Education Commons^™

A Case Study Of Senior Students' Perceptions Of Factors That Shape Aspirations In One Low-Income Rural Iowa High School, Louise Elizabeth Esveld

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Rural Iowa high school graduates from districts enrolling fewer than 600 students are more likely than their more urban peers to be economically disadvantaged as measured by eligibility for free and reduced cost meals. They are also less likely to aspire to high levels of educational attainment. Over the last decade, the percentage of graduates from small, rural schools intending to pursue any postsecondary education or training has approached or exceeded the percentage in more urban districts. However, among rural graduates with postsecondary intentions, the ranks of those students planning to pursue a four-year degree or higher remain disproportionately thin. …

School-Based Family Counseling Practices: A National Survey Of School Counselors, School Psychologists, And School Social Workers, Karen Y. Whitmore

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Identifying School-Aged Children At-Risk To Develop An Eating Disorder, Natalie Jean Muth

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Current research supports that school-based eating disorder prevention programs have yielded unsuccessful results. Hypotheses presented in chapter one suggest failure to implement effective prevention programs are related to problematic screening attempts and a lack of focus on targeting prevention at the primary level. Chapter two outlines a review of literature analyzing eating disorder identification, history, prevalence, assessment and existing prevention programs. Chapter three describes the present study, which uses an eating disorder assessment instrument to screen a consenting sample of forth through twelfth graders. Results, presented in chapter four, suggest (a) that a significant number of students could benefit for …

School Climate, Culture, And Educators’ Beliefs And Practices In Motivation: An Exploratory Study, Sarah Galloway

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study seeks to examine one aspect of school climate, school culture, through the lens of achievement goal theory in order to link the broad construct of climate and educational practices. Achievement goal theory is a motivational theory that provides a framework for organizing and construing cognitive and affective responses to achievement related situations. An underlying assumption of the current study is that goal structures can positively influence school climate and lead to positive outcomes for students. Goal structures were investigated through educator perceptions of goal structures and educators self-reports of their educational practices. Overall, the 124 educators who responded …

A Qualitative Study Exploring The Perceptions Of Superintendents Concerning The Impact Of Tragedy And Disaster Upon The Role Of Their School Organization, Anthony G. Ingenito

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Self-Reported Personal Problems Of Adventist Academy Students, Ellen Marsh Crosby

Dissertations

Problem. Adolescence is a time fraught with many challenges. There are no current studies prior to this one for Adventist academy students concerning the whole range of their personal problems.

Method. A survey of students in 14 Adventist academies was conducted in the regular classroom setting using the Personal Problems Checklist for Adolescents (PPC-A). The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Data were tested with one-way, two-way, and, three-way ANOVA and correlation coefficients to determine differences between males and females, age groups 13/14 to 18/19, and in three different settings of day, boarding, and self-supporting Adventist …

Job Satisfaction And Organizational Commitment Among Teachers In Norway : A Comparative Study Of Selected Schools From Public And Private Educational Systems, Styrkår A. Dramstad

Dissertations

Problem. Recruiting teachers and motivating them to stay in their jobs represents a major educational challenge in Norway. Growing demands and greater expectations on teachers are factors that have resulted in higher turnover and problems of filling vacancies.

Based on this background, the primary purpose of this study was to determine if job satisfaction is associated with organizational commitment among public and Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) teachers in Norway. The secondary purpose was to compare job satisfaction and organizational commitment between public and SDA teachers in Norway, and to establish linear combination based on the factors of job satisfaction that …

Skill Acquisition And Transfer In A Simple Algebraic Task, Charan J. Singh

Theses : Honours

Speelman's (\999) finding that performance of a skill is based to some extent on the conter.t in which it is performed, rather than simply on the acquired skill itself, is not accounted for by the basic skill acquisition theories like ACT -R Theory or Instance Theory. The purpose of the current experiment was to examine whether the degree of change in context influences the degree of reduction in transfer. Forty participants were trained on an algebraic task and then tested in two different transfer conditions. Condition one included one new item and condition two included two new items in the …

The Importance Of The Emotional Climate In Schools : Linking Teachers' Sense Of Belonging To School Community With Student Outcomes, Linda Rogerson

