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A Program Evaluation Of The Comprehensive School Reform Model Making Middle Grades Work, Wycondia West

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A Program Evaluation of the Comprehensive School Reform Model Making Middle Grades Work

by

Wycondia S. West

MA, Spring Hill College, 2002

BS, Spring Hill College, 1998

Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Education

Walden University

August 2016

There is increasing concern in the United States about the academic challenges that middle grade students face. Middle schools are not meeting accountability standards, and as a result students are not being adequately prepared for high school. In response to these concerns, a state in the southeastern United States adopted a comprehensive school …

Relationships Among Middle School Teachers' Perceptions Regarding Inclusion Of Students With Disabilities In General Education Classrooms, Stacey O. Forrester

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Accommodating students with disabilities in a general education class often requires instructional modification and extra student support. Research has shown that making required changes can evoke different responses from teachers and can influence their willingness to accommodate the needs of students with disabilities. However, research has not examined the relationships between middle school teachers' preparation for and experiences with inclusion instruction and their attitudes toward inclusion. The purpose of this correlational study was to explore possible relationships between middle school teachers' attitudes about including students with mild to moderate disabilities in the general education setting and the teachers' education level, …

Exploring The Transition Of First-Generation Mexican American Students From Grade 8 To High School, Mary C. Curry

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The dropout rate for first-generation Mexican Americans students in American schools has increased in the past decade. The purpose of this study, as reflected in the central research question, was to explore the factors that influenced the decision of first-generation Mexican American students to transition to high school or drop out after Grade 8. The research design was a phenomenological case study. The conceptual framework was based on current research surrounding first-generation Mexican American student dropout questions. In addition, how the concepts of family and community involvement and relationships between the home and school have an impact on the first …

Novanet's Effect On The Reading Achievement Of At-Risk Middle School Students, Alice Harris Jackson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

At-risk and special education students in the 7th and 8th grades in a rural middle school in western Alabama, in the years following the introduction of the No Child Left Behind federal legislation in 2002, failed to achieve adequate yearly progress in reading. School districts are increasingly implementing flexible computer-based intervention programs to improve their students' reading achievement. Using a between-group design, the purpose of this study was to determine whether NovaNET, a newly adopted reading intervention program, enhanced the reading attainment of at-risk and special education students. Guided by constructivist theory, archived reading achievement data from the 2009-2013 Alabama …

Internet Technology As A Means Of Delivering Reading Instruction In The Content Areas, Kimberly Rose Pintok

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Due to students not meeting minimum proficiency levels in reading, a central Florida middle school that was rated an A school for 4 years consecutively dropped to a B rating during the 2012-2013 school year and was 10 points away from dropping to a C rating in the 2013-2014 school year. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe classroom implementation of Internet technology in a middle school classroom in an attempt to address the steady decline in reading scores. Guided by Piaget, Dewey, and Vygotsky's social constructivist view of education, this study explored if and how teachers used …

Differentiation For Content Area Literacy: Middle School Teachers' Perceptions And Practices, Beth Ann Oswald

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Recent studies support the use of differentiated instruction (DI) to improve literacy in content area classrooms. At the same time, research has found that few teachers implement DI purposefully or consistently. Accordingly, a case study design was used to explore middle school content area teachers' understanding and implementation of DI for content literacy at a site where it is an integral component of the response to intervention (RTI) process. The conceptual framework for this study was principles of differentiation, as defined and discussed by Tomlinson. Research questions were framed to examine how middle school content area teachers defined and implemented …