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Full-Text Articles in Education

Invisible Students: A Case Study Of Friendless Students During The First Year Of Junior High, Rachel E. Neeley Dec 2016

Invisible Students: A Case Study Of Friendless Students During The First Year Of Junior High, Rachel E. Neeley

Theses and Dissertations

This is a case study that investigates the experiences of eight friendless seventh grade students as they transition from elementary school to junior high. In an effort to examine the wide-range of experiences of friendless students, I explored and compared the experiences of students who have high social self efficacy and students who have low self-efficacy. Each student was interviewed two times and both interviews were analyzed using a priori codes of when and where students felt isolated and distressed. The interviews were also analyzed using an open coding method looking for emergent codes. The study highlights and illustrates what …


Principal Trust: Factors That Influence Faculty Trust In The Principal, A. Tyler Howe Dec 2016

Principal Trust: Factors That Influence Faculty Trust In The Principal, A. Tyler Howe

Theses and Dissertations

Principals are held accountable for student achievement even though they only have an indirect influence on that achievement. Accountability raises the question about what should be the priority for the principal's attention. The literature supports the existence of a positive correlation between faculty trust in the principal and increased student achievement. Our study considered the appropriateness of representing trust as a two-factor model broken down into components related to how teachers view the skill and the will of the principal. Additionally, our study examined which demographic factors of the school and of the principal affect faculty trust in the principal.This …


Relational Embeddedness In Mentoring Relationships Between Prospective K-12 Education Leaders And Their Mentor Principals, Maridee Beeston Dec 2016

Relational Embeddedness In Mentoring Relationships Between Prospective K-12 Education Leaders And Their Mentor Principals, Maridee Beeston

Theses and Dissertations

Prospective education leaders face challenges in a demanding environment often lacking critical resources necessary to make a difference in schools. The potential to acquire these resources may be found in the mentoring relationships formed during internships in educational leadership preparation programs. A lack of understanding exists regarding variations in the nature of these mentoring relationships—specifically in terms of relational embeddedness—the type and degree to which partners form ties embedded within a social relationship. Variations in relational embeddedness may impact mentoring quality and the potential to acquire the resources needed to succeed in demanding school environments. Theoretical frameworks in mentoring and …


Task-Level Feedback In Interactive Learning Enivonments Using A Rules Based Grading Engine, John Shadrack Chapman Dec 2016

Task-Level Feedback In Interactive Learning Enivonments Using A Rules Based Grading Engine, John Shadrack Chapman

Theses and Dissertations

In order to improve the feedback an intelligent tutoring system provides, the grading engine needs to do more than simply indicate whether a student gives a correct answer or not. Good feedback must provide actionable information with diagnostic value. This means the grading system must be able to determine what knowledge gap or misconception may have caused the student to answer a question incorrectly. This research evaluated the quality of a rules-based grading engine in an automated online homework system by comparing grading engine scores with manually graded scores. The research sought to improve the grading engine by assessing student …


Finnish Teacher Collaboration: The Behaviors, Learning, And Formality Of Teacher Collaboration, Bruce H. Eschler Dec 2016

Finnish Teacher Collaboration: The Behaviors, Learning, And Formality Of Teacher Collaboration, Bruce H. Eschler

Theses and Dissertations

Finnish teachers continue to receive significant attention among educators, educational leaders, and policy makers in the United States and around the globe. In addition, teacher collaboration continues to receive support as a meaningful part of teacher work and practice. Teacher collaboration is frequently described in various ways within different contexts. This study aims to: (a) better understand the nature of Finnish teacher collaboration by examining three teacher collaboration behaviors (sharing information and knowledge, planning, and problem-solving); (b) explore the extent to which Finnish teacher collaboration is formal (or school-required) collaboration and informal (or voluntary) collaboration; and (c) investigate …


Evidence For The Validity Of The Student Risk Screening Scale In Middle School: A Multilevel Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Matthew Porter Wilcox Dec 2016

Evidence For The Validity Of The Student Risk Screening Scale In Middle School: A Multilevel Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Matthew Porter Wilcox

Theses and Dissertations

The Student Risk Screening Scale—Internalizing/Externalizing (SRSS-IE) was developed to screen elementary-aged students for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD). Its use has been extended to middle schools with little evidence that it measures the same constructs as in elementary schools. Scores of a middle school population from the SRSS-IE are analyzed with Multilevel Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MCFA) to examine its factor structure, factorial invariance between females and males, and its reliability. Several MCFA models are specified, and compared, with two retained for further analysis. The first model is a single-level model with chi-square and standard errors adjusted for the clustered nature …


