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Exploring The Experiences And Practices Of Midwestern High School English Teachers, Melea Shimkus

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem under study was that in a state in the midwestern United States, there was a disparity in reading scores between secondary schools of similar demographics. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore the strategies and approaches used by secondary teachers whose students’ reading achievements exceeded those of other students. Shulman’s pedagogical content knowledge and Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy were used as the conceptual framework for the study. Data were collected from one-on-one interviews with 10 participants and analyzed with open coding. The findings indicated how to combine content and pedagogy; feeling efficacious about teaching had …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Practices That May Contribute To Reading Proficiency In Massachusetts Elementary Schools, Melinda Bentley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Sixty-eight percent of fourth-grade public school students in the United States performed below the National Assessment of Educational Progress proficient level on the 2022 reading assessment, yet Massachusetts fourth-grade students demonstrated better reading outcomes. The problem addressed through this study was a lack of knowledge regarding the practices used by third- and fourth-grade teachers that they perceive to improve reading proficiency in Massachusetts elementary students. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to describe the practices perceived by third- and fourth-grade teachers to improve the reading proficiency of Massachusetts elementary students. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory framed the study because it …

How Secondary Teachers Select, Implement, And Assess Reading Comprehension Interventions For Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Tracy Herdlein

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Several researchers examined reading interventions used with students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but few looked at teachers’ perceptions of their abilities to select, implement, and assess reading interventions. The problem is that secondary teachers in a suburban Mid-Atlantic public high school acknowledge that they struggle with the knowledge of effective instructional approaches for students with ASD. This qualitative case study aimed to understand how nine secondary teachers who have worked with students with ASD for five or more years select, implement, and assess reading intervention strategies to increase the comprehension of students with ASD. Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of cognitive …

Students’ And Faculty Members’ Perceptions And Experiences Of Classroom Assessment: A Case Study Of A Public University In Afghanistan, Sayed Ahmad Javid Mussawy, Gretchen Rossman, Sayed Abdul Qahar Haqiqat

Higher Learning Research Communications

Objective: The primary goal of the study was to examine students’ perceptions of classroom assessment at a public university in Afghanistan. Exploring current assessment practices focused on student and faculty members lived experiences was a secondary goal. The study also sought to collect evidence on whether or not the new assessment policy was effective in student achievement.

Method: Authors used an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design to conduct the study. Initially, we applied the Students Perceptions of Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ), translated into Dari/Farsi and validated, to collect data from a random sample of 400 students from three colleges: Agriculture, Education, and …

Experiences Of Teachers Of The Deaf Using Project-Based Learning To Build Higher Order Thinking Skills, Susan Joan Elliott

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Project-based learning (PBL) is an instructional strategy used to develop higher order thinking skills (HOTS) with a range of student populations. Although all students need to build HOTS for success in the 21st century, PBL studies with deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students were nearly absent; therefore, it was unknown how PBL could be used to develop HOTS with this population. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the lived experiences of teachers of the deaf using PBL to build HOTS with DHH students in the dimensions of pedagogy, product, and process. A self-designed conceptual framework called …

Exploring The Use Of Learner-Centered Instruction With English Language Learners In Social Studies Classrooms, Taraneh Sabouri

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractLearner-centered instructional strategies in social studies are currently ineffective in meeting the learning needs of the ELL population in an urban school in the northeastern United States. Despite English language learner (ELL) supplemental instruction on Saturdays and evenings and professional development for teachers, strategies being used to deliver curriculum have had a marginal effect on learning for ELL students, and the local school board supported the importance of exploring this problem. The purpose of this instrumental case study was to explore the learner-centered instructional practices used at the study site and how teachers are using Weimer’s learner-centered framework to engage …

Early Childhood Educators’ Use Of Students’ Assessments For Data-Driven Decision Making, Brandy Shanice Jones

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The research problem addressed by this study is that educators do not know how students’ assessments are being used for data-driven decision making to plan for instruction and design curriculum. Data-driven decision making has been implemented throughout the Southeastern region of the United States for several years as part of public-school reform efforts. The purpose of this basic qualitative study with interviews was to explore how early childhood principals, academic coaches, and teachers used students’ assessment data for data-driven decision making to plan for instruction and design curriculum in two rural schools. This study addressed local concerns about how educators …

The Long-Term Effect Of Reading Recovery On Fourth Grade Reading Achievement, Stephany Renee Carr

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Reading Recovery is a first-grade literacy intervention program with notable short-term benefits, but there are sustainability studies that highlight inconclusive evidence of its enduring success. It was unclear if formerly enrolled Reading Recovery students continue to have long-term literacy skill retention after exiting the literacy intervention. The problem was essential to this rural district because Reading Recovery was costly to implement, and the literacy standardized test scores remained low. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if formerly enrolled Reading Recovery students had sustainable literacy skills. The theoretical framework was the literacy processing theory, which entails how emergent …

Teachers' Knowledge Of Dominie Reading And Writing Assessment Portfolio Word-Level Reading, Maxine Y. Kershaw

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is confusion among teachers in a school district in a southeastern state about the instructional use of the state-mandated Dominie assessment for word-level reading and phonemic awareness skills for kindergarten and first-grade students. Recent assessment data indicated that 20% of students tested in kindergarten and first grade needed remediation. The purpose of this qualitative, bounded case study of a primary school was to understand teachers' perceptions about using the Dominie assessment for instruction, and how these perceptions contribute to the decline in reading scores. Using constructivism as a conceptual framework, the research questions focused on the trends in students' …

The Spanish Adaptation Of The Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-2: Translation And Psychometric Analysis, Linda Sue Jackson, Steven Little, Angeleque Akin-Little

Walden Faculty and Staff Publications

Autism is an increasingly prevalent developmental neurological condition that manifests in pervasive impairments in social interaction, communication, and stereotypic behavior and interests. Early identification leads to positive long-term outcomes. At present, all standardized rating instruments are written in English; therefore, the purpose of the present study was to adapt the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-2 from English into Spanish using the state-of-the-art procedures described in the literature. The English instrument was translated into Spanish, back-translated into English, and then revised using an iterative process. The adapted instrument's psychometric qualities were substantiated. An alpha coefficient of .96 verified the adapted instrument's internal …

Indirect Feedback: A Dialoguing Approach To Assessment, Dimitrios Vlachopoulos, Ricardo Tejeiro, Anthony Edwards, Estefania Campos

Higher Learning Research Communications

Whilst there is consensus in the current literature that feedback plays a fundamental role to student performance and learning, there is also debate about what makes it effective. Particularly, some assessment instruments, like the National Student Survey in the United Kingdom, reveal that evaluation and feedback are systematically amongst the areas that students are less satisfied with. This paper aims to describe the ‘indirect feedback’ (IF) technique, which was utilised by the principle author in his previous tenure as a Professor at the University of Cadiz (Spain) and to reflect on how it can be applied to overcome some of …

Faculty Perspective On Competency Development In Higher Education: An International Study, Paloma Julia Velasco, Begoña Learreta, Claudia Kober, Irene Tan

Higher Learning Research Communications

The purpose of this research is to establish common ground on how faculty development should be instituted and the needs it should address on an international level, with its major focus being the development of competencies. A survey was developed and distributed to a sample of 764 university teaching professionals. Results show that 90% find that it is either important or very important to develop competencies in higher education, and that 73% find they are well or very well trained in developing and assessing competencies, particularly with regard to applying theoretical knowledge in practice, teamwork, and oral and written communication …