Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

Education Reform And The Limits Of Policy: Lessons From Michigan, Michael F. Addonizio, C. Philip Kearney

Upjohn Press

By examining a major set of education policy reforms undertaken in Michigan and across the country over the past 20-plus years, Addonizio and Kearney are able to reveal the varying success of innovations such as finance reform, state assessment of student performance, school accountability measures, charter schools, and schools of choice.

“Are The Study Habits Of First Year Undergraduate Students Influenced By Where They Live While Attending College?”, Robert Morris

Articles

Abstract

This study was carried out in the Technological University Dublin with the co-operation of four experienced lecturers of engineering and fifty first year undergraduate engineering students.

The main aim of the research was to establish if living away from the family home influences the study habits of first year undergraduate students.

Many causes of attrition in first year are identified in the research. For this research project the four experienced lecturers were interviewed to capture their views and experiences of the study and learning habits of first year students. The data gathered in conjunction with my own personal experiences, …

Sensitivity To Probabilistic Orthographic Cues To Lexical Stress In Adolescent Speakers With Autism Spectrum Disorder And Typical Peers, Joanne Arciuli, Rhea Paul

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

Lexical stress refers to the opposition of strong and weak syllables within polysyllabic words and is a core feature of the English prosodic system. There are probabilistic cues to lexical stress present in English orthography. For example, most disyllabic English words ending with the letters “-ure” have first-syllable stress (e.g., “pasture”, but note words such as “endure”), whereas most ending with “-ose” have second-syllable stress (e.g., “propose”, but note examples such as “glucose”). Adult native speakers of English are sensitive to these probabilities during silent reading. During testing, they tend to assign first-syllable stress when reading a nonword such as …

Framing In Cognitive Clinical Interviews About Intuitive Science Knowledge: Dynamic Student Understandings Of The Discourse Interaction, Rosemary S. Russ, Victor R. Lee, Bruce L. Sherin

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Researchers in the science education community make extensive use of cognitive clinical interviews as windows into student knowledge and thinking. Despite our familiarity with the interviews, there has been very limited research addressing the ways that students understand these interactions. In this work we examine students’ behaviors and speech patterns in a set of clinical interviews about chemistry for evidence of their tacit understandings and underlying expectations about the activity in which they are engaged. We draw on the construct of framing from anthropology and sociolinguistics and identify clusters of behaviors that indicate that students may alternatively frame the interview …

What A Long Strange Trip It’S Been: A Comparison Of Authors, Abstracts, And References In The 1991 And 2010 Icls Proceedings, Victor R. Lee, Lei Ye, Mimi Recker

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

We examine differences in authorship, word usage, and references in full papers from the 1991 and 2010 ICLS proceedings. Through a series of analyses, we observe that, while authors largely hail from the US, national and regional participation in the LS community has broadened. Word usage suggests a shift in emphasis from cognitive issues to ones that are both cognitive and cultural. Reference analysis indicates a shift in core literatures and influential authors.

In Pursuit Of Consensus: Disagreement And Legitimization During Small Group Argumentation, Leema K. Berland, Victor R. Lee

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

In recent years, an emphasis on scientific argumentation in classrooms has brought into focus collaborative consensus-building as an instructional strategy. In these situations, students with differing and competing arguments are asked to work with one another in order to establish a shared perspective. However, the literature suggests that consensus-building can be challenging for students because their interpretations of the argumentative task and context may not enable their productive engagement with counter-arguments and evidence. In this paper, our goal is to explore the ways in which interactions of students support or inhibit their consensus-building. To that end, we examine and describe …

Collaborative Agency In Youth Online And Offline Creative Production In Scratch, Y. B. Kafai, Deborah A. Fields, R. Roque, W. Q. Burke, A. Monroy-Hernandez

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Few studies have focused on how youth develop agency to organize and participate in online unstructured creative collaborations. This paper describes and analyzes how youth programmers organized collaborative groups in response to a programming “Collab Challenge” in the Scratch Online Community and in an accompanying workshop with high school students. The analyses focused on modalities of online collaborations, determined the breadth of online participation, and examined local teens’ awareness of the online community. The discussion addresses youth’s collaborative agency in these new networked contexts, studied the role that online social awareness plays in completing tasks and makes recommendations for the …

Collaborative Research Network Showcase And Scholarship Opportunities, Donna S. Cross, Robert Newton, Cobie Joan Rudd, Kamal Alameh, Mark Hackling, Kathryn Mcmahon

ECU Research Week

No abstract provided.

Student Interaction With Online Course Content: Build It And They Might Come, Meg C. Murray, Jorge Pérez, Debra B. Geist, Alison Hedrick

Faculty Articles

Online learning continues to expand at educational institutions around the globe. Educators must better understand how interaction with online course content impacts student engagement and learning. Advances in technology amplify the imperative to gain further insights into how delivery of course materials can enhance and support the learning process. This study investigates student patterns of access to instructional resources provided in an asynchronous online digital literacy course offered at a regional university in the United States. Frequency counts and access rates collected from a learning management system were used to assess patterns of student retrieval of course materials in four …

In Bed With The Fed: The Battle Over K-12 Sex Education In The United States, Hannah Frey Lauber

CMC Senior Theses

Sexuality education continues to be an extremely emotional and polarizing issue in the United States. The U.S. leads developed countries with the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and STI acquisition, as well as teenage abortions. Additionally, costs to society are tremendous—experts estimate unplanned pregnancy costs the federal government up to $12 billion annually. Now more than ever, there is a dire need for medically accurate, high-quality sex education in this country. This thesis explores the history of sexuality education policy in the United States, as well as recent legal developments. It highlights the arguments of those in favor of comprehensive …

Data-Based Decisions Guidelines For Teachers Of Students With Severe Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities, Bree A. Jimenez, Pamela J. Mims, Diane M. Browder

ETSU Faculty Works

Effective practices in student data collection and implementation of data-based instructional decisions are needed for all educators, but are especially important when students have severe intellectual and develop- mental disabilities. Although research in the area of data-based instructional decisions for students with severe disabilities shows benefits for using data, there is limited research to demonstrate teachers in applied settings can acquire the decision-making skills required. The purpose of this research was to demonstrate how teachers from five states acquired a set of data-based decisions implementation guidelines through online professional development. Recommendations for practice and future research are included.

