Education Commons^™

Positioning Of English Language Learners And Its Power On Classroom Learning Opportunities And Interactions, Hawraa Nafea Hameed Alzouwain

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this qualitative study, the researcher investigated four aspects of positioning used by teacher and ESL students in a mid-south state of the United States. This study was based on the Positioning Theory of Davies and Harré (1990). The study aimed to explore various types of positioning used by the participants and how they impacted social interactions among the students and between them and their teacher. The researcher used four questions to outline the scope of the research, focused on: 1) how ELLs’ different positioning in the ESL classroom promoted or limited their learning opportunities; 2) how the ELL teacher …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Motor Planning With Core Vocabulary: A Behavior Analytic Account, Alison Judith Karnes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) increases, it is important for practitioners to continue to improve evidence-based practices (EBP) for the treatment of ASD symptoms (i.e., impairments in social communication and repetitive behaviors and restricted interests; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013). It is estimated that 30-50% of individuals with autism do not acquire functional speech (Wodka, Mathy, & Kalb, 2013). These individuals would make appropriate candidates for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC; Mirenda, 2003). One form of AAC is the speech-generating device (SGD). Over the last ten years, tablet-based technologies including iPad minisⓇ have been emphasized in the …

To And Through College: Investigating Attitudes Towards, Enrollment In, And Graduation From College, Elise Swanson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Postsecondary access and degree completion are increasingly important concerns for individuals and policymakers. This dissertation presents evidence on three distinct strategies for increasing students’ level of preparedness for higher education, rates of postsecondary enrollment, and rates of postsecondary degree completion. The first is an intervention aimed at increasing eighth-grade students’ familiarity with college life. Results from an experimental study indicate that students assigned to participate in campus visits demonstrate higher levels of knowledge about college, are more likely to have conversations with school personnel about college, put forth higher levels of effort while completing a college-related survey, and express a …

Project Luminous: An E-Textiles Workshop Study To Increase Science Technology Engineering Mathematics/Science Technology Engineering Art Mathematics Interest In Middle School Girls, India Semone Callahan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this research study, young middle schoolers engaged in a stimulating workshop that seamlessly merged fashion with technology and electrical engineering. Students learned how to use simple hand sewing skills to create wearable-tech items using conductive thread, sewable LED lights, and sewable battery packs. The objective of the study was to increase young women’s interest in Science Technology Engineering Mathematics/Science Technology Engineering Art Mathematics (STEM/STEAM).

Forty-eight middle school girls spent a day learning about the basics of e-textiles and building working products using their new knowledge. The day is split into three lessons. In lesson one students build a simple …

Effects Of Critical Reflection On University Students’ Cognitive Achievement In Agricultural Mechanization, Patterson P. Hilaire

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Experiential learning continues to play a vital role in agricultural education and mechanization laboratories (Shoulders & Myers, 2013). An essential component of experiential learning is critical reflection. Critical reflection helps students process and construct meaning from laboratory experiences. A study conducted by Shoulders and Myers (2013) revealed that only 15.4% of the agricultural educators the researchers interviewed incorporated reflective practices laboratory experiences. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of critical reflection on students’ achievement following five agricultural mechanization laboratory activities. The results from this study revealed that critical reflection had a consistently positive effect on immediate …

Heterogeneous Impacts Across Schools In The First Four Years Of The Louisiana Scholarship Program, Patrick J. Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) is a school voucher initiative that offers publicly- funded scholarships to students from economically-disadvantaged families to attend a participating private school of their choice. While school choice theory suggests that market- based reforms such as the LSP should improve student outcomes, experimental evaluations of the program instead find significant negative effects of the program on math and reading scores after its first year. Those effects diminish to insignificant differences by the end of the third year before becoming negative again in the fourth year. Our study builds on previous work with an exploratory analysis of …

Do You Get Cream With Your Choice? Characteristics Of Students Who Moved Into Or Out Of The Louisiana Scholarship Program, Yujie Sude, Patrick J. Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Private school choice programs often are accused of failing to serve disadvantaged students. Critics claim that participating private schools “skim the cream off the top” by admitting only the best students and “push out” students who are the most difficult to teach. This study tests these student selection hypotheses in the context of the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP). We find LSP applicants are less advantaged than their public school peers regarding their family socioeconomic status and initial test scores. No consistent evidence indicates that the LSP private schools are “skimming the cream” or “pushing out” students based on their family …

The Effects Of The Louisiana Scholarship Program On Student Achievement After Four Years, Jonathan Mills, Patrick J. Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) offers publicly-funded vouchers to students in low-performing schools with family income no greater than 250 percent of the poverty line, allowing them to enroll in participating private schools. Established in 2008 as a pilot program in New Orleans, the LSP was expanded statewide in 2012. In this study, we estimate the achievement impacts of ever using an LSP voucher to enroll in one’s first-choice private school over the four year period spanning from 2012-13 (Year 1) through 2015-16 (Year 4). In contrast to our previous research, which indicated large initial negative achievement effects of the …

The Effect Of The Louisiana Scholarship Program On College Entrance, Heidi Holmes Erickson, Jonathan Mills, Patrick J. Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) is a private school voucher program available to families who have incomes no greater than 250 percent of the federal poverty line and whose children attend a low performing public school. It began as a pilot program in New Orleans in 2008 and was expanded statewide in 2012. Previous evaluations of the LSP generally found negative impacts of the program on math and English language arts test scores. In this study, we evaluate the effects of the program on college enrollment for the first cohort of students eligible to enter college by 2017-18. Using lottery …

A Good Investment: The Updated Productivity Of Public Charter Schools In Eight U.S. Cities, Corey Deangelis, Patrick J, Wolf, Larry Maloney, Jay May

