Education Commons^™

State Of The Methods: Leveraging Design Possibilities Of Qualitatively Oriented Mixed Methods Research, Cheryl N. Poth, Peggy Shannon-Baker

Department of Curriculum, Foundations, & Reading Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Publication Dynamics: What Can Be Done To Eliminate Barriers To Publishing Full Manuscripts By The Postgraduate Trainees Of A Low-Middle Income Country?, Hafsa Majid, Lena Jafri, Sibtain Ahmed, Muhammad Abbas Abid, Mohammad Aamir, Aamir Ijaz, Aysha Habib Khan, Imran Siddiqui

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Objectives: This study aimed to determine the publication rate of free paper abstracts presented by the postgraduate (PG) trainees and determine the reasons for non-publication. A mixed methods study was conducted. PG trainees presenting free papers at the at the Pakistan Society of Chemical Pathologist conferences from 2012 to 2018 were included. Three databases were searched to identify if the abstracts were published or not. The PG trainee authors of abstracts not published as full manuscript, were surveyed to determine the barriers and challenges in publishing a manuscript.
Results: The average rate of full manuscript publication was 51.8% (n = …

It’S All About To Change: Implications Of Reforming Grading & Assessment Within A Public School District, Divonna M. Stebick, Megan L. Pilarcik, Daniel W. Hartman

Education Faculty Publications

Calls to reform grading systems and other assessment practices have been growing for several decades. There is consensus among many educators that grading and assessment practices that have been traditionally accepted as good practice are at best ineffective and at worst have a negative impact on raising achievement. Consequently, there is no single solution or methodology for grading that has emerged as the best practice. A variety of contemporary grading approaches have gained widespread popularity in recent years, typically being referred to as standards-based grading, standards-referenced grading, proficiency-based grading, or competency-based learning. A challenge, however, is that different school districts …

Curriculum Re-Mapping For Fashion Merchandising Program, Zee-Sun Yun, Kelly Weathers, Chitra Singh

Assessment Grants

This project was the re-mapping of the Fashion Merchandising major (FMEJ) curriculum to improve the program curriculum and meet the standards of Textile and Apparel Programs Accreditation Commission (TAPAC) curricula and learning outcomes. The review feedback from diverse professional sources (i.e., the TAPAC committee, program faculty, industry professional, and expert) guided our decision to revise the FMEJ curriculum by proposing new courses, the proper sequencing of fashion merchandising courses, the degree to which the curriculum supports student learning, and the extent to which learning outcomes are appropriately addressed.

Creating A Culture Of Assessment: Building A Sustainable Model For Communicating Results To Guide Change, Amy Heath, Carrie Barrett

Assessment Grants

The Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) has been an active program at Western Michigan University for three years. Using data from the first cohort that completed the DPT program, the Curriculum and Program Evaluation and Assessment Committee (CPEAC) is reviewing the DPT course content and sequencing within the curriculum for efficiency and effectiveness. This grant will fund a model comprised of (a) data analysis and (b) a retreat to discuss results with faculty instructors. The model will improve best-practice in higher level education curricular assessment, engage faculty, assess student outcomes, and provide a curricular assessment blueprint for other university departments.

Understanding Student Perspective’S Around Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Within The School Of Social Work, Anna Yelick, Dee Sherwood

Assessment Grants

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has become a prominent fixture within the social work profession, with educational and professional organizations paying closer attention to issues related to DEI. The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), the governing body for accrediting social work education programs, has required social work programs to demonstrate a commitment to DEI in their implicit curriculum. Therefore, the School of Social Work is interested in understanding student perspectives and experiences of DEI efforts particularly within the implicit curriculum.

