Education Commons^™

Student's Objectives And Achievement Strategies For Laborataory Work, Taylor M. Owings

Open Access Theses

In this study, we look at students' objectives and strategies for completing their objectives for undergraduate labs. Students across two universities and three levels of chemistry were surveyed at the beginning of the semester in the fall of 2012 using an open ended survey to identify the goals students had for the course. The students responses were coded and used to create a survey that went out to the same courses at the end of the fall semester. Using data from the fall of 2012, the survey was modified and data was collected in the fall of 2013 at one …

The Impact Of User Centered Design On Student Motivation, Craig T. Locker

Open Access Theses

There is a current push for STEM education within the U.S.; however current studies show that students' interest to pursue STEM fields is decreasing as they progress through high school. This lose in interest has shown to have a strong tie to students' perceived levels of motivation towards the subject. The question that this studied set out to answer was if user centered design (UCD) would affect students perceived level of motivation. For this study a treatment of UCD was compared to a traditional high school engineering design curriculum, with the goal to identify if UCD would have a positive …

Western Educational Longitudinal Study (Wels) Spring 2014 Follow-Up Survey Of Freshmen Who Entered In The Fall Of 2012: Descriptive Statistics, John M. Krieg, Beth Hartsoch, Linda D. (Linda Darlene) Clark, Chris Stark

Office of Institutional Effectiveness

The Spring 2014 Follow-Up Survey of Freshmen Who Entered Western in 2012 (2nd Year Survey) is part of a longitudinal effort to survey students with a goal to improve educational programs and provide self -assessment data. Together with the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, the Office of Survey Research (OSR) designed this survey in an attempt to shed light on the efficacy and satisfaction with first year and GUR programs. This particular survey also received input from other campus offices which provides opportunities for these offices to address their specific needs. The 2nd Year Survey consists of a mixture of …

Western Educational Longitudinal Study (Wels) Spring 2014 Follow-Up Survey Of Freshmen Who Entered Western In The Fall Of 2012, Descriptive Statistics, John M. Krieg, Beth Hartsoch, Linda D. (Linda Darlene) Clark, Chris Stark, Western Washington University. Office Of Survey Research

Office of Institutional Effectiveness

The Spring 2014 Follow-Up Survey of Freshmen Who Entered Western in 2012 (2nd Year Survey) is part of a longitudinal effort to survey students with a goal to improve educational programs and provide self -assessment data. Together with the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, the Office of Survey Research (OSR) designed this survey in an attempt to shed light on the efficacy and satisfaction with first year and GUR programs. This particular survey also received input from other campus offices which provides opportunities for these offices to address their specific needs.

The 2nd Year Survey consists of a mixture of …

Financing The Future: Australian Students’ Results In The Pisa 2012 Financial Literacy Assessment, Sue Thomson

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This report reveals that Australia is in the top five in the world’s first international assessment of young people’s financial literacy. Conducted in 2012 as part of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the OECD with support from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as the Australian Government agency responsible for financial literacy, the supplementary PISA financial literacy assessment measured 15-year-olds’ knowledge of personal finances and ability to apply it to financial problems. A total of 29 000 students from 18 countries and economies participated in the assessment, including approximately 3300 Australian students from 768 schools. According to …

Relations Between Teachers’ Motivation And Students’ Motivation: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective, Inok Ahn

Open Access Theses

There is little research that examines impact teachers' motivation on students' motivation due to sparse attention to teachers' motivation. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relations between teachers' motivation and students' motivation using self-determination theory. Participants were 697 5th and 6th students and 35 of their teachers in Seoul, South Korea. Students completed the questionnaires for motivation, basic psychological needs, and perceptions of teacher's instructional styles. Teachers also answered questionnaires about their own motivation. Multiple regression analyses were used to analyze the data. Teaching experience was controlled for throughout the analysis process due to its significant …

Politics Are Crushing The Standards, Dave Powell

Education Faculty Publications

The recent news that Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill to, in the parlance of the times, "repeal and replace" the common-core standards in her state was surprising, to say the least, notwithstanding a legal challenge to the repeal filed in the Oklahoma Supreme Court by parents, teachers, and state board of education members on June 25. Before Gov. Fallin was against the standards, she supported them. [excerpt]

