Education Commons^™

A Study Of The Relationship Between Student Attitudes Toward Reading And Achievement In Reading In Fifth-Grade Students, Christen Shelley

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between fifth grade student attitudes toward reading and student achievement in reading. The researcher hypothesized that from this study a correlation between student attitudes toward reading and student achievement in reading would be found.

A Comparison Of Inclusion And Pullout Programs On Student Achievement For Students With Disabilities, James Matthew Hurt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Students with disabilities have traditionally achieved to a lesser degree than have their nondisabled peers. Since the 1950s the federal government has enacted laws to provide free, appropriate public education to students with disabilities. In the first decade of the 21st Century the government has produced legislation requiring schools to be responsible for improving instruction for students with disabilities. One of the major trends in accomplishing this task is a move toward inclusive education. This study determined the relationships of assessment type (Standards of Learning (SOL) assessments versus Virginia Grade Level Alternative (VGLA) assessments) and models of service delivery (general …

The Effect Of Co-Teaching On Student Achievement In Ninth Grade Physical Science Classrooms, Karen M. Lafever

Dissertations

Co-teaching is a method that is increasing within schools across the US as educators strive to leave no child behind. It is a costly method, having two paid instructors in one classroom, with an average of 24 students shared between them. If it significantly increases the achievement of all students, it is well worth the costs involved. However, few studies have analyzed the effectiveness of this method on student achievement. This research follows the academic accomplishments of students in a ninth grade physical science course. Nine sections of the course “Force and Motion” were taught with a single teacher, and …

Behavioral Contract, Chesley Craine, Amy Lieber

Applied Behavior Analysis (SPED 432) and Intervention Strategies for Literacy (SPED 431)

The purpose of this poster is to answer the questions: a) How can behavior contracts be utilized in the classroom; and b) How effective are behavioral contracts in a classroom behavior management system? The related research includes an article that demonstrated the effectiveness of using behavioral contracts with middle school students who were labeled with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD). When behavior contracts were in place the inappropriate behavior within the classroom decreased. Behavior contracts seem to be effective for behavior modification of middle school students. It is recommended that behavior contracts be considered for use in classrooms or individual …

The Relationship Between Reading And Mathematics Achievement Of Students With Disabilities And Least Restrictive Environment Practices In Kentucky, Rhonda Kelly Simpson

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between Kentucky least restrictive environment (LRE) practices and KCCT assessment annual measureable objectives (AMO) in reading and mathematics for students with disabilities. This research was designed to determine whether districts achieved AMO targets for reading, mathematics and LRE. Also, it examined whether a relationship exists between special education students’ placement and assessment scores attained for the with disability subpopulation AYP category.

This quantitative, correlation study utilized data from the Kentucky Department of Education Open House, 2011 No Child Left Behind Adequate Yearly Progress Reports for each school district, and KCCT …

Serving Youth Who Are Serving Time: A Study Of The Special Education Services For Incarcerated Youth In A Short-Term Care Facility, Sachiko Hoshide

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examined the communication between sending court and community schools of a County Office of Education’s (COE) Alternative Education program and the receiving juvenile detention facility of a county in a Western state and how the communication between the two facilities affected the level of special education services provided to incarcerated youth, specifically the occurrence of 30-day placement IEPs. The juvenile detention facility was selected as a site because it was a lighthouse program, one of the few chosen to pilot the juvenile detention alternatives initiative (JDAI). JDAI sought to lower the number of incarcerated youth through viable alternatives …

Response To Intervention Data In Grade Retention Decisions: How Is It Used?, Cheryl Anne Mayfield

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

For over 100 years, retention has been an intervention used with students who are not performing at expected levels. Despite the lack of evidence that retention is an effective means of improving academic outcomes, retention continues to be used today. Response to Intervention (RTI) is a strategy to provide support to struggling students in an effort to increase their academic performance, with the caveat that students who do not respond to interventions are candidates for special education evaluation. With RTI, data are generated. The impetus for the creation of the RTI model was its use for identifying students who may …

Identifying In-School Predictors Of Postsecondary Success For Students With Hearing Impairments, Jennifer Lynn Coyle