Student And Instructor Perceptions Of Factors Important For Student Success In Online And In-Person Algebra Classes At Somerset Community College, Richard S. Matika

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Online mathematics courses at Somerset Community College (SCC) have traditionally had a lower retention rate than their in-person counterparts. This study looked at online and in-person students at SCC in the courses Intermediate Algebra and College Algebra. Beginning of semester student demographics were considered to determine whether or not the online and in-person student populations were comparable. End of semester student demographics, retention rates, and grades on the final exams were examined to determine whether or not there were patterns among completer students. Finally, a survey was administered to students and instructors to determine their perceptions of several factors …

The Influence Of Corporate Leadership And Management Practices On A Public School District, Randall Paul Napier Jr.

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

The purpose of this case study is to understand how management and leadership ideas that were present in Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky influenced management and leadership practices adopted by Scott County Public Schools during 2002-2011. Data for the study were collected during the summer of 2011, using individual and focus group interviews including teachers, administrators, community and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky employees; on-site participant observations, and documents.

This study examined Scott County Public Schools implementation of the Quest for Useful Employment Skills for Tomorrow, the formation of The Center for Quality People and Organizations, changes in Science Technology Engineering Math …

Sensitivity Of Value Added School Effect Estimates To Different Model Specifications And Outcome Measures, Bryce L. Pride

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) Model has been used to make many high-stakes decisions concerning schools, though it does not provide a complete assessment of student academic achievement and school effectiveness. To provide a clearer perspective, many states have implemented various Growth and Value Added Models, in addition to AYP. The purpose of this study was to examine two Value Added Model specifications, the Gain Score Model and the Layered Effects Model, to understand similarities and differences in school effect results. Specifically, this study correlated value added school effect estimates, which were derived from two model specifications and two outcome …

Assessment Brief: Writing In Sophomore Inquiry, Rowanna L. Carpenter

University Studies Assessment Research

SINQ students report on their previous writing experience and on the writing assignments and support in their SINQ courses.

Series Editors' Foreword: Placing Practitioner Knowledge At The Center Of Teacher Education., Edmund T. Hamann, Rodney Hopson

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

The starting point for this book is a new phase—the Carnegie Program for the Education Doctorate (CPED)—of the longstanding dilemma of whether and how to to distinguish advanced graduate education for the Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) in education from the Doctorate of Education (EdD). EdD graduates should have gained not just in knowledge, but also in capability—to not only know new things, but to be able to do new practices and/or engage previous skills and practices more effectively.

Estimating The Efficiency Of Michigan's Rural And Urban Public School Districts, Rita Ann Maranowski

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study examined student achievement in Michigan public school districts to determine if rural school districts are demonstrating greater financial efficiency by producing higher levels of student achievement than school districts in other geographic locations with similar socioeconomics. Three models were developed using multiple regression analysis of student achievement for high school graduation rates and student proficiency rates for eleventh grade students in mathematics and English language arts as reported from the Michigan Merit Examination results. These models compared student achievement by geographic location which included a selection of 10 independent variables and a sample size of 496 Michigan public …

Robustness Of The Achievable Benchmark Of Care Method, Jeff Arthur Capobianco

Wayne State University Dissertations

The Achievable Benchmark of Care Method is a process of care performance improvement measurement approach for identifying top performing healthcare providers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the robustness of the method. This was achieved by comparing the robustness of the standard ABC method, which uses the mean to calculate the benchmark, to versions of the ABC method where the mean was replaced with either a 5%, 10%, or 20% trimmed mean, a 15% Winsorized mean or the one-step Huber ø1.28 calculation. Monte Carlo simulations where conducted using publically available, Medicare process of care data. The mean was …

Miblsi Program Evaluuation Of Participatory Elementary Schools From 2003-20009, Marvin Gibbs

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation details the use of the Program Evaluations Metaevaluation Checklist (PEMC), Stufflebeam, 1999, which is for performing final, summative metaevaluations. It is organized according to the Joint Committee Program Evaluation Standards. For each of the 30 standards the checklist includes 6 checkpoints drawn from the substance of the standard. It reports the use of the PEMC in evaluating the use of So, How Are We Doing? A MiBLSi Evaluation Study. The study shows that the PEMC could be a functional tool for a metaevaluation if modified for a specific evaluation. The results of the Kruskal- Wallis one way analysis …

The Dependent Samples T And Wilcoxon Sign Rank Maximum Test, Saverpierre Maggio

Wayne State University Dissertations

A maximum test using the parametric dependent samples t-test and the non-parametric Wilcoxon sign rank test was created using a FORTRAN program and various subroutines of the International Mathematical and Statistical Libraries (IMSL, 1980). Two tailed critical values were derived from a mixed normal distribution. Critical values obtained were at the 0.05, 0.025, 0.01 and 0.005 alpha levels via sample sizes (n) 8 through 30, 45, 60, 90 and 120. Critical values were compared to values obtained through the application of the Bonferroni correction method. It was concluded that the Bonferroni is an unnecessary method. Findings of the study are …