Educators’ Perceptions Of Middle Level Education In A State Without A Middle Level Teacher Credential, Ben Seipel, Rong-Ji Chen, Erika B. Daniels, Acacia M. Warren, Roxanne Greitz Miller

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE) presents a framework of middle level education and defines five essential attributes and 18 characteristics of successful middle schools (Bishop & Harrison, 2021). Young adolescents’ unique cognitive, moral, socio-emotional, and identity development is at the center of this framework. Several empirical studies suggest that middle school teachers with specialized preparation performed better in many key areas than their counterparts with elementary or secondary licensure (Mertens et al., 2005; Ochanji et al., 2016). Despite researchers’ calls for specialized preparation of middle grades teachers. California does not offer a middle level teacher credential. The purpose …

Establishing Content Validity For Wmu’S Special Education Key Assessments, Rena Vanderwall, Kate Lalonde

Assessment Grants

This project seeks to validate the content in the key assessments used in three special education programs at WMU. The purpose of key assessments is to assess student performance and drive ongoing program improvement. Shared key assessments across WMU’s teacher education programs have been validated, but those specific to special education have not been. Establishing content validity includes gathering evidence to demonstrate that the assessment content fairly and adequately represents a defined domain of knowledge or performance. Validation of these assessments will lead to stronger assessment of teacher candidates’ performance and continual improvement of these programs.

Creation And Assessment Of Inclusive Pedagogical Materials In The Spanish Program, Germán Zárate-Sández

Assessment Grants

Data compiled in the Department of Spanish showed that Black students at Western begin Spanish education at high rates but are less likely to advance to upper-level courses and more likely to obtain lower final grades than other groups. Assuming that part of this issue derives from current materials that do not represent Black students, the goal of this mini grant is to develop Spanish learning materials that are more inclusive and representative of the Black experience in Hispanic communities. The materials are expected to be a contribution to improving retention and academic achievement of Black students in the Spanish …

Celcis Assessment Plan/Process Revision, Eva Copija

Assessment Grants

This project will involve revising CELCIS assessment plan/process to make it more meaningful, measurable and manageable and to follow the guidelines of the Commission on English Program Accreditation (CEA), which recommended such revision in response to our 5-year interim report. The steps will include: revising learning outcomes for four kinds of courses at four different levels: elementary, intermediate, pre-advanced and advanced to make them more specific and measurable; aligning evaluation instruments with the learning outcomes; updating our model syllabi to make them reflect the correspondence between the learning outcomes and evaluation instruments, and redesigning progress reports given to students.

Towards Aligning Slides And Video Snippets: Mitigating Sequence And Content Mismatches, Ziyuan Liu, Hady W. Lauw

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Slides are important form of teaching materials used in various courses at academic institutions. Due to their compactness, slides on their own may not stand as complete reference materials. To aid students’ understanding, it would be useful to supplement slides with other materials such as online videos. Given a deck of slides and a related video, we seek to align each slide in the deck to a relevant video snippet, if any. While this problem could be formulated as aligning two time series (each involving a sequence of text contents), we anticipate challenges in generating matches arising from differences in …

High Quality, Equity, And Assessment: An Analysis Of Variables Impacting English Learner Standardized Science Test Performance And Implications For Construct Validity, Maria Del Carmen Salazar, Joanna K. Bruno, Melissa P. Schneider

Curriculum and Instruction: Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, assessment is seen as a lever that can facilitate high-quality education. This study on English learners, students whose native language is not English, was based on data from eighth-grade English learners’ performance on science general and content-specific (physical, life, and earth science) standardized exams and an English language proficiency exam. The researchers utilized regression analysis to examine factors (i.e., socioeconomic status, home language, English language proficiency, and receptive and productive elements of language) that are predictive of English learner performance in general and content-specific science standardized assessments to identify implications for construct validity of high-stakes science …

Circlet Guide For Facilitators: Online Continuing Professional Development Module: Embedding Community Engaged Research And Learning In Higher Education Curricula, Catherine Bates, Sinead Mccann, Caroline Mcgowan

Books/Book chapters

This guide contains all the resources needed to implement a postgraduate Continuing Professional Development (CPD) module for lecturers who wish to build, or enhance, community engaged research and learning (CERL) projects in the modules they teach, as part of the Higher Education curriculum. CERL (or service-learning, as it can be known) is a high-impact activity in Higher Education (Kuh, 2008), increasing student engagement and learning. CERL also supports community goals, and makes teaching more interesting for lecturers.

