Education Commons^™

Exploring Teacher Beliefs Of Adolescent Developmental Needs Through Positive Student Comments Of Their Teachers, Elizabeth Bowers Hinchcliff

Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to qualitatively examine the intersection between teachers' practical reasoning and beliefs, adolescent developmental needs, and positive teacher-student relationships. Positive comments about middle school teachers were gathered anonymously from middle school students (grades 6-8; ages 11-14) and coded according to four developmental domains: physical, social, emotional, and physical. Chi square analysis was used to determine statistical significance of which domains students alluded to most often when describing their teachers. The six middle school teachers who were mentioned most frequently in the student comments participated in semi-structured, open-ended interviews in which they were asked about the developmental needs of …

Always Something There To Remind Me: The Role Of Nudging In Assignment Submission, Carolyn Anne Bancroft Andrews

Theses and Dissertations

Online learning continues to widen in popularity by providing greater access and flexibility in time and location the learning occurs. There is a shift in the profile of a traditional college student. Almost half of the students who are enrolled in online classes are 24 or older and tend to carry increased time constraints due to external factors such as employment and family responsibilities. Student retention remains a concern for institutions. Many students lack the skills necessary to be successful in the online platform. Research reports self-regulation learning skills are essential. Providing reminders for an upcoming assignment may give needed …

Validating A Blended Teaching Readiness Instrument For Primary/Secondary Preservice Teachers, Douglas Elijah Archibald

Theses and Dissertations

Blended learning is the fastest-growing modality in North America and much of the world. However, research and training in blended learning is far outpaced by its usage. To remedy this gap, we developed a competency framework and self-survey instrument to help teachers and researchers evaluate teacher readiness for blended environments. The purpose of this research is to prove that the model and accompanying survey instrument are reliable for use with teacher candidates both before and after going through a blended teaching course. To accomplish this, we sent out a survey instrument to 326 teacher candidates studying in a blended teaching …

The Efficacy Of Epg Assisted L2 Pronunciation Instruction: An Audio-Perceptual Analysis Of The Speech Of Native Japanese Learners Of English, Emily Louise Peterson

Theses and Dissertations

As there is a clear correlation between one's degree of proficiency in the English language and one's subsequent financial compensation in the workplace setting and in interpersonal relationships, improving one's speaking abilities can be highly valuable from both a financial and emotional perspective. This study examines the efficacy of an electropalatography (EPG) assisted pronunciation training program in helping native Japanese learners of English acquire and improve the /r/ and /l/ sound contrast in American English, as rated by a group of listeners. Additionally, it evaluates whether or not the degree of improvement varied across word position, task type, or assessment …

A Longitudinal Investigation Of The Effects Of A Kindergarten Multi-Tiered Oral Narrative Language Intervention On Later Literacy Outcomes, Tristin Carolyn Hampshire

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to examine the longitudinal effects of a multi-tiered narrative language intervention in at-risk students provided in kindergarten on fourth grade reading comprehension. The participants included 686 students from four school districts in the upper Midwest. Twenty-eight kindergarten classrooms were randomly assigned to a treatment or control condition resulting in 14 treatment classrooms and 14 control classrooms. Every student in the study participated in a pretest regarding oral narrative language skills. Students in the control group were considered to be at-risk, average performing, or advanced performing depending on their pretest score. Each student in …

Teacher Recruitment: Predictive Factors Of Stem University Students Entering The Teaching Profession, Scott Harris

Student Works

This study examines factors that influence science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) university students’ willingness to consider teaching as a career. Although very few of these students initially consider this profession, we identified four factors using predictive modeling that are strongly associated with these students’ willingness to consider teaching and their belief that teaching might be their best career option. Results indicated that STEM university students were more likely to consider teaching when they believed teaching is something they would be good at, others encouraged them to be a teacher, when family encourages them to teach, and when teachers they …

Learning Centered Leadership: Exploring How Distinguished Learning-Centered Principals Apply Key Processes Of Learning-Centered Leadership, Jared G. Wright

Theses and Dissertations

School leadership is a complex and challenging endeavor, especially in an era when school principals are held accountable for student achievement outcomes. Research on school leadership has shown that a principal’s influence on student achievement is indirect and significant. Over the past three decades, research on school leadership has developed conceptually and now offers more concrete descriptions of the actions and behaviors leaders can utilize for learning-centered leadership. The developers of the Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education (VAL-ED) evaluation framework sought to create a school leader assessment tool that measures learning-centered behaviors, instead of measures that focus on the …

Teacher Retention And Recruitment: Perceptions Of Principles, Teachers, And University Students, Scott Phillip Harris

