Education Commons^™

A Project-Based Learning Approach To Community-Based Learning: Action Research To Explore Transformative Change In 1st Year Occupational Therapy Students’ Awareness About Contextual Barriers, Occupational Justice, And Advocating For Community Health And Wellness, Patricia Ann Wisniewski

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research was to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing reflexive photography as a means for a transformative community-based learning (CBL) experience. CBL is an experiential teaching pedagogy that helps prepare college students for a rapidly changing and diverse society that fosters social, health, and cultural awareness about individuals and populations. Students engage collaboratively within the local community to help solve societal problems.

This study focused on three research questions, each exploring how a reflexive photography project (RPP): (a) changes how students view occupational justice, (b) influences students awareness about contextual barriers that may impact community residents …

Secondary Administrators’ Perspectives On Their Involvement In And Barriers To Supporting Secondary Transition Programs For Students With Disabilities, Dottie H. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

To address disparities in post-school outcomes for students with disabilities, federal legislation mandates appropriate education programs to include transition planning and programs for students with disabilities. Because administrators are held responsible for ensuring appropriate educational programs for all learners including those with disabilities, it is important to understand their perspectives on secondary transition; however, research on administrators’ involvement in secondary transition activities is limited. Using a single-state survey, this study examined the perspectives of secondary school administrators on their involvement and engagement in providing effective transition programs and services for students with disabilities and their perceptions of barriers to providing …

Planning And Teaching For Student Learning In Mathematics: How Graduate Student Instructors Develop And Implement Instruction, Jennifer S. Crooks-Monastra

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore undergraduate mathematics teaching from the perspective of a graduate student serving as a first-time precalculus instructor of record. A multiple case study was designed to follow three mathematics graduate student instructors (MGSIs) through one semester of teaching to understand their goals for student learning, efforts to achieve these goals, influences on planning, and to identify challenges they encountered. For each MGSI, data collection included four interviews, three observations of teaching, weekly journal entries, and written assignments from a pedagogy course. A focus group, field notes from the pedagogy course, audio from mentor …

An Action Research Mixed Methods Study For The Development Of Information And Communication Technology (Ict) Programming For First-Year Students At A Historically Black University, Krystinq Mccauley

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research was to explore the information and communication technology (ICT) literacy skills of first-year minority students at Saint Augustine’s University in order to develop a plan for an ICT professional development program. ICT skills are essential in our rapidly changing and technology-driven society. While there is a growing awareness of the importance of ICT, universities are lagging behind in their approach to provide students with the much-needed digital competencies (Murray & Perez, 2014). This study focused on three research questions to determine (a) the ICT skills of first-year minority college students at Saint Augustine’s University, …

Evaluating Fit Indices In A Multilevel Latent Growth Model With Unbalanced Design: A Monte Carlo Study, Fan Pan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation informed researchers about the performance of different levelspecific and target-specific model fit indices in Multilevel Latent Growth Model (MLGM) using unbalanced design and different trajectories. As the use of MLGMs is a relatively new field, this study helped further the field by informing researchers interested in using various specific model fit indices.

We evaluated the descriptive information of the various model fit indices under various simulation conditions and the extent to which the fit indices could be influenced by different design factors, based on simulated data with different conditions derived from a correctly specified MLGM. Our simulation design …

Task-Based, Learner-Centered Language Instruction: Educational Innovation In An Adult Foreign Language Program, Clayton D. Leishman

Theses and Dissertations

This study involved educational innovation and implementation of a task-based, learner-centered curriculum within a foreign language program. The concerns-based assessment model (originally proposed by Hall et al., 1973, and further developed by Hall & Hord, 1987; 2011) was used to investigate the degree to which language instructors adopted the innovation. An adapted form of the concerns-based assessment model’s levels of use focused interviews and instructional artifacts were used to measure the level of implementation of the task-based approach. Analysis of the data identified categoricalchanges as instructors implemented the new curriculum. The category of sharing revealed higher levels of use due …

Helping High School Students Succeed Academically By Meeting Their More Basic Needs, Karen Eyler Martin

Theses and Dissertations

In this action research, I seek to show the connection between breakfast consumption and student academic achievement. Students skip breakfast for a variety of reasons, including not allowing enough time and not having enough resources for it. Others eat what they can obtain, including snack foods that are highly processed. In addition, school districts have gotten away from making their meals from scratch, and instead, use a third-party catering service that often serves food that is cheap and easy to heat up, which often means it is highly processed and does not have the same nutritional content as whole foods. …

Advancing Research Methodology And Educational Policy: An Application Of Mixture Modeling Using School Climate, Kathleen V. Mcgrath