This module is designed to build capacity among participants for CERL, including developing relevant knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. Our approach to this …

A Culturally Sustaining Book Club: The Examination Of African American Students' Motivation And Literacy Achievement, Brittney C. Jones

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Culturally sustaining pedagogy includes centering students’ cultural identities, languages, and practices in the classroom. Such practices have had positive effects on the reading achievement and motivation of African American students. In particular, communalism and interdependence are cultural themes that are preferred by African American students and parents. Book clubs are a long-standing literacy activity that centers student voices and social interactions as the basis of student learning.

This mixed-methods intervention study was conducted to determine the effects of a culturally sustaining book club on second and third-grade African American students’ motivation and reading achievement at a Title I school as …

Machine Learning With Kay, Lasith Niroshan, James Carswell

Conference Papers

Computational power is very important when training Deep Learning (DL) models with large amounts of data (Wooldridge, 2021). Hence, High-Performance Computing (HPC) can be leveraged to reduce computational cost, and the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) provides significant infrastructure and services for research and development to both academia and industry. A portion of ICHEC's HPC system has been allocated for institutional access, and this paper presents a case study of how to use Kay (Ireland's national supercomputer) in the remote sensing domain. Specifically, this study uses clusters of Kay Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) for training DL models to extract …

Economics Of Sustainable Public Pension Funding, Robert M. Costrell, Josh B. Mcgee

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

In this paper we propose a new approach to sustainable public pension funding, as an alternative to: (i) traditional actuarial full-funding policies, on the one hand; and (ii) recent proposals aimed instead at stabilizing pension debt at current levels. Actuarial contribution policies aim to fund liabilities that are wrongly discounted at the expected rate of return on risky assets; and these policies promise to do so with amortization schedules that terminate in a precipitous future drop in contributions, which never materializes. Conversely, recent debt-stabilization proposals (Lenney, Lutz, and Sheiner, 2019a; 2019b) properly discount liabilities at a risk-free rate, but effectively …

The State Of Early Childhood Education & Pre-Kindergarten In Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Josh B. Mcgee

Arkansas Education Reports

This report describes the state of pre-Kindergarten and Early Childhood Education (ECE) access and quality in the state of Arkansas. This report focuses on the 1,571 licensed public and private ECE centers in the state, describing the number of licensed seats in these centers, transportation and funding options, quality ratings, staffing, and distribution of ECE opportunities. The report also includes survey results from 520 leaders of those pre-Kindergarten and ECE centers about their experiences with and thoughts about early childhood education in Arkansas. The findings detailed here should inform interested parties of the current state of ECE and pre-Kindergarten across …

Co-Designing Ai-Based Orchestration Tools To Support Dynamic Transitions: Design Narratives Through Conjecture Mapping, Luettamae Lawrence, Boyuan Guo, Kexin Yang, Vanessa Echeverria, Zimmy Kang, Vikrant Bathala, Christina Li

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Dynamically transitioning between individual and collaborative learning has been hypothesized to have positive effects, such as providing the optimal learning mode based on students’ needs. There are, however, challenges in orchestrating these transitions in real-time while managing a classroom of students. AI-based orchestration tools have the potential to alleviate some of the orchestration load for teachers. In this study, we describe a sequence of three design sessions with teachers where we refine prototypes of an orchestration tool to support dynamic transitions. We leverage design narratives and conjecture mapping for the design of our novel orchestration tool. Our contributions include the …

Discourse In Inquiry Science Classrooms, Diisc, Version 2.0 (User’S Manual For An Observation Research Instrument), Elizabeth B. Lewis, Dale R. Baker, Lyrica L. Lucas, Amy Tankersley, Elizabeth Hasseler, Ana Rivero, Brandon Helding

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This is a user's manual for the externally validated Version 2.0 of the Discourse in Science Inquiry Classrooms (DiISC) instrument. The instrument is best suited for use in conducting research in secondary (grades 6-12) science classrooms that focuses on teachers' instructional practices, but can also be used as a professional development tool for teacher self-reflection and identifying goals for instructional change. The DiISC Version 2.0 is aligned with a model of a scientific classroom discourse community and articulated characteristics of social constructivist lessons in the categories of inquiry, oral and written discourse, and academic language development and essential learning principles.

