Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

Unlocking Potential: The Transformative Power Of Trauma-Informed Schools On Students' Well-Being And Academic Success, Tiffany Carolino

University Honors Theses

Trauma-informed approaches in public schools have emerged as a promising strategy to address students' social-emotional well-being and academic success impacted by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). This paper explores the necessity and effectiveness of trauma-informed practices within educational settings. Adverse childhood experiences encompass a range of traumatic events that profoundly affect children's development, behaviors, and academic performance. Despite the prevalence of ACEs, traditional disciplinary practices often fail to address the underlying issues, leading to further challenges for students. This literature review examines three trauma-informed programs: HEARTS, TIES, and STRIVE, each offering strategies to support students and educators. Results from these programs …

The Effect Of Reading Habits On Academic Success, Taylor Hicks

Culminating Experience Projects

The goal of most students is to achieve academic success. In order to be successful, students must form healthy reading habits because there is a positive correlation between academic success and reading habits. The more students read, the greater their chances of performing well academically. By participating in frequent reading, students will, not only perform well in school, they will also expand their vocabulary, improve their writing skills, and sharpen their critical thinking skills. We are in the midst of a literacy crisis, though. Students are choosing other avenues for entertainment instead of reading. This could potentially have detrimental consequences. …

Social And Emotional Learning In E-Lectures And Its Relation To Academic Achievement, Social Isolation And Engagement In Learning Among Graduate Students, Manal A. Mobarez Prof.

International Journal for Research in Education

The research aimed to develop e-lectures in light of social and emotional learning to enhance academic achievement, engagement in learning and reduce the sense of social isolation among graduate students. The sample included (21) students conducting the Master of Education Technology at Cairo University divided randomly into a control group of (10) students using distance learning through traditional e-lectures and an experimental one of (11) students using distance learning through e-lectures based on social and emotional learning through an e-learning platform at Cairo University. The research was applied in 2020/2021. The experimental treatment resulted in the design of a general …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Social Emotional Learning Instruction And High Residential Mobility Students’ Reading Literacy, Janel Dorene Morris

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Based on recommendations from research, leaders in a north Texas public school district implemented social emotional learning (SEL) to address academic gaps among high residential mobility (HRM) students. Incorporating SEL instruction improves academic achievement 11 percentile points on average; however, in Adoniram School District (ASD), 2021 passing rates fell 8% from 2019 despite adopting SEL curriculum. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how ASD elementary teachers instructed SEL, and their perceptions of how SEL techniques influenced HRM elementary students’ reading literacy development. The study on social and emotional skills (SSES) conceptual framework guided this study because …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Social Emotional Learning Instruction And High Residential Mobility Students’ Reading Literacy, Janel Dorene Morris

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Based on recommendations from research, leaders in a north Texas public school district implemented social emotional learning (SEL) to address academic gaps among high residential mobility (HRM) students. Incorporating SEL instruction improves academic achievement 11 percentile points on average; however, in Adoniram School District (ASD), 2021 passing rates fell 8% from 2019 despite adopting SEL curriculum. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how ASD elementary teachers instructed SEL, and their perceptions of how SEL techniques influenced HRM elementary students’ reading literacy development. The study on social and emotional skills (SSES) conceptual framework guided this study because …

The Impact Of Student Learning Pathway Choices During The Covid-19 Pandemic On Academic Achievement, Lauren A. Canfield

Doctor of Education Dissertations

In the fall of 2020, students chose the learning pathway that best suited their situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Learning pathways were face-to-face, virtual synchronous, and virtual asynchronous. Because of this, in the fall of 2021, all students demonstrated learning loss. The learning loss, however, was not congruent among students. This quantitative study sought to determine if a student’s learning pathway choice during the COVID-19 pandemic impacted their academic achievement as measured by grade point average, end-of-course exam scores for Algebra I, and qualification for Tier 2 academic interventions in a multi-tiered system of support. This study was conducted …

Physical Activity And Academic Achievement: An Analysis Of Potential Student- And School-Level Moderators, Peter J. Boedeker, Hannah G. Calvert

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Many children do not engage in sufficient physical activity, and schools provide a unique venue for children to reach their recommended 60 daily minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Prior research examining effects of MVPA on academic achievement is inconclusive, and few studies have investigated potential moderators of this relationship. This study examined whether student-level characteristics (gender, race/ethnicity, free/reduced-price lunch status) and school-level characteristics (proportion of students qualifying for free/reduced-price lunch, physical activity environment and opportunities) moderate the relationship between MVPA and academic achievement.