Theses and Dissertations

School climate is a well-studied issue in educational research. However, surveys of school climate tend to be analyzed using item-centered as opposed to person-centered methods. The current study evaluated the 2018 South Carolina School Climate Survey using advanced applications of mixture modeling in an attempt to identify latent profiles at the student and school levels. The relatively new manual BCH 3-Step approach was applied given its usefulness in analyzing multilevel data with covariates and distal outcomes. However, its application to multilevel mixture models leaves room for advancement and prompted the adoption of an alternative analysis plan that included separate analyses …

Individualized E-Book Experiences: Personalized Reading Plans’ Impact On First-Grade Students’ Reading Motivation And Engagement, Hannah Brunson Miles

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research was to address the issue of first-grade students being unengaged and unmotivated to read independently for the recommended 20-minute block of time in class. Students were also not electing to read independently during any free time they had in class. This research was designed to investigate how implementing a personalized e-book reading plan (PRP) affected students’ reading motivation and engagement during independent reading. The research questions that guided this study were: (a) How and to what extent do the personalized e-book reading plans impact students’ motivation to read? (b) How and to what extent …

Inquiry-Based Teaching In A Secondary English Classroom, Jennifer L. Norman

Theses and Dissertations

Teaching and learning need to move away from a transactional model found in a traditional classroom to support the growth of 21st century skills and abilities. Inquiry-based teaching is a model that places the student at the center of instruction and allows the teacher to facilitate and guide learning. The classroom fueled by inquiry is a classroom that (a) breaks free from the traditional and transactional model to promote connections to past knowledge and build new understandings, (b) allows students to direct their own learning, and (c) promotes moments of self-reflection and metacognition. The purpose of this study was to …

Against All Odds: Understanding African American Males’ Perspectives On The Path To Graduation At An Alternative School, Devin Randolph

Theses and Dissertations

The researcher completed a critical, descriptive, single case study about African American male students' experiences on the path to graduation at an alternative school in the southeast. Informed by scholarship on majoritarian narratives and counter narratives from Critical Race Theory (CRT), the researcher coded and analyzed data from individual interviews, a focus group, and an art-based project to answer three research questions: 1. How do African American males describe their perspectives on their placement at an alternative school? 2. How do African American male students describe their paths to graduation, including defining moments? 3. What and who do African American …

Supporting The African American Prekindergarten Student Through Standard Academic English Instruction, Trent Gibson Rogerson

Theses and Dissertations

The objective for this research was to determine if prekindergarten African American students would show gains on English language assessments after receiving targeted Standard Academic English instruction. The research question asks, “How can a specialized English language intervention be utilized to identify the strengths and areas of improvement for African American preschool students?” The hypothesis was the students who received targeted instruction in Standard Academic English would perform better on the post-test than on the pre-test given before the instruction period. For this study, eight prekindergarten students were allowed to participate in the research. The students were administered an English …

Administrative Support: What Teachers Say They Need, Jennifer Harris Watson

Theses and Dissertations

For more than three decades research has shown Administrative Support as a mitigating factor for teacher attrition. It has also been associated with teacher satisfaction and positive school climate. In all of these studies authors have failed to agree on consistent definition of the phenomena and attrition rates along with satisfaction rates have been relatively unchanged. In 1981, House established four dimensions of worker support (1981) to mitigate worker burnout and attrition. His theoretical framework consisted of emotional support, appraisal support, instrumental support, and informational support in a factory work setting. Littrell et al. (1994) used House’s work to attempt …

#Blackfemaleteachersmatter: The Experiences Of Three African American Female Teachers Who Left The Classroom During Their Induction Years, Ashlye Victoria Wilkerson

Theses and Dissertations

This study captured the lived experiences of three African American, female classroom teachers who left the profession within three years of beginning their careers. The main goal that led this research was to center the perspectives of African American women in the conversation about teacher retention, turnover, and attrition percentages that plague the field of education. The primary questions that guided this study were: (1) “What can be learned from the life stories of former African American female teachers who left the teaching profession from South Carolina public classrooms during their induction years?”, (2) “What do their life stories reveal …

The Implementation And Impact Of The Leveled Literacy Intervention System On Middle School Students In Special Education, Krystin Mccormick Williams

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed-methods action research study was to determine the effects of a direct, individualized, and intensive reading intervention on middle school students with identified learning disabilities in the area of reading. The Leveled Literacy Intervention System was used as the reading intervention in this study. Oral reading fluency and reading comprehension skills were measured, as well as the student participants’ attitude toward reading. Data collection methods included LLI system assessments, district level benchmark reading assessments, and student questionnaires. The teacher-researcher analyzed the data and determined the 18-week LLI intervention had positive impacts on the student participants’ oral …