Theses : Honours

The way that children feel about school is important to their continued engagement with education. This review examines the issues that impact on the school environment and therefore influence students' school experience. A decline in educational standards in America prompted school reform research which has identified that the emotional climate in schools was impacting on students in that they felt alienated and disenfranchised from the school community. The emotional climate of a school stems from the nature of the relationship that exists between the students and staff of the school. A movement to establish caring community schools that promote the …

Design And Development Of The Self-Efficacy For Musical Studies Scale, Kathryn Rae Pearson

Theses and Dissertations

Scale development in psychological studies is an area of intense growth (Clark & Watson, 1995). This report builds upon academic interest in the value of producing viable measurement tools. The purpose of this research project was to evaluate a self-efficacy measurement scale intended to determine individual music students' perceptions of capability. The areas of interest were four self-regulatory skill domains: strategy use, planning, monitoring, and evaluating in two music environments: independent practicing and performance.

This report describes the development and analysis of the Self-efficacy for Musical Studies (SEMS) scale. The report includes statistical analysis of the response data from formative …

Praise And Its Effects On Trust, Help-Seeking Behavior, And Self-Perception Of Students With Disabilities, Regina L. Rice

Theses & Honors Papers

The purpose of this investigation was to examine praise and its effects on help-seeking behavior, trust, and self-perception as well as how different age groups respond to praise. the participants were 11 female students with disabilities and low achievers ranging in ages from 12-17 and up chosen through convenience sampling. Praise as a specific intervention was examined using a self-developed, Likert- type, 16 item questionnaire. The data were analyzed using Pearson 'r'. No significant relationship was found between praise and help-seeking (r=.36, P> .05) or praise and self-perception (r=36, p> .05). However, a significant relationship was found between praise and …

A Qualitative Study Of Adult Women In A Northeast Tennessee Community College., Fay C. Mcmillan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the motivations and characteristics of returning female students ages 23-50 and to investigate the implications for the community college. Participants in the study were 30 female students ages 23-50, selected from required classes in math and English in a community college in Northeast Tennessee. The participants volunteered to participate in this study. Responses were grouped in three major categories: motivation, characteristics, and implications for the community college. The responses were then analyzed and compared with the information from the literature review.

Findings suggested that job-related reasons motivated students to return to college, …

A Study Of The Perceptions Of Female Displaced Workers In A Community College Regarding Their Educational Expectations And Barriers To Their Achievement., Pashia H. Hogan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Adult women enter or reenter college for a variety of reasons, one of which is because of the loss of a job and the need to retrain for reentry into the workforce. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate the actual experiences of female displaced workers entering community college, as compared with their initial expectations as adult learners. Data were collected through interviews with 23 displaced workers age 25 or older who were either enrolled in or had graduated from an associate of applied science degree program at Northeast State Technical Community.

Interview transcripts were analyzed using Glaser …

Journaling As A Tool To Improve Story Comprehension For Kindergarten Students., Carisa L. Carr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated story journaling to enhance story comprehension. Eighteen kindergarten children participated in this six-week study with the teacher reading a total of twenty-four stories to the class. The class was randomly divided into Group A and Group B, with 3 focus participants from each group retelling the story. The retelling was audio taped and analyzed using Morrow's (2001) procedures. Group B experienced the intervention of story journaling on the third week of the study and showed an improvement in story comprehension during the fifth and sixth weeks of story journaling. Group A did not experience the intervention of …

The Rise And Fall Of Programmed Instruction: Informing Instructional Technologists Through A Study Of The Past, Jason K. Mcdonald

Theses and Dissertations

Instructional technologists have recently been called upon to examine the assumptions they hold about teaching and learning, and to consider how those assumptions can affect their practice of the discipline. This thesis is an examination of how the assumptions instructional technologists hold can result in instructional materials that do not accomplish the original goals the developers set out to achieve. I explored this issue by examining the case study of programmed instruction, an educational movement from the mid-20th century that promised to revolutionize education but never lived up to its potential. Programmed instruction was heavily influenced by the assumptions of …

Reducing Learning Object Inspection/Evaluation Costs In Instructional Design, Larry Lynn Seawright

