas State University.

Utilizing A School-Based Treatment To Address Socially Anxious Elementary School Students, Mckell Nelson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The demand for effective interventions to address socially anxious behaviors is an important issue for school-based professionals. Several cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) programs have been developed to address these problems specifically in children and adolescents and have been found to be effective in treating youth exhibiting socially anxious behaviors in the clinical setting. Despite the availability of promising clinic-based programs, youth exhibiting socially anxious behaviors rarely receive the attention or treatment that they may need. Moreover, the majority of youth who receive services do so in the school setting where little research has been done in regards to the utility ...

A Qualitative Analysis Exploring The Development Of Problematic Sexual Behaviors In Adolescent Males With Developmental Disabilities., Maria J. Watters

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Adolescents with developmental disabilities (DD) experience regular physical and sexual development. Some adolescents with developmental disabilities engage in problematic sexual behaviors (PSB). In order to be able to address the needs of this population in terms of prevention of PSB, and provision of effective treatment after PSB has begun, their experience must be understood and contributing factors identified. It is with this in mind that this study was designed, with the purpose being the exploration of the experiences of adolescents with DD who have engaged in sexually problematic behaviors, including compulsive or addictive patterns of behavior, and to identify the ...

Perspectives From The Streets And The Classrooms In The Same 'Hood: Linguistic Landscapes Of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Luis Guzman Valerio

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation studies the linguistic landscape of the neighborhood of Sunset Park, in Brooklyn, New York by taking into account both a main commercial avenue and a public school with a dual language bilingual program in English and Spanish. Sunset Park is a multi-ethnic and immigrant neighborhood (Hum, 2014). While research has been done into the linguistic landscape of streets, cities, and communities, on the one hand, and about the linguistic landscape in education, on the other, the co-existence of these two in the same context has barely been studied (cf. Maldonado, 2015). This dissertation makes a contribution to the ...

Learning Logic: A Mixed Methods Study To Examine The Effects Of Context Ordering On Reasoning About Conditionals, Christina W. Lommatsch

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Logical statements are prevalent in mathematics, the sciences, law, and many areas of everyday life. The most common logical statements are conditionals, which have the form “If H..., then C...,” where “H” is a hypothesis (or condition) to be satisfied and “C” is a conclusion to follow. Reasoning about conditionals is a skill that is only superficially understood by most individuals and depends on four main conditional contexts (e.g., intuitive, abstract, symbolic, or counterintuitive). The purpose of this study was to test a theory about the effects of context ordering on reasoning about conditionals. To test the theory, the ...

Myths, Risks, And Ignorance: Western Media And Health Experts’ Representations Of Cultures In Ebola-Affected West African Communities, Samson Wonnah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The 2014 Ebola outbreak, mostly affecting Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, is the largest ever recorded. The Ebola response encountered resistance in some affected communities, where some residents accused relief agencies from the Global North of denigrating local cultures. This thesis examines mainstream Western media and health experts’ representation of culture in the Ebola-affected region and employed Foucauldian analysis of discursive power to discuss the impact of such a representation on the concerned communities. Through a content analysis of selected journal and news articles by Western scholars and media and official reports by some relief agencies involved with the Ebola ...

An Exploratory Study On Perceptions Of (Ipe) Towards Interprofessional Practice In Athletic Training, Carolyn Goeckel

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

An Exploratory Study on Perceptions of (IPE) Towards Interprofessional Practice in Athletic Training

Context: Healthcare professional, including athletic trainers (ATs), are called to be collaborative-ready practitioners to effectively meet the needs of today’s patient-centered care. Currently, little research exists exploring the infusion of IPE (interprofessional education) practices in athletic training programs or its effectiveness in producing collaborative-ready athletic training (AT) professionals. While research is needed to evaluate whether IPE learning models can produce AT professionals that are collaborative-ready for PCC (patient-centered care) several foundational questions should be addressed. First, educational researchers need to establish an understanding of athletic trainers ...

The Perceived Mentoring Experiences Of Male And Female Doctoral Students In Sociology, Macsu A. Hill

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Over the years, women have made significant strides in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Nevertheless, women continue to be underrepresented at the graduate and academic career entry levels, and minority women continue to lag behind Whites in navigating the pipeline to an academic career in the STEM disciplines. In sociology for instance, women overall are well represented at the BA level, but experience a steep decline when moving to doctoral education and then into subsequent academic careers. Numerous explanations have been advanced by educators and researchers to explain the dearth of underrepresented minority (URM) female doctoral students ...

Mentoring Relationships As Social Capital In The Career Advancement Of Latina School Administrators, Ligia Veronica Alberto

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This study examined the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles, specifically on the underrepresentation of Latina women holding leadership administrative positions in education. Using social capital as the theoretical framework, this study explored the role of mentoring relationships in the career advancement and promotions of Latina women. A narrative research design was selected to collect participants’ stories about their career advancement into school leadership positions. The narratives were collected through semi-structured face-to-face interviews. A total of 20 Latina school administrators were interviewed for 45 to 60 minutes. Upon completion of the interviews, the data was analyzed using narrative analysis. This ...

