Education Commons^™

Charter School Performance In Rhode Island, Lena Vye

Senior Honors Projects

In the last few decades, there has been considerable debate over whether or not charter schools are beneficial to the American education system. Charter schools are given government funding, but they have independence from the established educational system. Charter school supporters argue that increased autonomy and innovation in teaching, as well as competition between schools, improves the quality of education. Opponents of charter schools argue that charter schools are not more effective than public schools. However, the research is mixed: some studies suggest charter schools perform better, some suggest they perform similarly, and some suggest that they perform worse than …

Retention Effects Of An Experiential Pedagogical Approach, Kelsea E. Adams

Senior Honors Projects

The quality and nature of delivery of education, especially at the K12 level is a major focus of the education reform movement. As an aspiring teacher, I am interested in developing a personal understanding of the efficacy of different modes of delivery. A large body of studies has examined the differences between experiential learning versus traditional classroom learning as well as effects on student retention. Traditional classroom learning involves literary texts, PowerPoint presentations and teacher-centered learning. In contrast, experiential learning is a hands-on, real world experience that provides students with an environment to expand their critical thinking skills and apply …

Competency-Based Education In Public High Schools, Angus M. Cantwell

Senior Honors Projects

Recent government-backed programs such as Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind have increased competition in schools in an effort to improve student and teacher performance. However, these programs have not had as drastic an impact as many had hoped, and the United States continues to toil in the middle of the pack educationally when compared with the rest of the world.

As many students have continued to struggle in school, many different ideas have been introduced into different levels of the education system in an attempt to raise scores and boost performance. One such idea is competency-based …

Analysis Of Students' Misconceptions Of Research Methods In Relations To Thinking Style, Tonya Tavares

Senior Honors Projects

This study explores college students’ misconceptions about scientific research methods and their predisposition for rational-analytic thinking or experiential-intuitive thinking. The measures used in assessing misconceptions and thinking style were a seven-item version of Students’ Conceptions of Research Methods Inventory (SCoRI), specifically the misconceptions of research methods subscale (Meyer et al.(2005), and Epstein’s Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI) Scale (1996), respectively. The REI Scale consists of two subscales adapted from the Need for Cognition scale (NFC, J. T. Cacioppo & R. E. Petty, 1982) and Epstein’s Faith in Intuition (FI) scale, each with five questions; REI-NFC measures rational-analytic thinking, while the REI-FI measures …

Living Proof: The Decline In Northeast Arts Education - And What Can Be Done About It., Chris Comer

Senior Honors Projects

All my life, I have been raised and tempered by the public schooling systems of the Northeastern states. As I near the completion of my undergraduate studies, I can look back at all my years of education and see how my personality and skill-sets were forged into what they are today. Now, in the age of the No Child Left Behind Act, and in the middle of a war overseas, public schools nationwide and here in the Northeast are finding it increasingly difficult to produce the test results and proof of knowledge that is being asked of them. This mismatch …