Theses and Dissertations

This study identifies differences in perceptions between three stakeholder groups - principals, K-12 teachers, and parents - regarding the effect of workplace conditions on teacher attrition. An electronic questionnaire was sent to 15 of Utah's 41 school districts. Sampling efforts yielded completed surveys from 93 principals, 2003 teachers and 495 parents. All three groups agreed that workplace conditions are important, but the greatest disagreements occurred in perceptions of (a) teacher involvement in decision-making, (b) protection of teacher preparation time, (c) administration's management of student discipline, (d) adequacy of resource availability, (e) the degree to which a trusting and supportive school …

Speech Perception Of Global Acoustic Structure In Children With Speech Delay, With And Without Dyslexia, Mikayla Nicole Madsen

Theses and Dissertations

Children with speech delay (SD) have underlying deficits in speech perception that may be related to reading skill. Children with SD and children with dyslexia have previously shown deficits for distinct perceptual characteristics, including segmental acoustic structure and global acoustic structure. In this study, 35 children (ages 7-9 years) with SD, SD + dyslexia, and/or typically developing were presented with a vocoded speech recognition task to investigate their perception of global acoustic speech structure. Findings revealed no differences in vocoded speech recognition between groups, regardless of SD or dyslexia status. These findings suggest that in children with SD, co-occurring dyslexia …

From Systems To Services: Changing The Way We Conceptualize Itss -- A Theoretical Framework And Proof-Of-Concept, Brice R. Colby

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two articles. The first article describes an architecture for intelligent tutoring that focuses on modularity. This new architecture is based on Gibbons' layers theory for instructional design (2014). Splitting up the architecture for an intelligent tutor into layers allows different pieces to age at different rates which, in turn, allows the intelligent tutor to be adapted to new research and design theories. This architecture supports building intelligent tutoring services, nimble programs that can be assembled together to replicate the functions of intelligent tutoring without the expertise needed to create the services. Alternative architectures support building intelligent …

Improving Mentoring In Higher Education, Camey Lei Andersen

Theses and Dissertations

As universities and institutions of higher education seek to improve retention, persistence, well-being, and overall college experience satisfaction for their students, there is an increased emphasis on mentoring in higher education. Improving mentoring in higher education--the specific tools, training, and practices that develop effective mentors--remains an often-elusive goal for college administrators and university mentoring programs and in research. This research examined available research on effective mentoring and provided recommendations for how to create successful mentors and mentoring programs in higher education. This dissertation is a three-article format presentation of information about mentoring in higher education. The first article is a …

Using Parallel Narrative-Based Measures To Examine The Relationship Between Listening And Reading Comprehension, Collette Leifson Warr

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to examine how well the Narrative Language Measure (NLM) of Listening predicts the NLM Reading measure and the extent to which brief narrative-based listening and reading comprehension assessments administered to first, second, and third grade students demonstrate symmetry and equity. A total of 1039 first graders, 395 second graders, and 501 third graders participated in this study. The students were administered the NLM Listening and NLM Reading, and their scores were examined to address the research questions. Students with incomplete data sets and students who performed 1.5 standard deviations (7th percentile based on …

Speech Perception Of Global Acoustic Structure In Children With Speech Delay, With And Without Dyslexia, Mikayla Nicole Madsen

Theses and Dissertations

Children with speech delay (SD) have underlying deficits in speech perception that may be related to reading skill. Children with SD and children with dyslexia have previously shown deficits for distinct perceptual characteristics, including segmental acoustic structure and global acoustic structure. In this study, 35 children (ages 7-9 years) with SD, SD + dyslexia, and/or typically developing were presented with a vocoded speech recognition task to investigate their perception of global acoustic speech structure. Findings revealed no differences in vocoded speech recognition between groups, regardless of SD or dyslexia status. These findings suggest that in children with SD, co-occurring dyslexia …

Faculty Orientations In Esl Professional Development, Jason T. Jay

Theses and Dissertations

The role of teacher educators is vital to education, but when the population of public-school students shifts, or progress and advances in knowledge of the field or knowledge for teaching emerge, teacher education faces challenges. One such challenge involves a continuing increase in the proportion of second language learners entering primary and secondary schools, English learners (ELs) in this case. In such situations, teacher educators often do not have deep knowledge of second language acquisition or how to integrate attention to ELs within their regular courses. One response to this challenge is to provide professional development (PD) for teacher education …

Forgiveness And Gratitude As Mediators Of Religious Commitment And Well-Being Among Polynesian Americans, Davis Kealanohea Kane