Dissertations

Students with hearing impairments are historically a low incidence disability group. Gaps in knowledge of evidence-based practices for implementing transition education and services for this population is limited, primarily as a function of the size of the population; they have not received much attention from the educational research community. Students with hearing impairments often experience more successful outcomes in postsecondary education and employment than other disability groups, but less than those without a disability; however, we know little of the specific educational experiences associated with such success. In contrast, a body of work on predictors of post-school success for students …

Online Learning And Mentors: Addressing The Shortage Of Rural Special Educators Through Technology And Collaboration, Evelyn S. Johnson, Michael J. Humphrey, Keith W. Allred

Keith W. Allred

This article describes a promising model in comprehensive special education personnel preparation to support the recruitment and retention of special education teachers in rural areas. The approach draws on several bodies of research to include best practices for teacher education, online service delivery, collaboration among key stakeholders, and the development of strong mentoring and induction programs. The implementation plan, based on evidence-based practice in special education and online learning, is presented. A key element of this plan is developing and maintaining strong relationships among rural districts, the state department of education, and higher education.

Perceptions And Experiences Of Adolescent Students With Disabilities Regarding "Flextime" In A Response To Intervention Model, Julie G. Daye

Theses and Dissertations

Attitudes of Adolescent Students with Disabilities Regarding "Flextime" in a Response to Intervention Model Julie Daye Department of Counseling Psychology and Special Education, BYU Educational Specialist in School Psychology One of the stumbling blocks to implementing Response to Intervention (RTI) in a secondary school is finding time for students to receive second level instruction. Evidence of effective implementation of RTI in elementary schools is more prevalent than in secondary schools. There is limited information on how to restructure school time and other resources in order to successfully implement RTI in secondary schools. Evidence is also limited regarding the impact of …

Barriers To Full Participation In The Individualized Education Program For Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Parents, Arpi Tamzarian, Holly M. Menzies, Leila Ricci

The Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004) mandates that schools facilitate parent participation in planning the Individual Education Program (IEP). However, culturally and linguistically diverse parents are less likely to feel fully included in the IEP process. In this article we examine three sources of cross-cultural communication difficulties: verbal and non-verbal communication styles, bureaucratic procedures, and cultural assumptions about disability and intervention. We conclude by suggesting schools use an empathetic approach to improve communication in the IEP process.

Eagle Educator, Georgia Southern University

Eagle Educator (2012-2019)

• Dean's Message
• COE's Graduate programs
• Interdisciplinary STEM Education Institute Established
• New Goizueta Distinguished Chair in Education named

High School Teachers' Perceptions Of Inclusion, Carmen Wiggins

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

With the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, school systems must ensure students with disabilities receive instruction in general education classrooms. Implementing the inclusion model has been challenging for many school systems as the systems try to find ways to meet the needs of their diverse student populations. The purpose of this quantitative casual-comparative and correlational study is to identify high school teachers' perceptions of inclusion. One hundred seventy-three high school teachers from six school districts located in a southeastern metropolitan area completed a survey to allow the researcher to examine if a relationship existed between teachers' perceptions of inclusion …

Examining Perceptions Of Practices And The Roles Of Special Education Leaders Through The Distributed Leadership Lens, Patrick Ryan Tudryn

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the perceptions of distributed leadership held by 15 administrators of special education and 15 special education teacher leaders invited to perform a Q-sort, rank ordering 40 statements representing distributed leadership attributes. The research questions that guided this investigation included: 1) Are there any clusters of participants who ranked the leadership statements similarly and differently; 2) Are the clusters related to demographic or personal characteristics associated with the participants; 3) Were there similarities as to how the items were ranked by the participants among the clusters; 4) Are there themes depicting the clusters …

Peeking Inside Pandora’S Box: One University’S Journey Into The Redesign Of Teacher Educator Preparation, Frank Dykes, Brenda K. Gilliam, Joanna Neel, Kathleen Everling

Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the last two decades, there have been various calls for reform in teacher education programs to address the needs of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and students with disabilities. Consequently, many teacher education preparation programs are reviewing and redesigning their programs to meet the needs of the teacher of the 21st century. This manuscript will describe the development and implementation of a new certification program that integrates preservice teacher preparation, Special Education and English as a second language into a 123 hour degree program.

