Digital Commons Network^™

Learners‟ Conceptual Understanding And Misconceptions Of Fractions In Primary Schools In Amuria District Local Government, Uganda, Erumu Simon Peter

Master of Education

Fractions are a core part of the mathematics curriculum, important in their own right and also as a building block to more advanced topics. There is clear evidence, however, that the teaching and learning of fractions pose a challenge to many teachers and learners in primary schools the world over, with a number of common misconceptions resulting in persistent errors in learners‟ work. If these errors are not addressed at their early stages, it becomes a challenge to address them. In this study a sample of 20 Ugandan primary 5 and 6 children were given 7 additional lessons on fractions …

A Mother's Spiritual Journey With Her Disabled Son: An Autoethnography, Margaret C. Higgins Edd

Dissertations

Abstract

This autoethnographic research delves into a mother’s experiences with her disabled son over thirty-five years. Beginning with a thick description of the crib accident that resulted in physical and cognitive disabilities that profoundly change the course of both mother and son’s life, this research chronicles the search for meaning, community, and healing as they negotiate the realms of medicine, education, career, family, and spirituality. Models of disability that seek to explain various ways in which society often views disability are examined, but none resonate with the researcher’s intimate experiences nor satisfies her deepest needs for insight and healing. Making …

Digital Citizenship In 21st Century Education, Aimee Green Logan

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Recent Federal Government initiatives have affected equitable public school funding, which prevents many schools from becoming compliant with the California Common Core Standards. Presently, public schools in California must adopt Common Core State standards, which require the integration of technology within the classroom, however, there are no specific standards and or guidelines within the CCCS that address how students should safely conduct themselves online. This has left students and teachers unprepared to adequately support the growing needs of students online, especially without standards addressing digital literacy. Students who go online face cyberbullying, predatory contact, identity theft and other consequences that …

Examining The Influence Of Number Line Fraction Task Characteristics On Student Work, Sharlee Hatch

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Research supports the claim that classrooms with teachers who respond to student thinking in the mathematics classroom will see greater student gains and student success (Lamon, 1996; Sleep & Boerst, 2012). The topic of fractions is both difficult to teach and learn, but has important implications on future success in mathematics and in life. This study set out to explore the ways in which student work is influenced by characteristics of number line fraction tasks. By examining task type, number line structure, and number choice this study shares the way these task characteristics influenced student strategies. The relationship between task …

The Development And Evaluation Of A Lean Six Sigma Advanced Manufacturing Methodologies Course For Aeronautical Engineering Technology Curriculum, John Michael Davis

Open Access Dissertations

Successful completion of the Lean Six Sigma advanced manufacturing methodologies practicum course provides undergraduate Aeronautical Engineering Technology (AET) students with the experience and knowledge appropriate to perform successfully in an advanced manufacturing environment. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine (a) Did the knowledge level of AET students increase following exposure to Lean Six Sigma and completion of the advanced manufacturing methodologies course? and (b) Did the course meet the AET students’ expectations following participation in the Lean Six Sigma advanced manufacturing course? The expected outcomes of the course included:

1. AET students will have the competencies to …

Academic Relationships Between At-Risk High School Students And Teachers Within An Alternative School Setting: "It Is More Than Just Academics, It's Attitude", Daniel R. Galdeano

Theses and Dissertations

The first public schools in the United States were originally created to give all school-aged children the opportunity to gain access to a well-rounded education (Cable, Plucker & Spradlin, 2009). Options in public schools, preparation for high-stakes standardized tests, and graduation requirements are among the many educational reform policies that have been implemented in hopes of enabling students to reach their academic potential (Lange & Sletten, 2002). As a substitute to dropping out, alternative schools are among the leaders in the charge to try to curb the dropout problem that schools are facing. Alternative schools have existed since the civil …

Using Machine Learning To Predict Student Achievement On The State Of Texas Assessment Of Academic Readiness Examination In Charter Schools, Christopher D. Gonzalez