Theses and Dissertations

An abundance of research has investigated well-being as it relates to religiosity and positive traits, with most research indicating that both relate to improvements in well-being. Moreover, several studies provide evidence for statistically significant relationships between religiosity and specific positive traits, including forgiveness and gratitude. However, few research studies have investigated how increases in positive traits might explain why religiosity enhances well-being. In addition, few studies within the religious and positive psychological literature have included adequate sampling from ethnic/racial minority populations residing in the U.S. As a result, investigations on how ethnic identity interacts with religious and positive psychological variables …

Bullying In The Wizarding World: Victim, Peer, And Adult Responses In Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone, Casey John Winters

Theses and Dissertations

Bullying is a phenomenon faced by students worldwide, and bibliotherapy is one viable classroom strategy to teach students how best to respond to bullying behavior. Although ample research exists on appropriate picture books with bullying themes, few studies have analyzed the content of middle-grade books for effective responses to bullying, despite the prevalence of bullying among middle school students. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was selected due to its accessibility, its instances of responses to bullying, and its reader demographics. Researchers created a coding instrument to document all textual instances of bullying, victim responses, peer responses, and adult responses. …

Assessing The Validity Of The Trauma Inventory For Partners Of Sex Addicts (Tipsa), Heidi A Vogeler

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to provide both additional evidence of the psychometric properties of the TIPSA by examining reliability and validity coefficients, and to add to the empirical evidence for the application of betrayal trauma theory outside the context of complex and/or historical trauma. It was hypothesized that internal-consistency coefficients for the TIPSA would exceed 0.70; the TIPSA and the PTSD Checklist for DSM 5 (PCL-5) would be significantly positively correlated; the TIPSA and the Composite Codependency Scale (CCS) would not be significantly correlated; and that neither Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) nor Benevolent Childhood Experiences (BCE) scores …

“Estamos Aquí Pero No Soy De Aqui”: American Mexican Youth, Belonging And Schooling In Rural, Central Mexico, Eric Ruiz Bybee, Erin Feinauer Whiting, Bryant Jensen, Victoria Savage, Alisa Baker, Emma Holdaway

Faculty Publications

This article explores notions of belonging and citizenship for “American Mexican” students— Mexican-heritage youth born in the United States who return to Mexico with their families. Our findings reveal belonging as a sociocultural practice that participants negotiated spatially and relationally, chiefly by making their US-born status more and less visible within particular spaces at school. The experiences of American-Mexican youth reveal the crucial roles of migration and belonging in shaping civic identities and future potentials in a transnational world.

Law And Policy Impacts On Teacher Attrition In Public Education: Data Suggesting A New Focus Beyond The Silver Bullets Of Targeted Stem And Other Salary Increases, Joseph Hanks, Scott E. Ferrin, Randall S. Davies, Steven S. Christensen, Scott P. Harris, W. Bryan Bowles

BYU Education & Law Journal

Most current legislative and policy efforts to combat teacher shortages in public schools in the U.S. focus on raising teacher salaries, or on incentivizing certain key subject matters in the sciences and math, known as Science, Technology and Math (STEM) initiatives. The ostensible purpose of these legislative and policy efforts is to increase induction and subsequent retention of highly qualified teachers who will then impact educational attainment of students. The major tool used has been salary incentives for new teachers or salary augmentation for existing teachers in certain subject matters. This research investigates teacher perceptions on factors that impact their …

Covid Closing Down Colleges: How The Covid-19 Pandemic Accelerated Nonprofit College Closings, Patrick Baker, Paula Hearn Moore, Kaleb Byars, Christie Aden

BYU Education & Law Journal

Private nonprofit colleges have experienced an increasing amount of financial pressure over time, making it arduous to survive. Internal and external factors such as geographical challenges, lack of economies of scale, and unchecked board mismanagement have historically led to the closures. COVID-19 is accelerating the rate of these college closures. Diminishing enrollment, volatile endowments, and inoperable revenue programs are some of the reverberations the virus has caused.

Preventative measures need to exist to alleviate the risks of unforeseen crises in the future. Harsher penalties, increased scrutiny of automatic extensions, and more accurate and complete Form 990 disclosures will protect stakeholders …

Precision Request For Noncompliance In Students With Emotional/Behavioral Disorders: Examination Of The Interventionist, Collette Merrill

Theses and Dissertations

Noncompliance in students with Emotional/Behavioral Disorders (EBD) can contribute to difficulty with peer and teacher relationships and may result in reduced time for academic instruction. The Precision Request, an intervention which uses alpha commands, verbal praise, and reductive consequences, has been shown to increase compliance in students with EBD, but no studies have accounted for which component is responsible for the change. This study used an ABCDAX add-in component analysis to determine which component of the Precision Request produced the most effect on behavioral compliance in five sixth-grade elementary students with EBD. Data were collected on percent of student compliance, …