When Rights, Incentives, And Institutions All Clash: The Case Of School Vouchers And Special Education In Milwaukee, Patrick J. Wolf, John F. Witte, David J. Fleming

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Two highly controversial issues in the field of K-12 education in the U.S. are special education and parental school choice. Those two policy concerns converge surrounding the question of what proportion of students in school voucher programs compared to public schools have education-related disabilities, and whether or not the two school sectors are properly classifying and serving students with special education needs. We might expect private voucher-receiving schools to serve fewer students with disabilities than local public school systems due to the legal framework and institutional incentives surrounding special education and private schools. Most federal disability laws do not apply …

The Co-Teaching Journey: A Systematic Grounded Theory Study Investigating How Secondary School Teachers Resolve Challenges In Co-Teaching, Sharon Gerst

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this systematic grounded theory study was to explain how problems inherent in co-teaching relationships are resolved by secondary school special education and general education teachers at an urban school district in Eastern Iowa. The participants were general and special education secondary school teachers involved in effective co-teaching partnerships. Data was collected from five partnerships, utilizing focus groups, interpersonal behavior theory questionnaires, classroom observations, and individual interviews. The researcher analyzed the data using systematic grounded theory procedures of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding to develop a theory grounded in the data collected about the process by …

The Changing Role Of The School Psychologist In Response To Intervention, Sharon Murphy-Price

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

Traditionally, school psychologists have used the I.Q. discrepancy model to measure academic achievement versus student academic ability in order to determine if the student may be eligible for special education services under the category of specific learning disability (SLD). With the reauthorization of IDEA 1997 in December 2004, new policies under Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) were signed into law and became effective July 1. 2005. While the use of the I.Q. discrepancy model is permitted, technically adequate assessments and researched based instructional practices must also be in place and student progress recorded before students can be diagnosed …

Urban Elementary School Prinicipals' Attitudes Toward The Inclusive Environment, Joseph A. Galano

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Teacher Attitudes Toward The Use Of Accommodations In The Classroom And On Standardized Tests, Michele Penny Meadows

Dissertations

Educating students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment necessitates the use of accommodations and modifications to help these students have better access to the general education curriculum. As a result of inclusion, general education teachers are required to teach students with disabilities in their general education classrooms. Even though regular education teachers have assistance from special education teachers, not all general education teachers (and some special education teachers) believe they have the education, experience, or support to teach these students effectively. This study measured general education teacher and special education teacher attitudes toward the use accommodations for special education …

The Impact Of Teacher Demographics On The Overrepresentation Of African American Males In Special Education In A Coastal School District, Myrick Lamon Nicks

Dissertations

African American students make up 17% of the public school population nationwide. Ironically, 41% percent of students in special education are African American (Kunjufu, 2005). The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of teacher demographics on the overrepresentation of African American males in special education in a coastal school district. Furthermore, this study examined the perception of teachers at different grade levels to see if there was a difference between elementary and secondary teachers’ perceptions. According to the literature, African American males are overrepresented in special education placement throughout the United States’ public school systems. Therefore this …

Challenges Native Chinese Teachers Face In Teaching Chinese As A Foreign Language To Non-Native Chinese Students In U.S. Classrooms, Hui Xu

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This qualitative case study targeted the perceptions of Chinese teachers (n= 7) who had teaching experiences in China or Taiwan and the challenges they faced in transitioning to teach non-native Chinese students in U.S. classrooms, specifically about their teaching beliefs, styles, pedagogy, classroom management strategies which may be different from that of American education system. Results showed that Chinese teacher participants encountered numerous challenges including language barriers and culture shock, different perceptions and expectations of the roles of the teacher and students, communication with parents, different teaching pedagogies and styles, classroom management, and inclusion of students with special needs. The …

Ecological Factors In Social Skill Acquisition: High School Students With Emotional And/Or Behavioral Disorders, Sarah K. Anderson, Kari Chiasson

The Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship

The purpose of the study was to develop a grounded theory of the underlying social processes and/or other ecological factors that impact the effectiveness of skill acquisition for students with emotional and/or behavioral disorders in a Midwestern city in the United States. Theory development was based on in-depth investigation of five students with emotional and/or behavioral disorders (EBD), who were taught assertive communication skills. This study examined ecological factors impacting the learning of a new social skill and the socialization skills of students with EBD. Based on the findings of this study, three broad conclusions are offered: (a) students identified …