Methods: In a large, diverse metropolitan public school district in Georgia, 4,936 students in Grade …

The Longitudinal Association Between Objectively-Measured School-Day Physical Activity And Academic Achievement In Us Elementary School Students, Paul N. Elish, Cassandra S. Bryan, Peter J. Boedeker, Hannah G. Calvert, Christi M. Kay, Adria M. Meyer, Julie A. Gazmararian

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: It is recommended that school-aged children accrue 30 minutes of daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in school. Current literature is inconclusive about the long-term associations between school-based physical activity and academic achievement. In this study, we use a large sample and longitudinal design to rigorously evaluate whether school-day MVPA is associated with academic achievement.

Methods: In a diverse suburban public school district, 4936 Grade 4 students were recruited in 40 elementary schools. Students wore accelerometers to measure school-day MVPA for 15 days across three semesters. Academic performance data was collected across Grade 3 fall to Grade 5 spring, including …

The Effect Of Using The Gamification Strategy On Academic Achievement And Motivation Towards Learning Problem-Solving Skills In Computer And Information Technology Course Among Tenth Grade Female Students, Mazyunah Almutairi, Prof. Ahmad Almassaad

International Journal for Research in Education

Abstract

This study aimed to identify the effect of using the gamification strategy on academic achievement and motivation towards learning problem-solving skills in computer and information technology course. A quasi-experimental method was adopted. The study population included tenth-grade female students in Al-Badi’ah schools in Riyadh. The sample consisted of 54 students divided into two equal groups: control group and experimental group. The study tools comprised an achievement test and the motivation scale. The results showed that there were statistically significant differences between the two groups in the academic achievement test in favor of the experimental group, with a large effect …

The Predictability Of Selected Academic Demographic And Family Related Factors On The Academic Achievement Of Middle School Students., Demetria Westmoreland

Dissertations (2016-Present)

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship and predictability of selected demographic, academic and family related factors on the academic performance of middle school students. Specifically, this study will be concerned with the predictability of the variables gender, ethnicity, standardized mathematics scores, standardized reading scores, family income, type of household, socioeconomic status and primary language spoken in the home on the academic performance of middle school students as measured by their STAAR’s social studies scores. A quantitative correlational research design was employed in the current investigation. A linear relationship was not found between the demographic factors of …

Interventions For Ninth-Grade Middle-Achieving Students, Bradley C. Cook

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Implementing intentionally designed interventions to improve students’ academic performance has been a focus of educational stakeholders for decades. However, the implementation of academic interventions for average-achieving students, particularly during their freshman year of high school, appears to be lacking. The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory study was to explore designed interventions implemented by high school administrators from two unified school districts in California that focused on the academic performance of middle-achieving students during their ninth-grade year. This qualitative grounded theory study focused on the perspective of a purposive sampling group of high school administrators, which included principals, assistant principals, …

Helping High School Students Succeed Academically By Meeting Their More Basic Needs, Karen Eyler Martin

Theses and Dissertations

In this action research, I seek to show the connection between breakfast consumption and student academic achievement. Students skip breakfast for a variety of reasons, including not allowing enough time and not having enough resources for it. Others eat what they can obtain, including snack foods that are highly processed. In addition, school districts have gotten away from making their meals from scratch, and instead, use a third-party catering service that often serves food that is cheap and easy to heat up, which often means it is highly processed and does not have the same nutritional content as whole foods. …

Reporting Student Progress: What Might It Look Like?, Hilary Hollingsworth, Jonathan Heard, Anthony Hockey, Tegan Knuckey

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

The Communicating Student Learning Progress review produced by ACER in 2019 set out recommendations for schools and systems to improve the way schools report on student learning, in particular learning progress. Two case study schools from Victoria – a Catholic primary school and government secondary school – discuss changes they’ve made to their student reporting processes, in response to the review’s recommendations. Further research is recommended into how schools are rethinking reporting to engage students and parents in monitoring learning growth.

How Might We Identify And Measure Learning Progression In History?, Louise Zarmati

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

In this session, Dr Zarmati will share her research on efforts to map and describe progress in the learning area of History.

Learning progression is a continuum that measures advances in learning by tracking development from early learning to more sophisticated levels of mastery. Mathematics relies on an understanding of empirical knowledge and concepts in a hierarchical sequence; students need to understand (or master) one mathematical concept before they can proceed to the next. In comparison, progress of understanding in history is not necessarily hierarchical because it is based on mastery of concepts and skills rather than historical knowledge, which …

Caucasian Teachers' And African American Students' Perceptions Of Factors That Motivate Low-Socioeconomic African American Students To Read, Brittany Keys Anderson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this case study was to explore Caucasian teachers’ and African American students’ perceptions of factors that motivate low-socioeconomic African American students to read within the southern region of West Virginia. The theories guiding this study were the self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1980) and the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991). This study details the literature on the achievement gap in reading between African American students and students of other races, as well as teachers’ and students’ perceptions of instructional and motivational practices that influence reading development. African American students from lower economic backgrounds are being left …