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

In 2015-16, the United states spent over $660 billion on its public education system in hopes of providing children with greater opportunities to excel academically and to improve their life trajectories. While public education dollars have risen at a relatively fast pace historically, future challenges, including underfunded pension liabilities, suggest policymakers should economize wherever possible. Meanwhile, the number of public charter schools has increased exponentially. from 1991 to 2018, charter school legislation passed in 44 states and the nation’s capital, and student enrollment in charters increased to around 3.2 million. Since educational resources are limited, we examine which types of …

Assessing The Impact Of Holocaust Education On Adolescents’ Civic Values: Experimental Evidence From Arkansas, Mathew Lee, Molly I. Beck

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

American adults overwhelmingly agree that the Holocaust should be taught in schools, yet few studies investigate the potential benefits of Holocaust education. We evaluate the impact of Holocaust education on several civic outcomes, including “upstander” efficacy (willingness to intervene on behalf of others), likelihood of exercising civil disobedience, empathy for the suffering of others, and tolerance of others with different values and lifestyles. We recruit students from two local high schools and randomize access to the Arkansas Holocaust Education Conference, where students have the chance to hear from a Holocaust survivor and to participate in breakout sessions with leading Holocaust …

The Effects Of Regulations On Private School Choice Program Participation: Experimental Evidence From California And New York, Corey Deangelis, Lindsey Burke, Patrick J. Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Although private school voucher programs provide subsidies to students for tuition and other education-related costs, private school leaders weigh program participation against any associated regulatory costs. The higher the regulatory costs of participation, the less likely a private school is to participate in a school voucher program. Since we do not know with certainty which regulations will be viewed by school leaders as more or less costly, we explore whether specific regulations that are common to private school choice programs do or do not deter likely voucher program participation.

We use surveys to randomly assign different regulations to 4,825 private …

A Longitudinal Analysis Of Volunteerism Activities For Individuals Educated In Public And Private Schools, Albert Chang, David Sikkink

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Previous studies offer evidence that U.S. public and private high schools differentially influence volunteerism in adolescence. However, these studies are typically cross-sectional and only consider whether the individual volunteered or not. We address patterns of volunteering from adolescence into adulthood and the kind of volunteering activity in which individuals engage. We also theorize that distinctive civic values within public and private schools together with their respective organizational ties to other civic organizations channel students into particular volunteering activities. Relying on a longitudinal, nationally-representative sample of U.S. adolescents, we track volunteering from adolescence into young adulthood and identify the types of …

Private School Choice And Character: More Evidence From Milwaukee, Corey Deangelis, Patrick J. Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

We examine the effects of Milwaukee’s school voucher program on adult criminal activity and paternity suits. Using matched student-level data, we find that exposure to the program in 8th or 9th grade predicts lower rates of conviction for criminal activity and lower rates of paternity suits by ages 25 to 28. Specifically, exposure to the MPCP is associated with a reduction of around 53 percent in drug convictions, 86 percent in property damage convictions, and 38 percent in paternity suits. The program effects tend to be largest for males and students with lower levels of academic achievement at baseline.

Does Art Make You Smart? A Longitudinal Experiment Of The Effects Of Multiple Arts- Focused Field Trips, Heidi Holmes Erickson, Jay Greene, Angela Watson, Molly I. Beck

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

This paper presents second year results from the first ever multi-visit, longitudinal experiment on the benefits from arts-focused field trips. Students in fourth and fifth grades in ten elementary schools in a large urban school district were randomly assigned to receive three arts-related field trips throughout the school year, including an art museum, a live theater production, and a symphony performance or to serve as a control. We find that treatment students exhibit higher levels of school engagement as measured by students’ behavioral infractions and self-reported engagement. We also find that treatment students perform significantly better on their end of …

Altered Attitudes And Actions: Social-Emotional Effects Of Multiple Arts Field Trips, Angela Watson, Jay Greene, Heidi Holmes Erickson, Molly Beck

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

In recent decades, institutions, teachers, and students report a decline in field trip attendance. The impact of this decline on educational and societal outcomes such as social-emotional skill acquisition is unknown. Social-emotional learning (SEL) are skills thought to be important to life and relationship success and are associated with better long-term student outcomes. This study describes the results of the first-ever longitudinal experiment of the effects of multiple arts- related field trips on elementary school students of color in a large urban school district. Treated students attended field trips to an art museum, a live theater production, and a symphony …

An Evaluation Of The Educational Impact Of College Campus Visits:A Randomized Experiment, Elsie Swanson, Katherine Kopotic, Gema Zamarro, Jonathan Mills, Jay Greene, Gary Ritter

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

We hypothesize that a lack of experience with college poses a non-trivial barrier to college access for historically underrepresented students. We study whether visits to a college campus during the eighth grade can reduce these psychological barriers to college access. Using an experimental design, we study whether college visits affect students’ knowledge about college, postsecondary intentions, college-going behaviors, academic engagement, and ninth grade course enrollment decisions. We recruited 885 students across 15 schools who participated in our project during the academic year 2017-2018. We randomized students within schools to either a treatment or control condition. Students in the control condition …

Local Labor Market Conditions, Principals’ Leadership, Conscientiousness, And Beginning Teacher Turnover: A Study During The Great Recession, Dillon Fuchsman, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

An abundance of literature sheds light on which factors determine teacher turnover, but it has yet to consider the role that local labor market conditions may play in teachers’ turnover decisions and how these labor market conditions may influence the quality of teachers who might be retained. The effect of local labor market conditions on teacher turnover could be relevant especially in times of high economic instability like the Great Recession. To study the determinants of teacher turnover, we match the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study (BTLS) with local unemployment rates from the USC Great Recession Indicators Database (GRID). We also …