Parent-Teacher Partnerships In Special Education, Cassandra Braley

Honors Projects

There is an old African proverb that says, “It takes a village to raise a child (Buzzell, 1996, p.1).” In today’s society, this saying is applicable to the idea of parent-teacher partnerships in education. The underlying assumption of such partnerships is that everyone who has a stake in a child’s life, including the parents, teachers, and community, should work together to give that child the best education possible. In reality, however, key stakeholders in a child’s life may have many different ideas and beliefs, and, as a result, a disconnect in communication and relationships among them can arise. In such …

Accommodations In Homeschool Settings For Children With Special Education Needs, Patricia Koelsch Stoudt

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This qualitative study was designed to examine how homeschooling parents in Pennsylvania make the determination to engage with public school districts to accommodate the special education needs (SEN) of their children. This phenomenological study used direct interviews with 30 Pennsylvania families who are homeschooling children with SEN. Data were analyzed by using the constant comparative method. The study found that even though Pennsylvania's law allows families and school districts to work together to provide services to address the children's SEN, this does not happen often. Most families in this study utilized services from private resources. These private services were paid …

Teaching Elementary Children With Autism: Addressing Teacher Challenges And Preparation Needs, Ruth Busby, Rebecca Ingram, Rhonda Bowron, Jan Oliver, Barbara Lyons

The Rural Educator

Teachers’ perception of self-efficacy may have a significant impact on their ability to accept the challenges inherent in including children with autism in their classrooms. The Nominal Group Technique (NGT) was used to identify perceived challenges and needs of 31 graduate students in a university course of which 14 of the 23 students were actively teaching in rural schools located in southeast Alabama. Five faculty members used the resulting NGT data to draft six recommendations for improving the teacher preparation program at Troy University.

Preparation Of Career And Technical Education Teachers For Working With Students Who Have Special Needs, Mary Sunisloe

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This research study looks at the preparation of Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers working with students who have special needs. If the CTE teachers have been prepared through formal education and updated training, participate in the IEP process, and have access to and use goals and objectives of students who have IEPs, then CTE teachers will feel prepared to work with students who have special needs. Specifically this study looked at three areas: how much formal education CTE teachers had as well as up-dated training for working with students who have special needs within the last twelve months; if …

English Language Learner Disproportionality In Special Education: Implications For The Scholar-Practitioner, Diana Linn, Lynn Hemmer

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

This study examined the representational patterns of English language learners (ELLs) receiving special education services in school districts in a southeastern Texas region over a 7-year period. Results indicated that although relative risk ratios have decreased over time, the region as a whole continued to show overrepresentation of ELLs in special education. Additionally, the percentage of districts demonstrating overrepresentation decreased by almost half over the 7 years. Finally, the relative risk ratios for some districts in the study indicated variability over time. Awareness of the representational patterns of ELLs at the
national, state, regional, district, and campus levels continues to …

Integrazione Scolastica In Italy: Implications For American Schooling Of Children With Disabilities, Michael Giangreco

College of Education and Social Services Faculty Publications

This sabbatical final report describes the preparation, activities, and initial outputs of a three month sabbatical journey to Italy in Fall 2011. Over the past two decades, educating students with disabilities in inclusive classrooms, alongside their peers without disabilities, has increasingly become a focus of global attention and advocacy (Ferguson, 2008; Vislie, 2003). In part, this has been evidenced internationally through the development and ratification of the Salamanca Agreement (UNESCO, 1994) and Article 24 (Education) of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2006). These international accords strongly favor inclusive education for children and youth with …

An Analysis Of The Legal Issues Of School Voucher Programs For Students With Disabilities And Its Impact On The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (Idea), Patricia Fontan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the current case law on school voucher programs for students with disabilities and legal protections under IDEA. The idea of school vouchers can be traced back to the 1950s but have taken a new form in the past 13 years. There have been several court challenges to the constitutionality of school voucher programs with mixed results which will lead to court challenges in the future on a state by state basis based on the state’s constitution. School vouchers have been developed to target specific populations of students including students with disabilities. But with very little accountability for …