Teacher Led Tier Two Intervention To Increase Student Academic Achievement, Cynthia Shepherd

Education Masters Papers

The purpose of this action research was to determine if the implementation of a tier two teacher led intervention would increase student academic achievement. A small group of ten students in a ninth-grade physical science class participated in the study. Data was collected over a period of three weeks using pre- and post- intervention surveys, an exit slip for self-assessment, researcher observations, comparisons of work completion and grades from previous grading periods, participant performance self-assessment, and a goal setting activity. Results show an inconclusive connection between the tier two teacher led intervention and student academic achievement. This is possibly due …

Elementary Content Teacher Perceptions Regarding Their Ell Instructional Practices, C. Wesley Owens, Steve P. Wells

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the instructional practices of elementary English language learner (ELL) teachers and how those practices are perceived by the teachers to be aligned with improved ELL academic performance. The study is grounded in Ladson-Billings’ theory of culturally relevant pedagogy, which holds that student academic achievement and cultural identity should be affirmed. The research questions focused on exploring instructional practices used by teachers to support ELL learning and the teachers’ perceptions of how their practices are aligned with improved ELL academic performance. The qualitative descriptive study was limited to three elementary schools …

Writing For An Authentic Audience In The Middle Grades, Emily Huffman

Master of Education Program Theses

This action research study investigated the effects of writing for an authentic audience on the achievement and engagement of students in a school in Southern California. The participants were 79 8th graders, split into an experimental group of 40 that wrote a review with the opportunity to be published in The New York Times, and a control group of 39 students that wrote a review for the teacher to read and grade.

The Perspectives Of Head Start Employed Community College Students Who Earned An Associate Degree In Early Childhood Education Programs: A Phenomenological Study Exploring Challenges And Successes, Robyne E. Taylor

Dissertations and Theses

The U.S. federally funded Head Start programs serve more than one million low-income children and their families each year in education and health programs. Historically there have been few requirements for formal education for Head Start teachers. In response to research linking teacher education and outcomes for children, increased educational requirements were included in the program funding reauthorizations in recent decades. For a variety of reasons, community college early childhood education programs are a logical place for those already employed by Head Start to improve their qualifications. At the same time, these institutions tend to have low graduation rates, and …

Mindfulness & Mindset: The Winning Combination? The Exploration Of The Unstuck Method® On Developmental Math Students: A Mixed Methods Study, Edite Birnbaum, Edith L. Birnbaum

Graduate Theses & Dissertations

Many students enter colleges having to take non-credit-bearing courses, and many do not pass these courses due to numerous factors, including anxiety and stress, especially in mathematics. Current literature shows how mindfulness-based interventions (Bamber, & Schneider, 2016; Dvořáková et al., 2017; Hidman, 2013; Miller et al. 2019; Regehr et al., 2013) and a growth mindset (Blackwell et al., 2007; Boaler et al., 2018; May, 2009) have a positive effect on student stress, anxiety, and academic success. This mixed-method study focused on the unSTUCK strategy’s impact, a mindfulness-inspired tool, on foundation math students. The unSTUCK strategy is a mindfulness-inspired program. The …

Meritocracy And Marketization Of Education: Taiwanese Middle-Class Strategies In A Private Secondary School, Amanda Shufang Yang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In the 20th century, economic growth in Taiwan has brought social prosperity and fundamentally altered Taiwanese social structure. While successive generations of young people have climbed the social ladder and experienced upward mobility, being successful is still narrowly defined through academic achievement. This study argues that, despite constant education reform, a solution to class inequality in education has yet to be found. The mandate of the 12-Year Basic Education Curriculum in 2019 was an answer to local, global, and international transformations. While citizens celebrate the neoliberal concepts of autonomy and deregulation embedded in the 12-Year Basic Education Curriculum, coercion is …

Study Protocol For Testing The Association Between Physical Activity And Academic Outcomes Utilizing A Cluster-Randomized Trial, Peter Boedeker, Lindsey Turner, Hannah Calvert, Christi Kay, Adria Meyer, Chuck Truett, Julie Gazmararian

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend adolescents engaging in 60 min of physical activity (PA) every day. Students should spend at least 30 min being active while at school. However, schools rarely provide that much PA time for students. This paper describes the planned analyses for a study evaluating the relationships between PA (measured as average daily minutes of Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity [MVPA]) and educational outcomes of standardized test scores and classroom grades cross-sectionally in 4 th grade and longitudinally from 4 th to 5 th grade. Investigations of moderators (both student- and school-level), mediators, and potential …

Academic Goal Orientation: New Insights And Cultural Adaptation Of Academic Goal Orientation Questionnaire Into The Turkish Language, Fuat Findikoglu, Mehmet Gurol