How Can Equity-Focused Inquiry Uncover The Causes For The Opportunity Gaps Our Students Of Color Experience?, Stephanie Becks

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine how equity-focused inquiry could uncover gaps in opportunity for our students of color and determine root causes for those gaps. Through Inquiry as Stance and Critical Race Theory (CRT) as the driving frameworks, this study used practitioner inquiry to understand what gaps, if any, were present for students of color within our school. If gaps in opportunity were present, this study also aimed to discover what school level factors were contributing to the gaps. Three cycles of inquiry were used to help answer the following questions: (1) What common gaps in opportunity …

School Psychologists’ Involvement In Transition Programming, Valerie Bell

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the extent school psychologists reported pre-service training programs addressed involvement in transition programming (e.g., planning, monitoring, and evaluation); their involvement in it; their desire to be involved in transition; possible factors influencing school psychologists’ involvement in it; and if pre-service and professional training in transition affects school psychologists’ involvement and perceptions of their role in the process. Four hundred-fifteen respondents completed and anonymous, online survey. Results indicated participants had not received pre-service training or professional development related to transition; they were rarely or never involved in transition at the elementary, middle, and/or high school levels, although they …

Creating Crescent: Using Youth Participatory Action Research (Ypar) And Public Media To Promote Epistemic Agency Among Black Girls In South Carolina, Salandra Bowman

Theses and Dissertations

This study uses womanist methodology and youth participatory action research (YPAR), centering the ways of knowing of Black girls, with a focus on epistemic agency, to engage Black girls in the production of educational media. Such a study is necessary because Black girls are underrepresented in educational media, overrepresented in cases of school discipline, and overrepresented in reports of physical violence in schools. As public media is recognized as a transformative intervention in improving learning outcomes for children, addressing the underrepresentation of Black girlhood therein creates opportunities to address these intersecting issues and create humanizing educational media for all students. …

Classdojo And The Effects Of Gamification On Student Engagement Within The Third-Grade Art Classroom: An Action Research Study, Amanda Wrenn Brown

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research was to evaluate the impact of technology integrated gamification strategies on third-grade students’ engagement in an art classroom at an elementary school with a Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM) based curriculum. To increase student engagement, educators and evaluators not only need to understand how engagement has been defined, but also how to assess the options for measuring it. Appropriate use of technology and gamification in classrooms may increase aspects of student engagement, evidenced by taking initiative and responsibility for learning, using resources wisely, and having an interest and desire to pursue information …

Middle And High School Experiences That Lead First-Generation College Students To Select A Stem Major, James A. Byrum

Theses and Dissertations

Careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are increasing but the number of qualified individuals to fill these positions are not meeting the demand. One way to increase the number of qualified STEM employees is to garner the interest of students from underrepresented groups in the STEM fields. One of these underrepresented groups are first generation college students (FGCS). Understanding what experiences led FGCS to pursue a degree in a STEM field may help attract more students to STEM and help meet the demand of filling future STEM jobs.

In this study, FGCS in the Opportunity Scholars Program …

How Do Adults Who Are Blind Desribe Their Quality Of Life?, Loreta Dylgjeri

Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological study aimed to understand the Quality of Life (QOL) of six adults who are blind in the communities where they live or work. QOL is a construct that attempts to define what it means to “live the good life” (Schalock & Verdugo, 2002). To understand how individuals who are blind describe their QOL, we need a thorough understanding of how they describe their QOL based on their own lived experiences, beliefs, understandings, and attitudes towards the QOL. This study used a phenomenology method and was theoretically based on the QOL theory and its core domains and indicators, as …

Student’S Perspectives Of Chronic Absenteeism In A Suburban High School, Herbert Allen Gray

Theses and Dissertations

For many students, school attendance is a critical issue. There have been several studies conducted concerning attendance numbers. These studies have shown that poor attendance often affects grades, graduation rates, and socioeconomic status post-high school. The purpose of this study was to first investigate the reasons behind absences and attitudes towards school and classes because of missed days. The second purpose was to determine if a weekly mentoring meeting had any noticeable effect on attendance. The targeted pool of students consisted of those who had been identified as chronically absent the previous semester. An initial set of open-ended questions and …

Impact Of Student-Led Discussions On Student Engagement And Involvement, Samantha Hefel

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research was to investigate the relationship between student engagement and student-led discussions for middle school students, focusing specifically on seventh graders. There was increased student engagement for the students that participated in the discussions. The study was based on both cognitive and social constructivism, where students are developing their critical thinking as well as socializing with their peers. This research explored three questions related to the impact of student-led discussions. The first question looked at how discussions impacted student engagement and involvement. The second question centered on students’ willingness to voice their ideas. Finally, the …