Using Beginning-Of-Year Diagnostic Reading Measures To Predict Third Grade Comprehension Scores In Virginia, Todd Johnson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this correlational investigation is to examine the magnitude of the relationships between three diagnostic reading measures and scores obtained on the third grade Virginia SOL reading test. Specifically, this study investigated the relative utility of predictor variables against one another while also evaluating the strength of the model utilizing all three variables simultaneously. Grounded in the Simple View of Reading as outlined by Gough and Tunmer (1986), this study incorporated the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (or PALS), the STAR Reading Test, and the QRI-5 as independent variables. While each instrument has been the subject of previous investigations, …

Single Gender Language Arts Classes And The Impact On Achievement Of Males, Brock English

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this causal comparative research design was to analyze the relationship between Language Arts scale scores of elementary male students on the Mississippi Curriculum Test, Version 2 (MCT2) and the type of classroom, mixed-gender or single-gender. The study also analyzed the percentage of questions answered correctly on the MCT2 in the English Language Arts sub-categories of vocabulary, reading comprehension, writing, and grammar. Archival data of 222 students was used, 100 male students in single-gender classes and 122 students in mixed-gender classes. The study was conducted in an urban elementary public school with a diverse population in northeast Mississippi. …

Student Engagement And Academic Achievement In Technology Enhanced And Traditional Classroom Environments, Tomeko Johnson-Smith

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which student engagement and academic achievement were associated with exposure to different modes of instruction; specifically technology enhanced environments vs. traditional FACE-TO-FACE environments. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in October 2013 at a local community college in Charlotte, NC. The Class Level Survey of Student Engagement (CLASSE) was administered to collect valid and reliable variables relating to student engagement from a convenience sample consisting of 80 volunteers enrolled in the Medical Science and Science divisions. Other variables were collected using the Demographic Questionnaire, and the Instructional Environment Questionnaire. The …

The Effect Of Inquiry-Based, Hands-On Labs On Achievement In Middle School Science, Donna Miller

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to measure the difference in science achievement between students who had been taught with an inquiry-based, hands-on pedagogical approach and those who had not. Improving student academic achievement and standardized test scores is the major objective of teachers, parents, school administrators, government entities, and students themselves. One major barrier to this academic success in Georgia, and the entire United States, has been the paucity of success in middle level science classes. Many studies have been conducted to determine the learning approaches that will best enable students to not only acquire a deeper understanding …

Investigation Of Differences In Star Reading Scores For Second- And Third-Grade Students Who Received Differentiated Reading Instruction, Elizabeth Hearn

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This research study investigated the effects of teaching Response to Intervention curricula in second and third grades in a rural school district in Georgia. A causal-comparative design was used to compare scaled score gains of students who were taught using an RTI approach with curriculum available in How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3 (Walpole & McKenna, 2009) and students who were taught with other unidentified RTI curricula. Students in both groups participated in either Tier 2 or Tier 3 reading instruction in addition to Tier 1 regular classroom instruction. The STAR Enterprise Reading Test served as …

Negligence, Student Supervision, And School Business Officials, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

With a new school year on the horizon, the topic of adequate student supervision is once again on educators’ minds. Whether students are attending classes, playing in school yards, or participating in extracurricular sports or other activities, educators are at risk of liability for injuries that children sustain if officials fail to meet their duty to protect youngsters from unreasonable risks of harm.

Accordingly, awareness of the principles relating to the legal duty to supervise students adequately and the defenses to negligence can go a long way toward shielding school districts from liability. As evidenced by the representative cases cited …

Enrollment Report - Summer 2014, Uno Office Of Institutional Effectiveness

Enrollment Reports

The Enrollment Report provides administrative and delivery-site information on enrollment headcount and student credit hours, as well as the demographic characteristics of enrolled students. The purpose of this profile is to provide the undergraduate and graduate enrollments and student credit hour information by college or equivalent academic unit, class, gender and ethnicity.