Multi-Tiered Culturally Responsive Behavior Support: A Qualitative Study Of Trauma-Informed Education In An Australian Primary School, Dayna Schimke, Govind Krishnamoorthy, Kay Ayre, Emily Berger, Bronwyn Rees

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

There is growing awareness of the impact of intergenerational trauma and community disadvantage on the educational achievement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) children in Australia. Scholars have identified the need for culturally responsive and trauma-informed approaches to complement existing disciplinary and behavior support practices utilized in schools. This pilot research project explored the experiences of primary school teachers who were supported to implement trauma-informed practices in a regional primary school with a large number of First Nations students. Qualitative interviews with eight teachers were conducted after a 3-year (2017–2020) implementation of the Trauma-Informed Behavior Support (TIBS) program. …

Does The Timing Of Money Matter? A Case Study Of The Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship, Jessica Goldstein, Jonathan N. Mills, Albert Cheng, Collin E. Hitt

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

This paper examines the effect of a state-financed merit-aid scholarship—the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship (ACS)—on post-secondary outcomes at a large university in Arkansas. Exploiting scholarship eligibility requirements, we implement a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to identify the scholarship’s causal impacts on college outcomes. The analysis focuses on currently enrolled sophomores, juniors, and seniors who receive the scholarship to investigate the broad impacts of receiving money at nontraditional points in an individual’s college trajectory. Findings indicate small, negative impacts of scholarship receipt on short-run outcomes such as GPA and credit accumulation, but large statistically significant declines in the likelihood of graduating …

Changes In Teachers’ Mobility And Attrition In Arkansas During The First Two Years Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Andrew Camp, Gema Zamarro, Josh B. Mcgee

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a trying period for teachers. Teachers had to adapt to unexpected conditions, teaching in unprecedented ways. As a result, teachers' levels of stress and burnout have been high throughout the pandemic, raising concerns about a potential increase in teacher turnover and future teacher shortages. We use administrative data for the state of Arkansas to document the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on teachers’ mobility and attrition during the years 2018-19 to 2021-2022. We find stable turnover rates during the first year of the pandemic (2020-2021) but an increase in teacher mobility and attrition in the …

Teachers’ And Learners’ Perceptions Of The Use Of Science Content Songs In The Teaching And Learning Of Ionic Bonding, Omollo D. O, Winston Edward Massam

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

Factoring learner engagement during chemistry lessons is key if conceptual understanding is an objective. This qualitative action research study explored the possibility of using science content songs to enhance learners’ engagement, motivation and interest in ionic bonding and related chemistry concepts among high school learners in Kenya. The study aimed at transforming learner attitudes in chemistry through songs as pedagogies and making them active participants during chemistry lessons. Two chemistry teachers and 65 form two students were purposively chosen to participate in the study. Out of the 65 students, 8 were selected through a random sampling method to participate in …

Mapping The Complexities And Benefits Of Research-Design Partnerships, Emma Mercier, Luettamae Lawrence, June Ahn, Christopher Wegemer, Maya Benichou, Yael Kali, Yotam Hod, Marcela Borge, Kimberley Gomez, Ung-Sang Lee, Susan Mckenney, Cindy Poortman, Paula Arce-Trigatti, Britte Haugan Cheng

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Increasingly our field is recognizing the necessity of close, collaborative relationships with educators, policy makers, students and other potential stakeholders if our design and research work is to have a lasting and more equitable impact on education. However, this work is not easy or quick, and we lack both detailed examples of how it is done and training for new (and current) scholars in how to do it. This symposium brings together a group of scholars who actively engage in RPPs and DBIR in order to highlight the lessons that have been learned and extend our discourse into the realities …

Building A World-Class Learning System, Geoff N. Masters

School and system improvement

This study sought to understand how five jurisdictions – British Columbia, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong and South Korea, which have all performed unusually well in international achievement surveys over the past two decades – are approaching school education and its transformation. Geoff Masters describes key aspects of the learning systems these jurisdictions have established, comments on how they are now redesigning their learning systems for the future, and discusses insights into what may be required for any jurisdiction to perform well on measures of the kind currently used in international surveys.