An Examination Of The Psychometric Properties Of The Student Risk Screening Scale For Internalizing And Externalizing Behaviors: An Item Response Theory Approach, Sara E. Moulton Dec 2016

An Examination Of The Psychometric Properties Of The Student Risk Screening Scale For Internalizing And Externalizing Behaviors: An Item Response Theory Approach, Sara E. Moulton

Theses and Dissertations

This research study examined the psychometric properties of the Student Risk Screening Scale for Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors (SRSS-IE) using Item Response Theory (IRT) methods among a sample of 2,122 middle school students. The SRSS-IE is a recently revised screening instrument aimed at identifying students who are potentially at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). There are two studies included in this research. Study 1 utilized the Nominal Response and Generalized Partial Credit models of IRT to evaluate items from the SRSS-IE in terms of the degree to which the response options for each item functioned as intended by …


An Analysis Of Support For Elementary Engineering Education Offered In The Science Teacher Journal Science And Children, Tawnicia Meservy Stocking Dec 2016

An Analysis Of Support For Elementary Engineering Education Offered In The Science Teacher Journal Science And Children, Tawnicia Meservy Stocking

Theses and Dissertations

Teachers use professional journals such as Science and Children for ideas to incorporate into their own teaching. As such the purpose of this study was to investigate the support offered for integrating engineering education into science instruction. The research methodology for this was a qualitative content analysis inferring categories based on the information presented. Twenty-three issues of the journal were read, spanning two and a half volume years. The categories that emerged were mentioning, implementing, and integrating. Deeper examples of integration were found to match the mapping and infusion strategies presented by the National Academy of Engineering and National Research …


Teachers' Adoption Of Learner-Centered Technology, Melissa C. Warr Oct 2016

Teachers' Adoption Of Learner-Centered Technology, Melissa C. Warr

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I describe research on teachers' experiences with learner-centered technology. Specifically, this research investigated teachers' experiences with adoption of the learner-centered tools available from Imagine Learning, an online elementary school literacy program. This thesis includes an extended literature review describing learner-centered classrooms, technology integration, and models of technology adoption, followed by a journal-ready article that describes teachers' experiences throughout the process of adopting Imagine Learning. Finally, I provide a description my experiences throughout this project as well as a proposal for future areas of study.


Learner Agency And Responsibility In Educational Technology, Michael Thomas Matthews Sep 2016

Learner Agency And Responsibility In Educational Technology, Michael Thomas Matthews

Theses and Dissertations

Though the topic of learner agency has received relatively little discussion in the literature of educational technology, it is nevertheless a significant and actually omnipresent concern of both scholars and practitioners. Through the journal-ready articles contained herein, I show how theories of learning and certain practices of instructional designers reflect implicit positions on the agency of learners. I also discuss agency in more concrete terms as the responsibility for learning that is shared with learners in instructional design contexts. In addition, I provide practical suggestions to help designers keep the learner at the forefront of their design thinking. Through this …


Developmental Math Students' Calibrated Judgments Of Learning, Brian Lindley Jones Jul 2016

Developmental Math Students' Calibrated Judgments Of Learning, Brian Lindley Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Calibrated Judgments of Learning (CJOL) represent the degree to which students' judgments of learning (JOL) relate to their actual learning. Although a substantial amount of research has been conducted on calibration and JOL in various domains of psychology, only a growing number of studies have begun to address the use of CJOL in applied educational settings. This study investigated the use of CJOL in university developmental math courses. Study participants included 185 men and 100 women with ages ranging from 18 to 61 years (M = 23.48, SD = 5.95). Study results indicate that these developmental math students were fairly …


What Is Being Said About Historical Literacy In Literacy And Social Studies Journals: A Content Analysis, Kiera Beddes Jul 2016

What Is Being Said About Historical Literacy In Literacy And Social Studies Journals: A Content Analysis, Kiera Beddes

Theses and Dissertations

The Common Core State Standards and the National Council for the Social Studies (C3 Framework) have recently prompted renewed emphasis on literacy, particularly in history, therefore it is important to analyze and compare what exactly the teacher educators of leading journals are saying about historical literacy. This study examines the literacy messages for the history classroom in The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy and Theory (JAAL) and Research in Social Education (TRSE) from 2010-2015. An emergent, qualitative content analysis was used to analyze data from these journals. Results from this study indicates definitions on historical literacy vary between journals, …