The Relationship Between School-Wide Positive Behavior Support Implementation And Office Discipline Referrals At The Secondary Level, Isaac William Sooter

Dissertations

School Wide Positive Behavior Support (SW-PBS) is a current framework for schools to model their discipline strategies. SW-PBS has a framework built on identifying behaviors and predictors of their occurrence, routines to correct and prevent these problems, and implementation of these routines school wide to collect information to evaluate these strategies. Office discipline referrals were reviewed in the secondary school of Rural District 10 in Missouri from 2004-2013 to determine the significance between implementation of SW-PBS and the number of office discipline referrals. School climate was also studied in Rural District 10 as well as other secondary schools around the …

Case Study: The Impact Of Preschool On Kindergarten Developmental Reading Assessments, Sheila Moore

Dissertations

The focus of this comparative study was to examine the connection between attendance in preschool and kindergarten students’ literacy success as measured by the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA2+). Historical data were obtained from the DRA2+ scores of 1,080 kindergarten students in one Missouri school district for the 2010-2011, 2011-2012, 2012-2013 school years. The study was also used to determine the perceptions of kindergarten educators of the impact of preschool on their students. The following overarching question was: What difference exists when comparing the DRA2+ scores of kindergarten students who had a preschool experience and those who did not? Additionally, the …

The Effects Of Student Engagement On Retention: Comparing Male Undergraduate Stem Majors To Non-Stem Majors, Tourgee D. Simpson Jr.

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Researchers suggest certain benchmarks of student engagement (i.e., student-faculty interaction, level of academic challenge, enriching educational experiences, active and collaborative learning, and supportive campus environment) positively influence student success. This study investigated the relationship between student engagement and the retention of male, full-time undergraduate students in STEM majors by comparing male, full-time undergraduate students in select science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors to male, full-time undergraduate students in non-STEM majors to identify best practices to improve retention and increase degree completion among men in STEM fields.

Students were invited to participate in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). …

The Relationship Between Word Consciousness And Vocabulary Growth And Achievement In Fourth And Fifth Graders, Margaret M. Walsh

Dissertations

This study examined the relationship between word consciousness and vocabulary growth by analyzing the results from a local assessment, the Word Consciousness Assessment (WCA), as well as a standardized assessment, the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests. These data came from portions of a larger study, the Multifaceted Comprehensive Vocabulary Instructional Program for the Upper Elementary Grades, which relied on a formative design with no control group. The 142 fourth and fifth grade participants came from an elementary school located in the Midwest. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted to determine whether an increase in word consciousness occurred, a relationship between outcomes on …

The Effects Of Teachers' Teaching Styles And Experience On Elementary Students' Mathematical Achievement, Angela Stanford

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this causal comparative study was to determine if a statistically significant difference existed in the mathematical achievement of elementary students in classrooms led by teachers with different dominant teaching styles (Grasha, 1996) and varying years of teaching experience. Participants in this study included 29 upper elementary (grades 3-5) classroom teachers in an urban public school system located in Central Arkansas. Two one-way ANOVAs were used to compare the Arkansas Augmented Benchmark Examination's (AABE) mathematics scores of 855 students in upper elementary classrooms of teachers with varied teaching styles and years of teaching experience. A two-variable Chi-square analysis …

Mapping Reading From The Early Years To The End Of Primary School: Implications For The Assessment Of Reading In Australia And Beyond, Juliette Mendelovits

Juliette Mendelovits

No abstract provided.

Collaborative Assessments Of Learning Outcomes: Generating Positive Institutional Change, Jacob Pearce, Daniel Edwards

Dr Daniel Edwards

Insight into the development of higher education assessment collaborations in two fields (medical education and engineering education) is presented. These collaborations aim to improve and share assessment and assessment practice in order to enhance educational outcomes of students. This model is efficient and effective, can be applied nationally or internationally, and can generate positive institutional change around the globe.

Disability And Children’S Mental Health Through The Kidsmatter Lens, Katherine Dix, Paul Cahalan

Dr Katherine Dix

Can Engagement Be Compared? Measuring Academic Engagement For Comparison, Ling Tan, Xiaoxun Sun, Siek Toon Khoo

Dr Siek Toon Khoo

Student engagement is a reflection of active involvement in learning. In digital learning environment, research studies on engagement have been focused on detecting behavioral and psychological engagement indicators from the patterns of activities using feature engineering, but student engagement estimates were rarely compared across sessions or across domains of learning. This paper describes how this could be done by revisiting engagement instrument, diagnosing engagement indicators, estimating engagement parameters, and equating. This study illustrates how engagement reliability can be improved by refining engagement indictors. We demonstrated through DataShop data that student engagement levels can be compared across domains of learning.