Georgia Educational Researcher

This study aims to review and provide new perspectives for academic goal orientation. The study introduces first chronological history of goal orientation and depicts how goal orientation evolved into a new construct in learning from the discussion on motivational factors. At first, this study isolates goal orientation from motivation and provides novel insights into goal orientation as a separated factor affecting learning. Then, this study provides analyses of the adaptation work of the academic goal orientation questionnaire into the Turkish language. The translated scale was applied to a sample of 729 undergraduate students, 376 (51.6%) of which were female and …

Settler Colonial Curriculum In Carlisle Boarding School: A Historical And Personal Qualitative Research Study, Patrick Gerard Eagle Staff

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation research study brings together a historical account and one scholar's personal and family stories of how Indigenous children were stolen and sent to the first Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) boarding schools and tribal schools. In the case of the researcher's family, the educational experiences at Carlisle Indian Industrial School immediately started a traumatic assimilation process on Indigenous children that instilled generational trauma for them and their descendants. At these schools, Indigenous children were forced to conform to a foreign European school designed to abolish their Indigenous identity that demanded they give up their language and culture to …

The Language Outcomes Of Hmong Dual-Language Immersion Program, Chao Vang

Doctorate in Education

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a K-12 Hmong dual-language immersion program on kindergarten through fifth-grade Hmong students’ academic performance in the category of reading Hmong and English. Moreover, the parents of those students were investigated concerning specific factors they used in choosing a dual-language immersion program for their child. Hmong bilingual students have different perspectives about their cultural identities, retaining the Hmong culture, and learning English when the Hmong language was used as the instructional language. It was also imperative to determine the most prevalent factor that parents consider when selecting a program with …

Amplifying Latinx Voice Through Interview Study: Highlighting Mathematics Identity As A Pathway To Student Self-Empowerment And Academic Agency, Brea Justine Cohen

Dissertations and Theses

Nationally, the percentage of high school students taking higher-level mathematics courses (beyond Algebra 2) has increased from the late 20th century to the present. However, as compared to White high school students enrolled in advanced math classes, the rate is lower among students of color, specifically students who identify as Latinx, African American, or Native American. My school district (a suburban district in the Northwestern United States) is working to address this problem by implementing several district-wide initiatives that focus on increasing students' engagement in mathematics, which focuses teacher pedagogy on leveraging mathematics communities to support collaborative mathematics dialogue. The …

Effective Instructional Practices For Students With Mild Disabilities: Cognitive And Meta-Cognitive Strategies, Crystal Roberts, Andrea Scandrett, Jessika Washington

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

General Education Teachers, Special Education Teachers, and School Administrators will be able to gain information needed to support students suspected of or identified as experiencing learning disabilities. The presenters will discuss cognitive and meta-cognitive high leverage instructional practices that can be used to improve student engagement and academic achievement by strengthening executive functioning skills to enhance memory, attention and self-regulation.

Is The Setting Important?: A Systematic Review Of Academic Achievement In A Variety Of Educational Settings, Shannon Jeralds

Educational Specialist Scholarly Papers

Since the inception of Public Law 94-142, which we now know today as the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), in 1975, the question of how and where to educate students with disabilities has been constantly examined and re-examined. Students with disabilities have gone from being placed in an isolated area of the school (out of sight, out of mind) to being included in regular education classrooms and being expected to perform at the same level as students without disabilities. This has caused educators and researchers to wonder what is the best educational setting for students with disabilities to be educated, …

Securing The Next Generation, Wu-Chang Feng, Robert Liebman, Ellie Harmon, Veronica Hotton, Michael Mooradian Lupro, Lois Delcambre

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Weak authentication practices that rely on passwords for security have led to widespread data breaches and successful phishing attacks. Recent advances in the cost and usability of hardware security tokens have made the prospect of effectively augmenting password-based authentication or removing it altogether a possibility. To actualize this, a paradigm change in how people learn to authenticate accounts on-line must occur. Towards this end, we describe a curriculum to teach high-school students the perils of passwords and a program to distribute hardware security tokens to them as they are first setting up their on-line presence in order to improve the …

Mastery Learning: A Mixed-Methods Study Of Teacher Efforts Implementing Key Components Of The Mastery Learning Framework, Lashay Conley

Doctor of Education Dissertations

This study works to assess the degree to which the impact of implementation of Mastery Learning can be described through teacher perception, academic achievement, and student growth. Elementary school teachers in a suburb in North Carolina implemented the Mastery Learning framework. The school’s end-of-grade test scores were above state and district averages but did not meet expected academic growth as identified by the state. These results are an indicator that many of the students were proficient but were not growing at an acceptable rate. Beginning in the 2017 school year, teachers attended professional development training on the framework, processes, and …