Education Commons^™

Blended Learning Motivation Support At The Saudi Electronic University: Utilizing Self-Determination Theory, Mona Alenezi

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Blended learning has been implemented in different designs and significantly impacted the learning process. It has been reported that students learned more when online classes were added to traditional courses, and it improved student interaction and satisfaction. In Saudi Arabia, more research is needed to understand the challenges and implementation of blended learning, because it is becoming more popular. This study aimed to use self-determination theory to examine psychological needs satisfaction in blended-learning courses at Saudi Electronic University. The study used the attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction (ARCS) instructional design approach to investigate the level of student motivation in blended …

Association Among Select Conditions For Learning At The School Level, Academic Attainment, And Academic Growth In Reading, Cederrall Petties

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

INTRODUCTION: School climate data are provided to Illinois schools to help educators foster a school culture that ensures healthy social-emotional development for all students, including those with low social-economic status, disabilities, and a dominant language that is not English. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the relationship between reading attainment and growth and school climate. METHODS: This exploratory correlational study investigated the association between school reading attainment and growth data and school climate data. RESULTS: Highlight findings of the study revealed that schools with a high percent of low SES students and students with IEPs showed that 66% of the …

Black Male Sense Of Belonging At Predominantly White Institutions, Christopher M.D. Mitchell

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation is to identify the sense of belonging of Black male students attending predominantly White institutions (PWIs). In many cases, Black males feel they do not belong in collegiate environments in the United States. Thirty-nine Black males attending a mid-sized Midwestern university were surveyed using the Basic Psychological Needs Satisfactions and Frustrations Survey and the College Persistence Questionnaire. One interesting result was a significant correlation between social integration and relatedness satisfaction, indicating Black males feel like they belong in the collegiate environment when they are integrated socially with students and faculty who look like them. This …

Examining Teaching Styles And Classroom Management Through The Lens Of Self-Determination Theory: Implications For Race, Culture And Discipline, Peter J. Cunningham

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Background/Purpose: Historical and contemporary research has clearly demonstrated that racial and cultural minority students experience discrepant school discipline when compared to their White peers, which leads to profound negative outcomes (Wu et al., 1980; Skiba et al., 2011; Fireman & Wang, 2010, Peguero & Shekarkhar,2011; Skiba et al., 2011; Rocque & Paternoster, 2011; Bates & Glick, 2013; Bal, Betters-Bubon, & Fish, 2019). While a number of steps have been taken to address this discrepancy, Self-Determination Theory (SDT), and specifically the Basic Psychological Needs Mini-Theory (BPNT), can potentially inform teaching styles that could be used to increase motivation and engagement for …

Changing The Narrative Of Disengagement: Exploring Academic Identity Formation For Non-Ethno-European Students, Luis E. Lopez

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic and the changing demographics of the American identity have drawn attention to the necessity of reforming the Ethno-European education system to meet the needs of a diverse student population. If the educational landscape is to be transformed to meet the needs of a growing non-Ethno-European student population, more research is needed to explore factors that increase non-Ethno-European students’ academic engagement. This research attempted to identify individual and systemic factors contributing to non-Ethno-European students’ academic engagement during secondary education. This exploration began by outlining the role a cohesive identity continuum has on education engagement for non-Ethno-European students. Antecedent …

Student Perceptions Of Racial-Ethnic Socialization And Outcomes Across Race And Gender, Megan Gilbertson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In an increasingly diverse nation, calls for education that is culturally relevant has become salient, and student perceptions of school-based racial-ethnic socialization (SRE socialization) provides insight toward how cultural messages are being interpreted by students. Schools and educators that adopt culturally relevant pedagogy have been shown to benefit students, by increasing positive outcomes, such as grades, school attendance, and school belonging, while decreasing negative outcomes, such as school dropout. Culturally relevant practices have been increasingly included in teacher competencies and codified into law, though less is understood about how outcomes may be differential across racial groups and genders. The current …

Collective Teacher Efficacy And Its Enabling Conditions: Measurement And Associations, Christine Marie Anderson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Background/Purpose: Over two decades of research has demonstrated that collective teacher efficacy has a significant effect on student learning, and numerous studies have explored environmental variables related to high levels of collective teacher efficacy (Donohoo, 2018, Donohoo et al., 2020; Eells, 2011; Hattie, 2016). Donohoo et al.’s (2020) enabling conditions for collective teacher efficacy (EC-CTES) propose a synthesized framework educational practitioners can implement to foster collective teacher efficacy in their schools. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the validity of Donohoo et al.’s (2020) emerging EC-CTES and evaluate the strength and direction of its relationship to measures …