The Successful Foreign Language Classroom: Affect, Empathy, And Engagement, Emily Mower

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports

This portfolio is the culmination of the author’s work in the Master of Second Language Teaching program at Utah State University. Throughout this collection the author shares her personal views and experiences from teaching secondary and postsecondary beginning Spanish courses, supporting her claims with existing research. The portfolio consists of three sections: (1) teaching perspectives, (2) research perspectives, and (3) annotated bibliographies.

The objective of this work is to identify hindrances to the progress of foreign language teachers and learners, and best practices to stimulate their success. On the basis that language learning can promote cross-cultural understanding, these findings ...

Retention And Graduation Rates Of African American And Hispanic Students In Community Colleges In Tn: Index Of Institutional Practices That Support Minority Student Success, Dayna Smithers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many four year institutions are reorganizing their processes and structures to develop a more inclusive model related to campus diversity efforts. Minimal information has been reported about two year institutional efforts toward inclusive excellence. Given the predicted demographic shifts of the nation and more specifically, the projected increase in enrollments of racially and ethnically diverse student bodies in community colleges, it is essential for higher education administrators and policymakers to understand the structures needed to support minority student success at community colleges.

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine institutional support structures around inclusive excellence. An Institutional Diversity ...

Precalculus And Act: A Quantitative Study Of Five Tennessee High Schools, Michelle R. Phipps

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if students scored significantly higher on the ACT after taking precalculus than they had scored on the ACT prior to taking precalculus. The researcher investigated whether there is an increase, not only in ACT composite scores, but also in ACT math subtest scores after high school students completed a precalculus course. The researcher also investigated differences regarding gender, socio-economic status, and race.

Five Tennessee high schools from four counties and five different districts were used in this study. The study involved 208 participants and covered a span of three years. The findings ...

Migratory Patterns In Irs: Contentdm, Digital Commons And Flying The Coop, Michele Gibney, Kristin Laughtin-Dunker, Elizabeth Chance

Digital Initiatives Symposium

What is the importance of institutional history and special collections in a digital environment? Should these pieces of history have their own digital platform or be merged with the institutional repository? What role do repositories play in the institutional environment? What impact do digital historical collections have on the stakeholder contingent as well as the global community? The speakers will discuss the rationale behind migrating collections from CONTENTdm to institutional repositories (all using bepress’s Digital Commons platform). Reasons range from subscription costs to file format concerns to increased search optimization. The migratory act will be covered in terms of ...

Identifying Potential Challenges To Ged Students' Matriculation To College, Ashley Luft

Scholar Week 2016 - present

The purpose of this study was to identify potential challenges GED students face when matriculating into college. The survey instrument was The Adult Learning Questionnaire/Deterrents to Participation Scale-General. The research questions were; 1. What do GED students identify as potential situational challenges to college matriculation? 2. What do GED students identify as potential institutional challenges to college matriculation? 3. What do GED students identify as potential dispositional challenges to college matriculation? 4. What relationships exist in reported challenges as a factor of age, gender and ethnicity? The results were as follows; the three most identified situational challenges were; the ...

Racial Socialization: Relationship Between Black Identity, Perceptions Of Discrimination, And Academic Outcomes, Levar Ammons

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Racial tension in the academic environment has been prevalent in American society since Brown v. The Board of Education. Racial socialization serves as a practice utilized by Black American parents to provide their children with a cultural orientation as to what it means to be Black in America. Educators’ ability to create and maintain meaningful relationships across cultural differences impacts students’ perceptions on how they are being treated. Because perceived discrimination is associated with depressive symptomatology, it is critical to understand how Black American adolescents make racial meaning of themselves, particularly in the learning environment. The researcher utilized a quantitative ...

Shots Fired: Examining Cues In Polic Use Of Force Encounters, Ronald Gaines Jr.

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Officer-involved shootings lead to a costly process where lives are lost, careers are ruined, and taxpayer dollars are spent on investigation and litigation costs. The purpose of this study was to examine the cues that are associated with incidents that resulted in a police officer’s use of lethal as opposed to less than lethal force to increase awareness, enhance police safety, and improve training and supervision. Through the current quantitative correlational study, the researcher aimed to add to the discussion on police use of force. The researcher collected and analyzed preexisting sets of data from tactical response reports obtained ...

The Impact Of Alternative Education: A Summative Evaluation Of The Achieve Program, Cathleen Bendicsen

Scholar Week 2016 - present

The consequences of dropping out of high school greatly impact both the individual student and society as a whole. Alternative education programs are designed to meet the needs of students who have struggled in the traditional setting and help prevent them from dropping out. This study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of one alternative program housed within a large Midwestern suburban comprehensive high school and to contribute to the limited research on alternative education program effectiveness using student outcome data. The researcher conducted a quantitative quasi-experimental study to compare the differences in student outcome data (GPA, attendance, office discipline referrals ...