Theses and Dissertations

A widely employed instructional design approach, the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) model, has been one of the most popular and well documented instructional design models (Wilson, Jonassen, and Cole, 1993) for decades. Despite its widespread use, Thiagarajan, a leading instructional technologist, asserts that ADDIE, as an instructional design approach, is comparable to an outdated 1950's manufacturing model (Zemke, 2002). Since the 1950's, manufacturing has evolved, focusing initially on reducing inspection or evaluation costs and later on shifting these cost improvements throughout the organization. Just as manufacturing models and their application have evolved, service operations models such as instructional …

A Latter-Day Saint Perspective On Evaluation, Courtney Miriam Glenn Peck

Theses and Dissertations

Evaluation scholars argue that evaluation as a discipline has traditionally rested on the assumption that knowledge should and can be evaluated objectively. As a result, evaluation has focused too much on techniques and methods, becoming paramountly an objective and technical enterprise that disregards any personal or moral responsibility that evaluators have.

How would a Latter-day Saint perspective of evaluation reframe evaluation as a moral rather than technical enterprise? The doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides powerful insights for evaluation that place moral responsibility in the forefront of evaluation. Knowledge in an LDS perspective is not …

Repetition Of Retention Practices: Does Retention Improve Academic Achievement?, Brenda Demar-Williams

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

In 1996, the Chicago Board of Education adopted a new promotion policy to address the issue of low academic achievement and to hold schools accountable for the progress of its students. This policy led to many students being retained in grade, some are retained multiple times. Retention was supposed to offer remediation and bring students up to grade level criteria. This has not happened. Thus, the major purpose of this study was to determine if retention had a statistically significant effect on the reading and mathematics achievement scores of third grade students as measured by the Iowa Test of Basic …

B.A.B.E.S. Implementation And Its Relationship To Locus Of Control And Self-Concept, Dana M. Collins

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the administration of the B.A.B.E.S. Program and locus of control as well as awareness of self-concept of 2^nd grade students. A total of 161 students were given pre- and post-tests composed of questions geared to understand each child's locus of control and awareness of self-concept before and after the implementation of the B.A.B.E.S. Program. A paired-samples t-test was administered to determine the correlation between the pre-test scores and the post-test scores. Analysis determined that the administration of the B.A.B.E.S. Program did not internalize locus of control nor did …

The Relationship Between Parental Anxiety, Depression And Distress And Their Child's Social Competency, Behavior And Emotional Regulation In A Children's Partial Hospital Program, Melisa Maria Laspada

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the effect female caretaker psychopathology had on their child's treatment gains in the Children's Intensive Emotional Behavioral Day Program of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The sample consisted of 31 children and 31 female caretakers. The female caretakers' symptoms of psychopathology were measured by using the SCL-90-R Checklist and the children's behaviors were measured by using the Conners' Teacher Rating Scale. The results of this study were termed important since the number of children with behavioral and emotional problems is increasing and the treatment being provided seems to be lacking. It was hoped that the study would …

Public School Counselors' Attitudes To Suicide/Suicide Intervention, Robert S. Felloney

Theses and Dissertations

Most of the research on suicide/suicide intervention has focused upon client characteristics and attitudes. Little research, especially in the school setting, has been done on counselor characteristics and attitudes as key variables in these situations. This study was done, at least partially, to help overcome the lack of research in this critical area. This study involved fifteen school counselors (school psychologists and school social workers) who were selected nonrandomly. Based upon interviews, a key finding was that school counselors who prioritize the role of suicide intervention and were more comfortable in doing this, perceived themselves as being more successful in …

Socioeconomics, Self-Esteem And Locus Of Control In Third Grade Students, Kathryn S. Gipe

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between third grade students' socioeconomic status and their corresponding levels of self-esteem and locus of control. Students who received free or reduced lunch were determined as lower socioeconomic status as compared to those who paid full price for their lunch. Five third grade classes were chosen in a suburban area of Philadelphia. One hundred children were used for the study. Seventy-two children were recipients of free or reduced lunch and twenty-eight paid full price for their lunches. The Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory was given as a measure of self-esteem and the …

The Social Construction Of Academic Success Of Learning Disabled College Students, Robin D. Waltman