Insight Into Student Conceptions Of Proof, Steven Daniel Lauzon Jul 2016

Insight Into Student Conceptions Of Proof, Steven Daniel Lauzon

Theses and Dissertations

The emphasis of undergraduate mathematics content is centered around abstract reasoning and proof, whereas students' pre-college mathematical experiences typically give them limited exposure to these concepts. Not surprisingly, many students struggle to make the transition to undergraduate mathematics in their first course on mathematical proof, known as a bridge course. In the process of this study, eight students of varied backgrounds were interviewed before during and after their bridge course at BYU. By combining the proof scheme frameworks of Harel and Sowder (1998) and Ko and Knuth (2009), I analyzed and categorized students’ initial proof schemes, observed their development throughout …


A Methodological Analysis Of Research Into The Effect Of Professional Learning Community On Student Academic Achievement, Brandon K. Thacker Jul 2016

A Methodological Analysis Of Research Into The Effect Of Professional Learning Community On Student Academic Achievement, Brandon K. Thacker

Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzed all published research articles examining the relationship between professional community efforts (plc) (used here as a broader category than, but inclusive of, Professional Learning Communities or PLCs) and student academic achievement (SAA) that reported primary research findings published before January 1, 2015. This study specifically identified primary, quantitative studies of SAA that in context are plc, but which may or may not be labeled as such, that were published before January 1, 2015. Analyses examined how many studies of plc and SAA were of a descriptive, correlational, causal comparative, quasi-experimental,or experimental design type, evaluated …


Group Flow In The Byu Animation Studio, Jana Lynn Duncan Jul 2016

Group Flow In The Byu Animation Studio, Jana Lynn Duncan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation encompasses three articles concerning Sawyer's (2007) theory of group flow in the context of higher education, including a literature review, and two interpretive studies. In the literature review and in the first interpretive research article, the results of the research illuminated the applicability of themes of group flow in collaborative settings in higher education in themes of vision, ownership and contribution, and communication. The final article provides a description of the roles of student lead and professor in this environment and the unique ways that they may have encouraged those themes in the studio. The context for this …


A High School Biology Teacher's Development Through A New Teaching Assignment Coupled With Teacher-Led Professional Development, Lorien Young Francis Jul 2016

A High School Biology Teacher's Development Through A New Teaching Assignment Coupled With Teacher-Led Professional Development, Lorien Young Francis

Theses and Dissertations

This self-study examined the learning that emerged from a change in teaching assignment coupled with self-initiated, teacher-led professional development in order to understand a high school science teacher's development as a teacher. The two participants in the study were the teacher/researcher, an experienced high school biology teacher who was taking up a new assignment teaching biotechnology, an advanced science course; and a first-year teacher assigned to teach biotechnology, who served as collaborator in the professional development and critical friend in the study. In order to uncover the teacher/researcher's learning and thinking, self-study of teaching practice methodology most clearly met the …


The Impact Of Shortening A Long Survey On Response Rate And Response Quality, Daniel Stephen Allen Jul 2016

The Impact Of Shortening A Long Survey On Response Rate And Response Quality, Daniel Stephen Allen

Theses and Dissertations

Many factors influence the response rate of a survey or questionnaire. The BYU alumni questionnaire was initially a lengthy survey with over 200 questions. After a short version of the questionnaire was created and administered, response rates appear to have increased substantially. Male respondents appear particularly more inclined to respond to the shortened version compared to the long version. The questionnaire is examined through various statistical analyses and compared between the short and long versions. Results are presented in the context of existing research on response rates and response quality.


