Education Commons^™

School Boards And Student Achievement: The Relationship Between Previously Identified School Board Characteristics And Improved Student Learning, Jonathon P. Holmen

Education Dissertations

Our country has a moral and ethical responsibility to educate all students. The right to an education is fundamental to the American values. Locally elected school boards have received significant scrutiny as questions have been asked about their ability to provide adequate and effective governance such that student achievement increases. This mixed-methods research study provides empirical support for the efficacy of publicly elected school boards being linked to improved student achievement results. This research study draws from school boards located in Washington State. A purposeful population sample of 23 school districts were selected based on specific criteria for inclusion in …

Principal Self-Efficacy And The Teacher Principal Evaluation Project, John A. Polm Jr

Education Dissertations

Cognitive psychologist Albert Bandura has made significant contributions to psychology and education since the 1950s. His social learning theory continues to have considerable influence in the study of human agency and in the related study of self-efficacy. A recent development in the study of self-efficacy concerns the perceived self-efficacy of school leaders, particularly of school principals. Researchers have developed instruments to measure this construct that identifies supportive elements associated with positive self-efficacy perceptions of principals. This study measured the perceived self-efficacy of principals using the Principal Self-Efficacy Scale (PSES). The study also measured the correlation between the principal’s level of …

Superintendent And School Board Attitude And Beliefs Alignment And Its Relationship To Student Achievement, Justin John Blasko

Education Dissertations

Research examining the relationship between school boards and student achievement continues to expand. Many studies have focused on the influence of school board attitudes and beliefs concerning governance. These studies have demonstrated statistical differences between reported attitudes of high achieving school districts and low achieving school districts. This study focuses on the relationship between the school board and superintendent. It specifically addresses whether aligned responses to a governance survey demonstrate a statistical relationship with student achievement.

The study relied upon ex-post facto data available through the Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA). WSSDA has collected survey data since 2011 using …

The Relationship Between Components Of Effective Organizations And Teachers' Instructional Practice, Miriam E. Tencate

Education Dissertations

This purpose of this study is to determine whether the components of effective organizations are significantly related to teachers’ instructional practice as perceived by the teacher using data from the Program Capacity Survey (PCS) gathered during Year Two and Three of the STEM Career Awareness Program reform initiative. The PCS utilized Leithwood, Aitken and Jantzi’s (2001) monitoring tool and is based upon both Organizational Learning Theory and the Theory of Sustainability (Coburn, 2003). This study utilized selected questions from the PCS which were categorized into components of effective organizations. A factor analysis was used to establish the validity of the …

Reflective Assessment, Feedback And Academic Achievement In High School Mathematics, Nalline S. Baliram

Education Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of metacognitive strategies and content-specific feedback on student achievement in high school mathematics. Participants in the study consisted of a convenience sample of honors geometry students in grades 9 and 10 in a private high school located in Daytona Beach, Florida. Beyond answering the specific research questions raised in the study, an additional aim was to contribute to the growing body of knowledge pertaining to effective ways to use metacognitive instruction and provide effective content-specific feedback to improve student achievement and learning.

A quasi-experimental, nonequivalent control-group design with repeated-measures was …

Washington State School District Superintendent Use Of Social Media For Public Relations And Communication, Jonathan R. Tienhaara

Education Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine usage and perception of superintendent participation in social media for the purposes of public relations and communication in the State of Washington. Tenets of Social-Customer Relationship Management (Social-CRM) were used as the theory to support how social media can be used to establish and enhance public relations with school district stakeholders. Washington’s (N = 295) school district superintendents were electronically surveyed to collect data on their use and perception of social media utilization for public relations and communication. The data were analyzed to determine how Washington superintendents use social media for …

Spirituality And Happiness Of English-Speaking South African School Children: A Psychometric Analysis Of Spirituality And Well-Being Instruments, David Hartman

Education Dissertations

This study addresses the role of spirituality in student happiness among intermediate elementary students. Surveys addressing temperament, spirituality, and happiness were administered to a sample of South African students. There is a debate in the developmental literature on whether the effects of spirituality on happiness can be reduced to temperament in elementary school students. This study helps to establish the psychometric properties of several instruments and looks for a unique contribution of spirituality to happiness. The results indicate that most of the instruments used show good psychometric qualities and that spirituality possesses a statistically significant impact on happiness independent of …

A Meta-Analysis Of Middle School Science Engagement, Leanna B. Aker

Education Dissertations

Researchers and educational practitioners have long been concerned with declines in science engagement reported by students as they transition into the middle school setting. Though the operationalization of engagement is still nascent, an emerging consensus on a three-faceted model of student engagement has recently emerged in the research literature (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004). Thus, a synthesis of existing primary research of early adolescents’ science engagement under this emerging conceptualization was warranted. The results of this meta-analysis indicate that instructional methods, class characteristics and competence predictors had the strongest relationship with self-reported science engagement in early adolescence. These predictors also …

The Relationship Between Student Performance On A Reading Progress Monitoring Measure And The Washington State Standardized Test, Miriam Mickelson

Education Dissertations

Some experts and educators believe that learning to read is critical to success in and out of school (Lonigan & Phillips, 2015; Nation and Norbury, 2005; O’Connor & Klein, 2004). Schools, therefore, have the responsibility to ensure that all students become proficient readers, especially by the end of third grade, considered to be a pivotal year for literacy (Hernandez, 2011; Lesnick, Goerge, Smithgall, & Gwynne, 2010). Promoting literacy entails providing students with effective literacy instruction shaped and guided by timely, reliable, and meaningful assessment results. Assessment should inform instruction, which hopefully leads to student mastery of state mandated reading standards. …