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the challenges faced by college students with learning disabilities from their own perspective. Interviews were conducted with four first-year students with learning disabilities and five sophomore, junior, and senior students with learning disabilities. The subjects attended Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. The subjects were varied in race, socioeconomic backgrounds, and majors. They all attended college full-time. Qualitative data analysis was performed in order to construct thematic categories from recurring patterns. It was found that college students with learning disabilities have difficulties in college that are unique. They not only have academic …

Teachers' Attitudes Towards Inclusion, Dawn Giacchi

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to identify teachers' attitudes towards inclusion and factors that may affect their attitudes. The factors that were evaluated were: grade level taught, number of students in class, type of school, experience with special needs children, success with special needs children, administrative support, additional support services, level of education and years in the profession. Teachers in grades Kindergarten to twelfth (n=33) completed the "Survey of Teachers' Opinions Relative to Mainstreaming Special Needs Children." A correlation on the data showed that administrative support was significantly correlated with teachers' against inclusion score. Higher levels of administrative support …

A Study Of Ten Sadist Women For Signs Of Specific Patterns Throughout The School Years, Orlando Bru

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to discover whether there was a specific pattern apparent in the school years of lifestyle sadist women that caused them to become sadists. The results showed no specific pattern that would lead one to believe there was a cause but some irregular percentages did appear, such as in high percentages of abuse and not fitting in with fellow students in school. Eighty percent of the participants involved reported their sadist interest being inborn however, of which more than half were abused after they already knew they were sadists. These results are discussed along with …

A Research Study Of School Uniforms On Academic Achievement, Attendance, And Behavior Referrals In Third, Fourth, Fifth, And Sixth Grade Students, Jennifer Gonnella

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effect of school uniforms on academic achievement, attendance, and behavioral referrals in third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students in School Uniform Elementary School, a pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school located in a small, rural community in Southern New Jersey. Academic achievement was recorded for fifth and sixth grade students using the National Percentile Rank on the Terra Novas (n=63). Attendance was recorded for third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students by counting the number of days absent (n = 117). The number of written discipline referrals were recorded for students in third, …

An Investigation Of The Effects Grade Retention Has On Students' Academic Performance, Tyree Gunter

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this investigation was to examine if grade retention has a positive effect on a child's academic performance, and if females, whether retained or not, improved more academically than males. Language/literacy and mathematics cumulative grades of 58 students in the second and third grade were compared using the Kruskal-Wallis test. The results indicated that students who were retained improved more in academic performance than students who were low-achievers but promoted instead and those placed in a transition class. In addition the findings showed that males, whether retained or not, had higher mathematical scores than females, but there was …

The Impact Of A Residential Substance Abuse Treatment For Women, Loretta Lemon

Theses and Dissertations

During the early development of the twelve-step program, it was an effort to help middle class older white males that abuse alcohol. Since the 1930's the twelve-steps have been used to treat women and men from all different backgrounds that have experimented with a variety of drugs. The purposes of this research were to evaluate the effectiveness of a twelve-step program using the scores from each woman's Symptom Checklist-90-R and to review current literature on twelve-step programs and their effectiveness with the female populations.

The Symptom Checklist-90-R was designed to help screen for a range of psychological problems and symptoms …

The Competitive Female Skater: What Motivates Her?, Jennifer L. Pfeffer

Theses and Dissertations

The present study explored motivational orientation of 12 females (age 9 - 18) who participated in figure skating. The hypothesis used was that competitive skaters, with more demands on their time and finances, would more often exhibit an avoidance of failure motivation when participating in sport. This hypothesis was chosen to address the high burnout rates that are exhibited by child athletes at the elite level.

To determine the results of the study, skaters were administered the Achievement Motivations Scale for Sporting Environments developed by Brent Rushall and Randy Fox in 2000. The scale asked 28 questions to which four …

A Link Between Handedness, Gender, Socioeconomics, Race, And Parental Involvement And Learning Disabilities, Heather Reiss

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine if there was a link between handedness, gender, socioeconomics, race, and parental involvement and learning disabilities. The records from a local school where reviewed and compared to the national records. When comparing the local and national records, the school was found to be close in percentage for gender and handedness. The school, however; had a much higher percentage for African Americans and a much higher percentage for free and reduced lunch services than did the national records.