Conceptualizing Blended Learning Engagement, Lisa R. Halverson Jul 2016

Conceptualizing Blended Learning Engagement, Lisa R. Halverson

Theses and Dissertations

Learner engagement, or the involvement of the student's cognitive and emotional energy to accomplish a learning task, has been called "the holy grail of learning" (Sinatra, Heddy, & Lombardi, 2015, p. 1) because of its correlations to academic achievement, persistence, and satisfaction. In the 21st century, learning will be increasingly "blended," combining face-to-face with computer-mediated instruction. Research is already exploring learner engagement in blended contexts, but no theoretical framework guides inquiry or practice. Developing models and measures of the factors that facilitate learner engagement is important to the advancement of the domain. This multiple-article format dissertation addresses the theoretical gap …


Preparation For Online K-12 Teachers, Laura Anne Mcallister Jul 2016

Preparation For Online K-12 Teachers, Laura Anne Mcallister

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined existing K-12 online teacher preparation programs in the United States to ascertain the degree to which teachers are prepared to function in online/blended classroom learning environments. This study used a content analysis approach. Research specifically targeted online teacher preparation programs implemented in institutions of higher education. The researcher collected data from state offices of education and institution deans through email surveys inquiring about the existence and capacity of K-12 online teaching endorsements, course descriptions and other course documents.


Using Transaction-Level Data In Online Assessment, Robert Scott Nyland Jun 2016

Using Transaction-Level Data In Online Assessment, Robert Scott Nyland

Theses and Dissertations

This article format dissertation explores the benefits of using detailed forms of assessment to enable feedback in educational contexts, and includes three separate, yet related articles. In the first article, I reviewed the current state of educational research in using online learning tools that collect detailed data regarding student learning. The article examined the type of data being collected, the way that these data are processed, and how the results are presented to instructors and students as feedback. In the second article, I describe a special case of these detailed forms of assessment in an Introduction to Microsoft Excel class, …


Student Growth Trajectories With Summer Achievement Loss Using Hierarchical And Growth Modeling, Sara Bernice Chapman Jun 2016

Student Growth Trajectories With Summer Achievement Loss Using Hierarchical And Growth Modeling, Sara Bernice Chapman

Theses and Dissertations

Using measures of student growth has become more popular in recent years—especially in the context of high stakes testing and accountability. While these methods have advantages over historical status measures, there is still much evidence to be gathered on patterns of growth generally and in student subgroups. To date, most research studies dealing with student growth focus on the effectiveness of specific interventions or examine growth in a few urban areas. This project explored math, reading, and English language arts (ELA) growth in the students of two rural school districts in Utah. The study incorporated hierarchical and latent growth methods …


Effects Of Fourth- And First-Grade Cross-Age Tutoring On Mathematics Anxiety, Camille Margarett Rougeau Jun 2016

Effects Of Fourth- And First-Grade Cross-Age Tutoring On Mathematics Anxiety, Camille Margarett Rougeau

Theses and Dissertations

A mixed methodological approach was used to examine the effects of fourth- and first-grade students cross-age tutoring on mathematics anxiety. 37 Fourth-grade tutors, both trained and untrained, helped 37 first graders use multiple strategies to solve mathematical word problems for 10 weeks. A control group of 16 first-grade students completed the problems independently. Pre-test and post-test mathematics anxiety measures were used. Observations were also conducted throughout the study. The measures used for both primary and intermediate students were effective in identifying students with mathematics anxiety. However, quantitative findings showed no difference for fourth- or first-grade students on mathematics anxiety measures. …


Picture Books As Mentor Texts For 10th-Grade Struggling Writers, David Willett Premont Jun 2016

Picture Books As Mentor Texts For 10th-Grade Struggling Writers, David Willett Premont

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to fill gaps in the research to determine if picture books in the high school classroom can enhance student writing especially with word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. Previous research has not fully considered employing picture books as mentor texts to examine writing traits in the high school Language Arts classroom. The population was 12 participants from two low track English 10 Reading classes. Six participants were identified from each class as low, medium, or high-performing students based on an informal narrative writing activity. This study employed an action research methodology (Sagor, 2000). Students …


An Analysis Of Due Process Hearings Involving Students With Significant Disabilities In Their Least Restrictive Environment, Wendy Seiter Nichol Jun 2016

An Analysis Of Due Process Hearings Involving Students With Significant Disabilities In Their Least Restrictive Environment, Wendy Seiter Nichol

Theses and Dissertations

This research analyzed all available hearings from 2013 to 2015 in a national database of due process hearings regarding placement issues and determinations of the least restrictive environment for individual students with significant disabilities. The main research question was whether parents/guardians and due process hearing officers sought placements for these children with significant disabilities that considered creatively and holistically a range of options rather than just a dialogue between already extant possible programmatic offerings. The research resulted in a description and taxonomy of the types of issues and factors arising in the hearings for students with significant disabilities from 2013 …


Understanding Author Academic Disciplinary Background To Direct A More Effective Use Of Standardized Testing Within The School Community, Joseph Jensen Jun 2016

