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Sustaining Boys' Motivation Over The Transition To Middle School: Can Interpersonal Resources Protect Boys From Engagement Declines Across Sixth Grade?, Brandy Anne Brennan

Dissertations and Theses

Recent research has highlighted the challenges boys face in school. Boys are overrepresented on indicators of negative academic outcomes, such as detention, suspension, and dropout, as well as underperformance on state and national tests. Moreover, these effects may be long lasting: Compared to females, male students are less likely to graduate high school, enroll in college, and complete a college degree, and they may be particularly vulnerable in middle school. As students enter middle school, their motivation and engagement normatively decline, and these losses may be especially problematic for boys. Nevertheless, research documents the importance of close relationships with parents, …

Peers' Academic Coping As A Resource For Academic Engagement And Motivational Resilience In The First Year Of Middle School, Daniel Lee Grimes

Dissertations and Theses

Beginning middle school is a difficult transition for many young adolescents. Academic coping skills and the ability to exhibit motivational resilience in the face of potential academic adversity can contribute to the success with which students navigate this transition. Students' peer group affiliations are known to have the ability to contribute positively to students' academic engagement, motivation, and achievement at this time. The current study explores the potential of a student's peer group members' use of eleven ways of academic coping to affect the change in student academic engagement over the course of the first year of middle school. Data …

The Development Of Personal Resources In The Academic Domain: Age Differences In The Evolution Of Coping And Perceived Control And The Process Structures That Facilitate Academic Engagement, Teresa Marie Greene

Dissertations and Theses

Studies investigating the development of perceived control and coping in the academic domain generally adopt an individual differences approach, reporting mean-level changes in these and associated constructs. Very few studies attempt to chart the process by which these personal resources exert individual and combined influences on academic outcomes, such as motivation and achievement, in light of normative developmental changes. Further, a consideration of reciprocal influences of these constructs on developmental changes and the contribution of social partners to these processes is not common.

Conceptualized from a systems perspective, this study integrates these different approaches in a longitudinal inquiry into the …

Achievement Motivation And Self-Evaluative Emotions In Preschool Children From Low-Income Families., Crystal A. Day

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study was designed to better understand the early behavioral and emotional factors influencing young children's responses to challenge, which have important implications for learning. Understanding why children respond to challenge as they do is particularly important for young children from poverty, who face many contextual factors that place them at-risk for experiencing negative academic outcomes (Brooks-Gunn, Linver, & Fauth, 2005). Previous research suggests that children adopt distinct behavioral and emotional reactions to challenge. Such reactions have been studied in terms of either achievement motivation or self-evaluative emotion research (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Lewis & Sullivan, 2005), with achievement …

Parent And Teacher Influences On Children's Academic Motivation, Tatiana Snyder

Dissertations and Theses

The current study developed a comprehensive theoretical framework of joint multiple contextual influences (JMCI framework) to guide empirical investigation of combine influences of social contexts on children's academic outcomes. Drawn from several general frameworks, four models of joint social influences were proposed: Independent, Interactive, Differential, and Sequential. Using a motivational framework, all four models were tested empirically for joint effects of parents and teachers on children's self-perceptions (relatedness, competence, and autonomy) and classroom engagement. Overall, this study provided some empirical support for every category of models proposed in the JMCI framework. The joint influences of parents and teachers on children's …

Insulating Effects Of Early Childhood Education, William Anthony Kull

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to ascertain if formal early childhood education was related to the likelihood of later criminal activity. The secondary data analysis within this study did support inferences for four specific crime factors. This study found that preschool attendance lessened the incurrence of future criminal activity in crime categories of total numbers of damage offenses, total numbers of theft offenses, total numbers of damage alone offenses, and total numbers of injury and theft offenses.