Can Engagement Be Compared? Measuring Academic Engagement For Comparison, Ling Tan, Xiaoxun Sun, Siek Toon Khoo

Dr Xiaoxun Sun

Student engagement is a reflection of active involvement in learning. In digital learning environment, research studies on engagement have been focused on detecting behavioral and psychological engagement indicators from the patterns of activities using feature engineering, but student engagement estimates were rarely compared across sessions or across domains of learning. This paper describes how this could be done by revisiting engagement instrument, diagnosing engagement indicators, estimating engagement parameters, and equating. This study illustrates how engagement reliability can be improved by refining engagement indictors. We demonstrated through DataShop data that student engagement levels can be compared across domains of learning.

Can Engagement Be Compared? Measuring Academic Engagement For Comparison, Ling Tan, Xiaoxun Sun, Siek Toon Khoo

Dr Ling Tan

Student engagement is a reflection of active involvement in learning. In digital learning environment, research studies on engagement have been focused on detecting behavioral and psychological engagement indicators from the patterns of activities using feature engineering, but student engagement estimates were rarely compared across sessions or across domains of learning. This paper describes how this could be done by revisiting engagement instrument, diagnosing engagement indicators, estimating engagement parameters, and equating. This study illustrates how engagement reliability can be improved by refining engagement indictors. We demonstrated through DataShop data that student engagement levels can be compared across domains of learning.

Retention And Success Of Underrepresented Minorities In Stem At University Of Massachusetts Boston: A Pilot Study Of The Impact Of Freshman Success Communities, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Alvine Sangang, Liliana Mickle

Michael P. Johnson

Today’s college graduates are facing a complex world in which the demand for a sophisticated skill set is ever increasing; this is even more salient in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Therefore, the success of students majoring in STEM appears critical for meeting the market demand for such degrees. Unfortunately, current rates of success in STEM suggest that there are a number of challenges impeding STEM major completion, particularly for underrepresented minorities. In the academic year 2011, the share of underrepresented minorities (URM) receiving STEM degrees in the University of Massachusetts system was 8.7%. In the 15- …

Liberating Insight By Walking In Other People's Shoes, Gail Rathbun, Jane Leatherman, Rebecca Jensen

Rebecca S Jensen

The researchers framed this program evaluation project as an investigation of the influences on teaching practices of a teaching center program participants and non-participants. Changes in teaching practices and the motivations for these changes of fifteen randomly chosen faculty were studied. Session participants will develop and analyze brief case studies using abbreviated data sets and three of the methods that were used in the study. Through hands on analysis of data, session participants will enhance their ability to evaluate the conclusions drawn by the researchers and become familiar with useful analytical frameworks that they can use in their own research. …

The Relationship Between Professional Learning Communities And School Culture On Student Achievement, Shannon K. Gross

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the College of Education at Morehead State University by Shannon K. Gross on June 28, 2014.

Finance For All: The Impact Of Financial Literacy Training In Compulsory Secondary Education In Spain, Laura Hospido, Ernesto Villanueva, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

We estimate the impact on objective measures of financial literacy of a 10-hour financial education program among 15-year-old students in compulsory secondary schooling. We use a matched sample of students and teachers in Madrid and two different estimation strategies. Firstly, we use reweighting estimators to compare the performance in a test of financial knowledge of students in treatment and control schools. In another specification, we use school fixed-effect estimates of the effect of the course on changes in scores in tests of financial knowledge. The program increased treated students’ financial knowledge by between one-fourth and one-third of a standard deviation. …

Just Love: A Collaborative Evaluation Of A Faith-Based School-Family-Community Partnership Through The Voices Of The Children, Lynette M. Henry

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Faith-based school-family-community partnerships have been a federal mandate over the past decade, yet little has been written about the outcomes of these faith-based partnerships. A need exists to understand if the potential in these faith-based partnerships is indeed realized in positive outcomes for students and schools. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a faith-based school-family-community partnership, Just Love. Just Love is a faith-based school-family-community partnership between a large suburban church and a Title 1, urban elementary school, Charisma Elementary School (Charisma ES; pseudonym). It was implemented in what is considered a "failing school". Just Love's purpose was …