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Full-Text Articles in Education

Motivation, Learning Strategies, And Language Competency In A Technology Facilitated Chinese As A Second Language Classroom, Xiongyi Liu, Lih-Ching Chen Wang Dec 2017

Motivation, Learning Strategies, And Language Competency In A Technology Facilitated Chinese As A Second Language Classroom, Xiongyi Liu, Lih-Ching Chen Wang

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

The present study examines the effectiveness of a game-based mobile technology application Kahoot on the motivation and language competency of high school student learning Chinese as a second language, and the relationship among student motivation, learning strategy use, and language competency in such a technology-facilitated classroom. Data was collected using pre and post surveys from a class of 18 students taught by a teacher candidate in a Chinese teaching licensure program at a state university. The results indicate significant student improvements in two areas of Chinese language learning: reading and speaking, though no significant difference was found in the areas …


Student Engagement: An Assessment Of Motivation Processes During Late Elementary School, Christine A. Akagi Nov 2017

Student Engagement: An Assessment Of Motivation Processes During Late Elementary School, Christine A. Akagi

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Based in Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Effectance Theories, this correlational study of student engagement assessed the impacts of basic psychological need satisfaction upon engagement in the context of prior achievement during late elementary school. The purpose of the study is to offer another tool for educators to use as they continue personalizing interventions. Multiple regression analyses assessed the predictive value of prior achievement levels alongside present satisfaction levels of each basic psychological need – autonomy, competence, and relatedness – upon engagement. In post-hoc analyses, The Johnson-Neyman technique was also used for the purpose of determining regions of significance across the …


Improving Second Language Lexical Acquisition Through Personalization And Contextualization: A Look At Intrinsic Cognitive Load Reduction Strategies, Curtis Kleinman Jul 2017

Improving Second Language Lexical Acquisition Through Personalization And Contextualization: A Look At Intrinsic Cognitive Load Reduction Strategies, Curtis Kleinman

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

Cognitive load reduction strategies traditionally seek to reduce the amount of extraneous mental effort required of the learner. Researchers, through effective instructional design, seek to eliminate load-causing agents that are extraneous to the learning topic at hand. However, cognitive load theory research has now shifted to also include the exploration of strategies that seek to reduce the inherent complexities of the target topic itself. The current study seeks to apply two such intrinsic cognitive load reduction strategies—personalization and contextualization. Previous research suggests that cognitive load can be reduced by personalizing the learning environment, which serves to meet the interests of …


Motivating Students With Different Needs, Elizabeth L. Boyd May 2017

Motivating Students With Different Needs, Elizabeth L. Boyd

Honors College Theses

The study that was conducted focused on the similarities and differences in the way the teachers of gifted students, the teachers of students with special needs, and the teachers who teach on­-level students, motivate their students. The teachers that were interviewed will teach students from one or more of the different ability levels, in order to achieve a range of data. The gap that this research filled is the more specific and detailed ways that teachers believe can be used to motivate students and what methods work across multiple ability levels. Studies have shown that teachers have an exceptional influence …


Effects Of Grading On Student Learning And Alternative Assessment Strategies, Roxanna M. Krawczyk May 2017

Effects Of Grading On Student Learning And Alternative Assessment Strategies, Roxanna M. Krawczyk

Masters of Arts in Education Action Research Papers

The purpose of this study was to investigate what effect an alternative assessment strategy would have on students’ engagement, motivation, and overall learning in an urban, private Montessori middle school program located in the Midwest. Two teachers and 13 students participated in two phases (one social studies and one science unit) over the course of six weeks. Teacher-assigned grades on class and homework were removed and replaced with student-determined final grades based on self-assessment using collaboratively created rubrics and individual portfolios. Students kept daily learning logs and completed a pre- and post-unit survey designed to measure their level of engagement, …


More Bang For Your Buck: Bolstering Learning Via Refutation Text With Refutation-Based Elaborated Feedback, Jacqueline R. Cordova May 2017

More Bang For Your Buck: Bolstering Learning Via Refutation Text With Refutation-Based Elaborated Feedback, Jacqueline R. Cordova

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The current study examines the effects of refutation text and refutation-based elaborated feedback on conceptual understanding, self-efficacy, interest, beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge, within the context of learning about climate change. The study also tests whether elaborated feedback moderates the refutation text effect through an interaction. One hundred and fifty nine undergraduate students were recruited to participate in this study, which was administered via computer. They completed measures of their self-efficacy and interest in learning about climate change, as well as climate change beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge. Approximately half of the participants read a refutation text and half read a comparison …


So It’S Not Like The Movies? An Analysis Of The Links Between Popular Culture, Motivation And Expectations In First-Year College Students, Kelle Snow May 2017

So It’S Not Like The Movies? An Analysis Of The Links Between Popular Culture, Motivation And Expectations In First-Year College Students, Kelle Snow

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The rising concern regarding the graduation rates of university students in the United States has led to research being conducted in order to establish possible relationships between environmental factors and the high attrition rates for first-generation college students pursuing a Bachelor’s degree at a four-year university. One factor to be examined is the portrayal of higher education in popular culture and the impact this has on students’ perceptions, and therefore motivation and expectations, when entering into a four-year program at a university. This study seeks to empirically identify if any such connection exists between the portrayal of higher education in …


An Inventory Of Selected Mentor And Protégé Motivational And Effectiveness Characteristics At The United States Air Force Academy (Usafa), David Huston Apr 2017

An Inventory Of Selected Mentor And Protégé Motivational And Effectiveness Characteristics At The United States Air Force Academy (Usafa), David Huston

Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the mentoring culture at USAFA in terms of selected mentor and protégé motivational and effectiveness characteristics of faculty and administrative personnel (referred to as permanent party members) (mentors) and cadets (protégés). Results offer evidence which support the presence of a somewhat healthy culture in that those who indicated they were currently mentoring cadets were more generative, altruistic, and wanted to mentor cadets more compared to those who indicated they were not mentoring cadets. However, those who were currently mentoring cadets did not necessarily possess better emotional intelligence compared to non-mentors. Also, cadets …


Individual And Intra-Individual Differences In Interest During Instrumental Music Classes In Suburban High Schools, Beth Ann Turner Apr 2017

Individual And Intra-Individual Differences In Interest During Instrumental Music Classes In Suburban High Schools, Beth Ann Turner

Doctoral Dissertations

Individual differences in interest (how students’ interest differs from one another in response to the same experiences) and intra-individual differences in interest (how each student’s interest changes across different experiences) are theorized to play a part in a complex system of interactions between students, lesson content, and educational context. In this study, 360 students from two suburban high school instrumental programs in Northern California rated an average of 12 classroom tasks and music selections on the dimensions of interest, meaning, involvement, complexity, and comprehension. Expected relationships between interest and the other variables were informed by literature on situational interest in …


Student Perceptions Of Type Ii Alternative School Experiences: A Phenomenological Investigation Of Motivational Factors That Influence Persistence Toward Graduation, Michael Barrett Mar 2017

Student Perceptions Of Type Ii Alternative School Experiences: A Phenomenological Investigation Of Motivational Factors That Influence Persistence Toward Graduation, Michael Barrett

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to investigate how high school students described their experiences attending a Type II alternative school (geared toward students with behavioral problems and poor student attendance) in Central Georgia and the factors that motivated them to persist to graduation. The overarching research question was: How do high school graduates describe their experiences attending an alternative school in Central Georgia that motivated them to persist toward graduation? Schein’s organizational culture model, Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs served as the conceptual framework. Participants included eight students who had previously attended …


Academic Help-Seeking Behaviors In Young Children, Lindsey Nelson Jan 2017

Academic Help-Seeking Behaviors In Young Children, Lindsey Nelson

Human Development Honors Papers

Private speech and help-seeking behaviors have found new traction through Zimmerman’s conceptualization of self-regulated learners as “metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally active participants in their learning….and are aware when they know a fact or possess a skill and when they do not and, unlike passive classmates proactively seek out information when needed and take necessary steps to master it” (1990, p. 4). The current study is a follow-up of Metacognitive processes in Development [MinD], through which researchers Lindsey Nelson and Professor Loren Marulis analyzed metacognitive skills (i.e., knowledge and behavior) using a puzzle task at the Connecticut College Children’s Program Lab …


One In Eight: Deciding To Pursue A College-Going Possible Self In A High-Poverty High School, David B. Naff Jan 2017

One In Eight: Deciding To Pursue A College-Going Possible Self In A High-Poverty High School, David B. Naff

Theses and Dissertations

There is considerable research evidence suggesting that low-income, racial minority students value education and aspire for postsecondary educational attainment (Bloom, 2007; Destin & Oyserman, 2009; Wigfield & Eccles, 2002). However, their performance in school often does not align with those values and ambitions, as these students tend to underachieve in comparison with their higher-income, non-minority peers (Reardon, 2011), with particular gaps found in those attending schools of concentrated poverty (Rowan, 2011). This gap between educational ambition and attainment suggests that the experience of living and going to school in a high-poverty context could be related to the motivational processes driving …


Metacognitive Reading And Study Strategies And Academic Achievement Of University Students With And Without A History Of Reading Difficulties, Bradley W. Bergey Jan 2017

Metacognitive Reading And Study Strategies And Academic Achievement Of University Students With And Without A History Of Reading Difficulties, Bradley W. Bergey

Publications and Research

University students who report a history of reading difficulties have been demonstrated to have poorer word reading and reading comprehension skills than their peers; yet, without a diagnosed learning disability, these students do not have access to the same support services, potentially placing them at academic risk. This study provides a comprehensive investigation of first-year academic achievement for students with a history of reading difficulties (n = 244) compared to students with no such history (n = 603). We also examine reported use of metacognitive reading and study strategies and their relations with GPA. Results indicate that students with a …


Relative Importance Of Anxiety And Motivational Variables In Predicting Language Achievement For College Learners Of Chinese, Qi Wang Jan 2017

Relative Importance Of Anxiety And Motivational Variables In Predicting Language Achievement For College Learners Of Chinese, Qi Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

The growing worldwide enthusiasm in learning Chinese calls for more research on learner characteristics in Chinese classrooms to better inform teaching practice. Language anxiety, which falls under the umbrella of learner’s affect, is considered an important affective aspect that negatively influences language learning and acquisition. As research on language anxiety mainly focused on the learning of Western languages, this study constitutes an initial attempt to investigate anxiety in the learning of Chinese through the testing of a structural model. The purpose of the study was to examine the relative importance of language anxiety in predicting Chinese achievement when motivation, integrativeness, …


Academic Engagement, Motivation, Self-Regulation, And Achievement Of Georgia Southern University Sophomore Students, John O. Lemay Iv Jan 2017

Academic Engagement, Motivation, Self-Regulation, And Achievement Of Georgia Southern University Sophomore Students, John O. Lemay Iv

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown that engagement, motivation, self-regulation, and their individual effects on student achievement are established factors that influence college students’ success. However, what is less clear are these variables’ relationships and their collective influence on achievement. Since students face unique trials as they persist through college, consideration of these relationships and their effect on the achievement of all students is necessary. There is a widening achievement gap between sexes; females have now passed males in enrollment, persistence, and graduation rates. Previous research in this area has been largely centered on undergraduate female students in their freshman year, but the …