Education Commons^™

Eighth Graders’ Approaches To Reading Analysis As Compared With The Pssa’S Application Of Common Core Standards, John Phillips

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

States administer standardized tests such as the PSSAs to students each year to assess student mastery of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Many argued the CCSS and close reading are reincarnations of new criticism (Tampio, 2018), but CCSS creators did not cite empirical research showing students approached literary analysis through close reading or new criticism (Dewitz & Graves, 2021; Hinchman & Moore, 2013). In opposition of new criticism, Rosenblatt (1978) argued for transactional reading with her reader response theory. In order to examine how students make meaning of texts, this study used a simultaneous mixed-methods QUAL-QUAL design (Morse, 2010) …

Equitable Funding For Trauma Informed Social Policy: A Critical Analysis Of The 2019-2020 Pennsylvania Department Of Education School Safety And Security Grant Program, Heather Bickley

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

This study is a critical analysis of the funding distribution of the 2019-2020 Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) School Safety and Security Grant (SSSG) to identify if there is evidence of inequity in the grant's funding distribution. It used a theoretical framework that includes a transformative paradigm with trauma informed social policy as a theoretical lens, with the conceptual lenses education debt and distributive justice, applied to a concurrent mixed methods design. The research followed a QuantCrit methodology, and the features of a critical policy analysis were used to present the findings.

The quantitative tests found several significant …

Transformative Social Emotional Learning: A Call To Heal The Effects Of Racial Trauma On Identity And Self-Efficacy, Elizabeth Trostle

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Growing up I was never a child that loved school. I fell in love with learning in environments that did not look or feel like classrooms. And in 2005 I learned that I had a passion for learning about pedagogy. I entered the classroom again this time as a teacher, ready to engage students in learning. What I was offered was curriculum and learning standards that left little room for experiences. Despite my efforts, and after a decade of experience, I was still baffled by the resistance to learning.

I wanted to understand this because I saw that education—when you …

Rising With Joy: Re-Defining The Meaning Of School Success, Eric Middleton

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Throughout this thesis, I will be discussing some of the pressure and stresses placed upon educators in the traditional school setting in America. Under an educational system that is about rigid routine and control, I examine the ill effects that come from a lack of creativity and autonomy. My overall goal throughout the thesis is to define what joy looks like for our students and staff. I conclude with a program proposal that links the concepts of free play, movement through wandering, and mental wellness to building a better community.