Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Science Teachers' Perceptions Of Culturally Responsive Teaching In Majority Native American Schools In Oklahoma, Michelle Childress

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Native American students have consistently scored less than their white peers on high school academic achievement tests, have the lowest high school graduation rates, and have the lowest college enrollment rates. Research has evidenced challenges and struggles Native American children are faced with that negatively effects their success in the classroom. Native American students often encounter a disconnect between their home and school life resulting in difficulties of navigating two opposing worlds. When Native American students are associated with negative stereotype’s indicative of Native American culture as opposed to the dominant culture, this creates a conflict between their cultural identity …

Gender Perceptions And Female Students' Academic Engagement And Success In Stem Fields, Rheanna Morgan

School of Social Work Undergraduate Honors Theses

Despite an increase of females in higher education and the workforce, fields such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) continue to be male-dominated. One explanation for this trend is the lack of gender representation and counterstereotypical role models to encourage female engagement in these fields at the university level. Previous research has looked at instructor gender, classroom gender composition, and involvement in extracurricular activities as possible factors influencing students' engagement and success in the classroom. However, few studies have investigated how gender perceptions influence female students in STEM fields. This study uses self-report data from a voluntary survey to …

The Nature Of Informal Educators In Science Centers, Science Museums And Zoos: Case Studies Of Personnel, Practices, Programs, Outreach And Organization, Courtney Erickson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Informal Science Centers provide educational experiences for people across the country daily. While the terminology is often similar, there are differences between institutions, often determined by mission, organizational structure, and experience. The purpose of this study was to identify shared experiences and unique characteristics of eight informal science centers around the country. The significance of the study was to add to the understanding of informal science educators' responsibilities, organizational structure, decision-making process, and development. Data for the study was collected using qualitative measures through a researcher-created interview, sent to fifteen institutions, after the recommendation from two well-known informal science researchers. …

Project Luminous: An E-Textiles Workshop Study To Increase Science Technology Engineering Mathematics/Science Technology Engineering Art Mathematics Interest In Middle School Girls, India Semone Callahan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this research study, young middle schoolers engaged in a stimulating workshop that seamlessly merged fashion with technology and electrical engineering. Students learned how to use simple hand sewing skills to create wearable-tech items using conductive thread, sewable LED lights, and sewable battery packs. The objective of the study was to increase young women’s interest in Science Technology Engineering Mathematics/Science Technology Engineering Art Mathematics (STEM/STEAM).

Forty-eight middle school girls spent a day learning about the basics of e-textiles and building working products using their new knowledge. The day is split into three lessons. In lesson one students build a simple …

Formal Learning In An Informal Setting: The Cognitive And Affective Impacts Of Visiting A Science Center During A School Field Trip, Charlie Belin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the pressures of budget cuts, many schools--particularly schools serving low-income students--are eliminating school field trips to museums, zoos, and other cultural institutions despite their widely reported utility. First, through a systematic review of the literature, I examine the findings from 17 international studies on the benefits of visiting an informal science education institution during a K-12 school field trip. Almost all pre-post studies reported a positive change in both cognitive and affective outcomes after visiting an ISEI. However, studies that also included a control group to compare students who visited the ISEI with students who had yet to visit …

The Effects Of Combining Looping, Cognitively Guided Instruction, And Ethnicity: How They Can Collectively Improve Academic Achievement, Matthew Brandon Wilson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study is to gain an understanding of the powerful instructional potential of combining the practice of looping, Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) professional development strategies, and the impact these practices have in addition to ethnicity in elementary education. The study focused on research questions pertaining to student's Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) scores and the implementation of looping, CGI strategies, and how ethnicity impacted student achievement.

This study emphasizes two types of statistical tests to determine how significant CGI and looping practices impacted growth in mathematics on the MAP test for different ethnic groups. A Chi-Square …

The Inclusion Of The Nature Of Science And Its Elements In Recent Popular Science Writing For Adults And Young Adults, Feng Jiang

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study was conducted to examine the inclusion of nature of science (NOS) in popular science writing to determine whether it could serve supplementary resource for teaching NOS. Four groups of documents published from 2001 to 2010 were included in the analysis: Scientific American, Discover magazine, winners of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, and books listed in National Science Teacher Association's (NSTA) Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12.

First, computer analysis was performed to categorize passages in the selected documents based on their inclusions of NOS. Then, follow-up human analysis was conducted to assess the frequency, …