Understanding Author Academic Disciplinary Background To Direct A More Effective Use Of Standardized Testing Within The School Community, Joseph Jensen

Theses and Dissertations

Since the days of Horace Mann, standardized testing has been used as a control mechanism by policy makers to determine who makes decisions about what will happen in public schools. A dynamic struggle for educational control and governance has continued since that time between the local, state, and federal levels. This struggle for control puts school principals in a unique organizational position where they are expected to use standardized tests within the school community with teachers, students, and parents to improve education but at the same time manage external accountability mandates from district, state and federal levels of governance. To …


Student Self-Assessment: Teachers' Definitions, Reasons, And Beliefs, Christopher Daren Andrews Jun 2016

Student Self-Assessment: Teachers' Definitions, Reasons, And Beliefs, Christopher Daren Andrews

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to understand how teachers define student self-assessment (SSA), why teachers use or do not use SSA, and to explore how beliefs might influence teachers' reasons for using SSA or not. This study used Ajzen's theory of planned behavior to explore the relationships between teachers' stated beliefs about SSA and reasons for using or not using SSA. I interviewed seven teachers from one high school in the Intermountain West and found that five of the seven teachers in this study used SSA. I found that these teachers' definitions of SSA varied between formative and summative …


Emotions In Teaching: Self-Compassion, Stacey Freeman Jun 2016

Emotions In Teaching: Self-Compassion, Stacey Freeman

Theses and Dissertations

It has been hypothesized that negative emotions, left unresolved, contribute to feelings of burnout experienced by teachers. Self-compassion offers a kind, mindful way of approaching difficult emotions. The purpose of this study is to explore how teachers experience self-compassion by qualitative means. In semi-structured interviews, four elementary school teachers shared critical incidents of self-doubt or disappointment in their teaching. They also completed Neff's (2003a) Self Compassion Survey. Through intra-case and cross case analysis the findings revealed how teachers' lived experiences include episodes of conflict, reflection, resolution, and self-compassion, but in differing orders. Also, participants experienced self-compassion in ways that align …


A Look At The Reliability Of An Early Childhood Expository Comprehension Measure, Alta Adamma Mcdonald Jun 2016

A Look At The Reliability Of An Early Childhood Expository Comprehension Measure, Alta Adamma Mcdonald

Theses and Dissertations

Although the implementation of the Common Core State Standards has included more informational texts in early grades to emphasize reading to gain knowledge (Green, 2012; Roskos & Neuman, 2014), the lack of available expository assessments leaves teachers unsure of what students need to know in order to be successful comprehenders of these texts (Hall, Markham, & Culatta, 2005; Harding, 2014). Moreover, there are very few early expository assessments available which makes it difficult for teachers to monitor young children's expository text knowledge and skills and then adjust their instruction to meet children's unique needs. The EECA R-2 is an early …


The Impact Of Demographic And Educational Factors On International Students' Propensity To Trust: Implications For School Officials In Higher Education, Samuel D. Brown May 2016

The Impact Of Demographic And Educational Factors On International Students' Propensity To Trust: Implications For School Officials In Higher Education, Samuel D. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

School officials responsible for the growing international student populations struggle to find ways to help them navigate inconsistencies that may exist between federal regulations and institutional policies, and would benefit from increased understanding of ways to gain trust from diverse student populations. To determine whether student demographics might be related to propensity to trust, this study used the validated Propensity to Trust Scale (PTTS) by Frazier, Johnson, and Fainshmidt (2013), as well as a demographic questionnaire developed to measure students' background and educational attributes. Responses to an online survey from 576 international students from 71 countries were collected from a …


Measuring Student Engagement In Technology-Mediated Learning Environments, Curtis R. Henrie May 2016

Measuring Student Engagement In Technology-Mediated Learning Environments, Curtis R. Henrie

Theses and Dissertations

This is a multiple-article format dissertation that explores methods for measuring student engagement in technology-mediated learning experiences. Student engagement is the committed, focused, and energetic involvement of students in learning. Student engagement is correlated with academic performance, student satisfaction, and persistence in learning, making it a valuable predictor of important learning outcomes. In order to identify which students need help or to evaluate how well an instructional interaction promotes student engagement, we need effective measures of student engagement. These measures should be scalable, cost effective, and minimally disruptive to learning. This dissertation examines different approaches to measure student engagement in …