Goal Orientation, Ethnicity, And Achievement Of Middle Elementary Students, Carl Phillip Koehnke

Theses Digitization Project

Examines goal orientation, ethnicity, gender, and achievement variables of 149 elementary school children (grades 3-5) at a Southern California elementary school. Research was conducted using a 2 x 2 goal orientation matrix that included mastery-approach, mastery-avoid, performance approach, and performance-avoid constructs. California Standards Test (CST) were used to determine achievement. Results supported the hypothesis that there would be no differences based on ethnicity, gender, or grade level. Statistically significant differences were found in the mastery-avoid goal because of class subject. Also, mastery-avoid was found to have a negative correlation to high test scores as measured by CST.

Motivational Processes Involved In Academic Help Seeking And Help Avoidance, Gwen Catherine Marchand

Dissertations and Theses

During middle childhood, help seeking and avoidance are two ways children deal with academic problems. For this study, the dominant view of help seeking as a strategy of self-regulated learning was elaborated to consider it a way of coping framed within the Self-System Model of Motivational Development. This framework allows for the consideration of (1) the opposite of help seeking (help avoidance) as a motivated way of coping, (2) the central role of teachers, and (3) the operation of multiple self-system processes in shaping students' coping behaviors.

Self-report, teacher-report, and school record data from 765 3rd through 61 h grade …

The Impact Of Early Familial Experiences On Emotional Intelligence, Stephanie Lynne Lattimer-List

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of early familial influences on the development of young adults' emotional intelligence. It was hypothesized that attachment security would be positively and significantly related to emotional intelligence, and conversely, that insecure attachment would be inversely related to emotional intelligence.

Student Perceptions Regarding Classroom Environments For Learning., Jean E. Greenwood

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Students' Contextual Perceptions On Motivational Goal Pursuit In The First Year Of Middle School, Caroline Mansfield

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The nature of student motivation in schools, particularly during early adolescence, has been of interest and concern to educators and researchers alike. Particularly over the last 20 years, considerable technological advances, societal changes, changes in traditional family structures, and changes in educational structures and practice have seen the issue of student motivation emerge as a prime focus for educators and researchers. Simultaneously, developments in educational research and consequent understandings developed about student motivation in classroom contexts have revealed the complexity of students' motivational processes and served to inspire further research in this field.

Peer Context Influences On School Motivation: A Naturalistic Observation Of Peer And Teacher Contingencies Following On-And Off-Task Behavior In A Fifth Grade Classroom, Nicole Ann Sage

Dissertations and Theses

With regard to school motivation and performance, two questions have been central for both educational and developmental psychologists; Why do some students do well in school whereas others do not and why is it that over time, those students who do well, continue to do well, while those who don't, often get worse? Findings with regard to the first question are conclusive; many factors are associated with doing well in school. With regard to the second question however, the findings are less conclusive.

Parents, teachers and peers have been regarded as contexts in which socialization occurs. However, much of the …

Providing Positive Programming For Students In Special Education Identified As Being Seriously Emotionally Disturbed, Derrick Anderson

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.

Hispanic Parent Monitoring Of Seventh Grade Mathematics Homework Assignments And Relationship With Achievement And Self-Esteem., Luis F. Tamayo

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Effects Of A Planned Program On Students Self- Concept, Julie K. Watkins

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Enhancing Self Esteem And Achievement Through Group Guidance Activities., Paul R. Sinibaldi

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of An Instructional Learning Management System On Student Ability To Remain On Task, Virginia Mary Fisher Shaw

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Barometric Pressure, Relative Humidity, And Temperature, And Adverse Behavior Of Children In The Classroom, Rebecca Kay Fessler

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Study Of The Total Achievement Of The Younger Child Compared To The Older Child, Susan Rae Johnson Hartshorn

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Training Elementary School Children To Self-Determine Standards : Effects On Performance And Generalization, Esther Anne Cohen

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The effects of instructions, non-contingent reinforcement, and contingent reinforcement on the level of self-determined standards for both experimental and generalization items were assessed using a reversal design. In addition the effects of the level of self-determined standards on performance in spelling was examined. The results indicated that contingent reinforcement for raising standards was an effective means of training the 30 subjects in this study to set high standards of performance for both experimental and generalization items. High standards did not, however, result in high levels of performance. When reinforcement was contingent upon subjects raising their standards and then scoring at …