Understanding Prosocial Teasing In Early Adolescence, Kristina Wiemer

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Prosocial teasing is not well known or understood by educators. Prosocial teasing is intentional but playful verbal and non-verbal provocation meant to be taken non-literally by the target of the tease (Keltner et al., 2001) and is not an uncommon experience for students to have (Barnett et al., 2004). While much research has been conducted on social and emotional skills (Nix et al., 2013; Smith & Low, 2013), there is still a gap in the literature looking at how these skills relate to prosocial teasing. The current study examined and described middle school students’ use of prosocial teasing and their …

Knowledge To Support Reading And Writing Among Teachers Of Students Who Are Blind Or Visually Impaired, Nosheen Gul

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to produce two manuscripts and a conference paper reporting on analyses of data from a survey that investigated the knowledge, beliefs, and self-perceptions of 236 teachers of students who are blind or visually impaired (TSBVIs) with regard to literacy instruction. The first manuscript investigated the linguistic awareness and dyslexia beliefs of TSBVIs, and the relation of these factors to demographic characteristics and teacher training. With regards to linguistic awareness, results indicated no association with the number of courses TSBVIs had taken on teaching reading to students who are blind or visually impaired, highest degree …

Black Women And Identity Development: Educational Experiences Of Black Women And Their Motivation To Persist, Anne Marie Edwards

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores the impact of educational experiences on the identity development of undergraduate Black women attending a predominantly White institution. The dissertation was organized into three chapters. Chapter 1 is a literature review for publication. Chapter 2 is a research study for publication and Chapter 3 is a multi-media project that highlights the narratives of Black women in their own voices. In Chapter 1, I present a literature review that documents published works centering on Black women and identity development. The first purpose of the review of literature is to provide a timeline of research on Black women and …

The Use Of Technology In Bilingual Elementary Settings To Involve Hispanic Families, José Antonio Moya Roda

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Research has shown that parental involvement serves as a protective factor for students whose families lack financial and educational resources. Hispanic parents often find barriers at school that prevent them from participating in school-based activities such as communication problems, lack of time to go to the school at prescribed times, and cultural norms about classroom visits. With social networking services (SNS) like SeeSaw, which are similar to traditional social media like Facebook, now available to schools, Hispanic parents have the opportunity of observing the students in their educational context through videos and photos posted on these SNSs. These opportunities are …

Untwining Threads: Second Wave Hmong Parents’ Conceptualizations Of Ways To Support Their Adolescent Children’S Education, Mao Sea Lee

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This research identifies the support systems for adolescents’ education within the second wave Hmong refugee family setting. The study examines the parents’ perspectives on their own support systems for their adolescents’ education. The work focuses on studying both the instrumental support and psychological care these parents provide their teenage children and interprets why these parents choose to provide these resources. Studying these parents’ ways of supporting their adolescents provided a more in-depth understanding of why these recent refugee parents choose to invest of their resources to their adolescents’ education and, subsequently, what education means to them. The research also brought …

Qualitative Perspectives On The Strange Trails Of Persistence In Stem, Erika Johanna Zocher

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In 2019, a Midwestern state university was awarded a $1 million NSF S-STEM grant to support scholarships for academically gifted, Pell Grant-eligible undergraduates enrolled in one of six designated STEM majors. Educational research was also funded by this grant, with the goal of identifying and contextualizing supports and challenges that impact persistence in STEM within the setting of a near-peer-mentored social support group during the fall of 2019. The purpose of this group was to provide social support and foster a sense of belonging for the twelve scholars. Such support is important for guiding students towards personal development and degree …

Bully Participant Role Behavior And Social Support From Teachers And Classmates: A Longitudinal Conditional Process Analysis, Logan Riffle

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Youth are involved in a range of bullying-related behaviors. Unfortunately, engagement in such behavior is associated with a variety of poor outcomes and thus it is important to understand the mechanisms behind this phenomenon as well as associated variables such as perceived teacher support and classmate support, as both types of support have been associated with engagement in bullying situations. Using Bronfenbrenner’s Social Ecological Model (Bronfenbrenner, 1977) as a backdrop, the aim of the current study was to investigate the longitudinal associations between bullying participant role behavior and perceived support from teachers and classmates. Specifically, this study examined the mediating …