Personalized Geometry Instruction: A Mixed Methods Action Research Study Implementing An Adaptive Web-Based Learning Environment To Support High School Students’ Geometry Problemsolving Skills, Catherine D. Jordan

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research study was to evaluate the implementation of an adaptive web-based learning environment to personalize geometry instruction and practice for high school students at a private school in North Carolina. This study was guided by the following three research questions: (1) How and to what extent does implementing personalized geometry instruction and practice through an adaptive web-based learning environment affect high school students’ knowledge of geometry? (2) How does using personalized geometry instruction and practice through an adaptive web-based learning environment affect students’ motivation to learn geometry as well as their mathematics self-efficacy, anxiety, and …

The Effects Of Affirming And Constructive Peer Editing Feedback On High School Student Perceptions And Essay Revisions, Lorin Koch

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a novel strategy for peer editing of student essays in a high school English language arts classroom. The peer editing method used in this study provided more positive feedback to lower-level writers and more negative feedback to higher-level writers, with grade-level writers getting a blend of both positive and negative feedback. Incorporating an action research design, this study included data collection through student standardized test scores, student writing samples, comments left on other students’ papers, responses to peer editing sessions, and individual interviews. Qualitative data were collected over the …

Develop Or Diminish? An Exploration Of Adolescent Athlete Flow Experiences, Hayes Mayfield Bennett

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of flow was birthed from positive psychology specifically to uncover individuals’ most positive experiences and “understand the roots of happiness” (Csikszentmihalyi, 2004). Because of the nature of flow experiences, individuals continually seek out opportunities to have more of these experiences (Seifert & Hedderson, 2010; Swann et al., 2018), however, little is known regarding how adolescents experience flow. For early-adolescents (11-14 years old: Holt, 2007), sports represent an environment that often produces physical, psychological, and social benefits (Crane & Temple, 2015), and combats negative factors (Pluhar et al., 2019). Unfortunately, adolescent athletes are particularly vulnerable to burnout and sports …

The Role Of The School-Based Speech-Language Pathologist In The Identification, Assessment, And Remediation Of Dyslexia In Secondary Students, Lisa Marie Alves

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods action research study was to increase the awareness and knowledge of secondary school professionals on dyslexia, including the role of the school-based speech-language pathologist. Two research questions guiding the quantitative data collection centered on the impact of a PowerPoint dyslexia training on the participants' knowledge and attitudes about dyslexia in the schools. In addition, two qualitative research questions guided the study involving the participants’ perceptions of the role of speech-language pathologists in a dyslexia protocol, and how to implement a dyslexia protocol in secondary-level schools. The results of the study indicate that the training …

It Takes One To Know One: Authentic Learning And Multiple Literacies In A 100 Level, Technical Writing Classroom, Matthew Sterner-Neely

Theses and Dissertations

At Ciudad Community College (pseudonym) and across the Colorado Community College System, the course competencies for Technical Writing I (ENG 131) have more than tripled to accommodate ENG 131 as a guaranteed transfer course equivalent to ENG 121: English Composition I. Unfortunately, this has had the effect of increasing the workload for students, and the increase in competencies plus the struggle that students already had in meeting course competencies demanded the need for an intervention. The purpose of this convergent, mixed methods, action research study was to examine the effects of authentic learning on the competency levels of technical writing …

The Tale Of Two Pandemics: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy In A Blended Learning Environment Amidst Covid-19 And Racism Pandemics, Kayla Hostetler

Theses and Dissertations

Due to the sudden spread of COVID19 in March of 2020, schools in the United States were scrambling to figure out ways to educate their students and at the same time keep them safe. In many cases schools switched to online learning or at home packets. During the same school year on May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by a police officer. The video tape of his murder sparked protests across the country. His death showing how racism continues to plague American society. Students and teachers across the country were trying to process all of these events and navigate …

An Action Research Study Implementing A Livescribe™ Pen And Cornell Note-Taking Strategy In A Personal And Community Health Course To Support Note-Taking And Comprehension Of College Student-Athletes With Learning Disabilities, Ivana Rich

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the Livescribe™ Symphony smartpen and the Cornell note-taking strategy on the lecture comprehension and quality of written notes of college student-athletes with learning disabilities. To explore educational tools and strategies that can assist students with learning disabilities in overcoming academic challenges, this study focused on three research questions: (1) how does the use of the Cornell note-taking strategy supported with a Livescribe™ pen affect the note-taking quality of student-athletes with learning disabilities (2) how does the use of the Cornell note-taking strategy supported with a Livescribe™ pen affect the …