Design-Based Implementation Research Baseline Data Collection: Technical Report, Koomar Saalim, Adam Taskeen, Winston Edward Massam, Anthony , Gervace, Mrope Winifrida Jacob, Fredrick Mtenzi, Mwakabungu Fika, Aneth Komba, Sara Hennessy, Barretto Johnpaul

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

This research study aims to investigate the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability of a tech-supported, decentralised, and school-based teacher continuous professional development (TCPD) model, to improve learning outcomes in rural Tanzanian primary schools. The research will test and iteratively improve the national TCPD model and roll-out (including the semi-structured Communities of Learning), as outlined in the Tanzanian National TCPD Implementation Plan (2021). We seek to understand the model’s effectiveness and the role that technology can play. The research team includes researchers from EdTech Hub, Aga Khan University, and the Tanzania Institute of Education. The study employs a Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) …

Biblical Literacy: An Expositional Christ-Centered Approach To Bible Study, Paula K. Offutt

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This action research aimed to examine biblical literacy from an expositional Christ-centered approach to Bible study. Using a triangular curriculum design focusing on scriptural theology, Bible study methodology, and a transformative approach to Christ-centered learning, the action research results revealed that an expositional Christ-centered approach increases biblical literacy. The researcher garnered data by hosting four bi-weekly Bible study sessions employing pre-and-post assessments to capture participants' current and post-state of biblical literacy. The validity and reliability of the pre-and-post assessments were determined by a focus group that reviewed the measurement tools and provided feedback confirming the trustworthiness and dependability of the …

Ai And Ambitious Learning Practices, Cindy E. Hmelo-Silver, Sadhana Puntambekar, Krista Glazewski, Luettamae Lawrence, Nikol Rummel, Vincent Aleven, Gautam Biswas, Suraj Uttamchandani, Asmalina Saleh, Haesol Bae, Thomas Brush, Bradford Mott, James Lester, William Goss, Dana Gnesdilow, Rebecca Passonneau, Purushartha Singh, Chanmin Kim, Marcelo Worsley

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This symposium will provide opportunities for discussion about how Artificial Intelligence can support ambitious learning practices in CSCL. To the extent that CSCL can be a lever for educational equitable educational change, AI needs to be able to support the kinds of practices that afford agency to students and teachers. However, AI also brings to the fore the need to consider equity and ethics. This interactive session will provide opportunities to discuss these issues in the context of the examples presented here.

Assessment Of Teachers' Perception Of The Provision, Use, And Maintenance Of Information And Communication Technology Facilities (Ict) In Ekiti State Primary School Libraries In Nigeria, Mensah Prince Osiesi, Chigozie Celestina Oke Dr, Adejimi Oluwatobi Busiyi Mr, Adenike Lucia Arulebe Mrs, Nnaemeka Chijioke Okorie Mr, Onyiye Maureen Okoh Mrs

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study assessed teachers' perception of the provision, use, and maintenance of ICT facilities in Ekiti State Primary school libraries in Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive survey research type. The population of the study comprised all public primary school teachers in Ekiti State. The multistage sampling procedure was used in selecting the sample for the study. An instrument termed "Teachers' Perception of the Provision, Utilisation, and Maintenance of ICT Facilities in Primary School Libraries Questionnaire" was used for data collection, and was validated with its reliability ascertained. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics (frequency counts and percentages). …

Response Rates Of Online Surveys In Published Research: A Meta-Analysis, Meng-Jia Wu, Kelly Zhao, Francisca Fils-Aime

Education: School of Education Faculty Publications and Other Works

The response rates of online surveys were often examined in the literature by comparing to other modes of surveys. Questions regarding what constitutes a respectable response rate for online surveys in research remained unanswered. To fill in the knowledge gap, we conducted a comprehensive search, screened 8672 studies, and examined 1071 online survey response rates reported in education-related research. Our analyses showed the number of online surveys in published research grew steadily across the years. The average online survey response rate is 44.1%. Our results indicate that sending an online survey to more participants did not generate a higher response …