Temporal Contiguity And Verbal Redundancy In Online Instruction: Examining Boundary Conditions For Multimedia Learning, Hal Hinderliter

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning has enjoyed a prominent role in guiding the development of online instruction, but recent research has proposed boundary conditions for some of its key principles. Moreno and Mayer advanced the possibility of a reverse redundancy effect when narration and fully redundant on-screen text are presented in a temporally contiguous manner. The current study investigated the interaction and main effects of temporal contiguity and verbal redundancy by randomly assigning university students to one of four narrated text-only online lectures. Existing knowledge of the topic of instruction, information literacy, was assessed using a 15-question selected-response instrument …

A Phenomenological Study Of First-Generation Latin@ Community College Students As They Successfully Persist In College, Michelé Elaine Smith

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Research has shown that community colleges are essential to the economic development of the communities they serve; therefore, it is imperative attention be given to ensuring the academic success of today’s fastest growing college population: first-generation Latin@ students. This study was founded on the principle that understanding the supports (experiences that decrease individual stress levels), challenges (experiences that increase individual stress levels), and coping strategies (behaviors used by the individual to relieve stress) described by first-generation Latin@ community college students who successfully persist in college will provide valuable information for reform efforts in higher education for all students.

Utilizing the …

Student And Teacher Response To Formative Assessment Feedback In Eighth-Grade Mathematics: A Design Experiment, Desiree Dawn Rones

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Formative assessment is a tool for learning that virtually every educator uses in the classroom to some extent. While teachers may be motivated to use formative assessment for a variety of reasons, its intended purpose is to be a tool for both teachers and students for teaching and learning, respectively. However, many teachers, even those with the best intentions, misunderstand and misuse formative assessment, and may cause more harm than good in the way that it is implemented in the classroom. Three critical factors for student success in learning are mindset, goal orientation, and autonomy. Research has shown that students …

The Association Of Victimization And Depression: An Investigation Of The Implicated Factors Of Social Anxiety, Body Esteem, And Social Support, Jacqueline Jo Klossing

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Victimization is an experience that affects a substantial portion of the adolescent population, and it is well established that it is associated with a host of negative outcomes, including depression. While the relations between victimization and depression have been researched extensively, there are a number of factors that may contribute to this association. Furthermore, both internal and external factors can play a role. Internally, the unique attribute of being socially anxious as well as the perceptions one carries regarding their appearance (i.e., body esteem) are implicated as potential mediators between victimization and depression. Externally, the social support an adolescent perceives …

Exploring The Role Purpose-Related Experiences Can Play In Supporting Interest Development In Stem, Neil J. Naftzger

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The focus of this study was to explore how select practices and approaches with a self-transcendent orientation delivered in STEM-oriented summer learning programs serving middle-school aged youth were related to both (a) in-the-moment experiences that over time are believed to be related to possible continued engagement and interest in STEM and (b) changes in STEM-related youth outcomes during the span of the program. Using data obtained from surveys collected using the experience sampling method, activity leader interviews, video footage of programing, and pre-post youth surveys, a series of multilevel models were constructed to assess how activity leader practices that put …

An Exploration Of Gifted Adolescent Motivation In Academic Learning Experiences, Vicki Ann Phelps

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine gifted adolescents’ perspectives on motivation in regard to academic learning experiences. Participants were selected based on having at least one year of attendance at a midwestern private school for the gifted, having a full-scale IQ of at least 125, and being between the ages of 11-17. This study focused on six gifted adolescents who committed to participating in one personal interview, completing two student response journals, and submitting work samples with reflection tags that were found to be examples of motivational academic learning experiences.

Data from the interviews, student response …

Language Learning In The Virtual Wild: The Influence Of Emotions On Learning Another Language In Informal Virtual Environments, Iwona Barbara Lech

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study investigates learning a foreign language in informal virtual environments (the “virtual wild”) and learners’ emotions connected to the process. Evidence suggests that incidental foreign language contact in unstructured, virtual environments can enhance second language (L2) learning, and that the use of online informal learning of language activities with students learning English as an L2 results in higher fluency, lower error rates, and greater engagement compared to learning that occurs in a traditional classroom setting. The research on online informal learning of English (OILE) aligns with the newest research in linguistics asserting that language is learned through experience with …