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to research and develop a way to use machine learning algorithms (MLAs) to predict student achievement on the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR), specifically in the charter school setting. Charter schools have the disadvantage of a constant influx in students, so providing historical student data in order to analyze trends proves difficult. This study expands on previous research done on students in secondary and post-secondary school and determining features that indicate success in these settings. The data used is from the district of IDEA Public Schools who focuses on providing education …

Assessing The Impact Of The Sunwise Program On Youth Sun Safety Knowledge, Attitudes, And Behaviors In Clark County, Nevada, Sabina Malik

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction: Skin Cancer rates in Nevada continue to increase and remain above the

national average. One important method to combat rising rates is education related to the

prevention of sunburns, the main risk factor for developing skin cancer. This study aimed

to assess the impact of the SunWise Program, a sun safety education program developed

by the Environmental Protection Agency, to increase knowledge, improve attitudes, and

change behaviors of participants based on constructs of the Health Belief Model.

Methods: Participants included youth from ages 7-18 years old who attended 6 Boys and

Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada. Boys and Girls …

Leveling The Playing Field: Teacher Perception Of Integrated Stem, Engineering, And Engineering Practices, Bridgette Fincher

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to describe the perceptions and approaches of 14 third-through-fifth grade Arkansan elementary teachers towards integrative engineering and engineering practices during 80 hours of integrated STEM professional development training in the summer and fall of 2014. This training was known as Project Flight. The purpose of the professional development was to learn integrated STEM content related to aviation and to write grade level curriculum units using Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design curriculum framework. The current study builds upon on the original research.

Using a mixed method exploratory, embedded QUAL[quan] case study design and a …

Process Development For The Fabrication Of Semiconductor Devices And Circuits Using Spin-On Dopant, Richard R. Ryan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Traditional approaches to semiconductor device fabrication are expensive and time consuming, making them out of reach for most universities and colleges. The objective of this thesis is to develop a process by which semiconductor devices and circuits can be implemented completely in-house using spin-on dopants (SODs), and low-cost transparency masks, to significantly reduce the lead time, complexity, and cost associated with device fabrication. This will allow hands on fabrication experience for students at universities and colleges without the traditional expensive device fabrication facilities. In addition, it will also allow students and professors to design, fabricate and test semiconductor devices and …

A Comparison Of Two Theoretical Approaches To Addressing Ageism: Education And Extended Contact, Ashley Elizabeth Lytle

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Ageism continues to be a widespread problem and is of increasing concern given the growing older population worldwide and youth-centered focus of many societies. Despite the need for a better understanding of attitudes towards older adults, ageism is a relatively understudied area of social psychology. This dissertation sought, for the first time, to compare two theoretical approaches to addressing ageism: education about aging (providing accurate information about aging) and extended contact (knowledge of positive intergenerational contact) as well as their potential combined impact (education plus extended contact). Across two studies, participants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions: …

Education Dynamics In A Developing Country: Evidence From Indonesia, Elif Deniz Sumengen

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

There is an urgent need for upper secondary-level and above educated people in Indonesia. According to a recent report, Indonesian companies cannot fill 50% of their entry level positions. To increase the educational attainment, government has been implementing various polices, such as school construction program, compulsory education and allocating 20% of its budget to education, but inadequate enrollment at upper secondary and tertiary levels and the quality of education still remain as big problems. To shed a light on these urgent and recent problems, I ask four questions: a) What is the effect of school quality on tertiary attainment? b) …

The Gratitude Questionnaire And Mindful Attention Awareness Scale For Use With Latina/O College Students: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Dion B. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Interventions based on positive psychology constructs have become increasingly popular over the past two decades, necessitating validation of instruments for use with underrepresented populations (Pawelski, 2016; Vela, Lerma, & Ikonomopoulos, 2016). This study reports an evaluation of the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS; Brown & Ryan, 2003) and the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ-6; McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002) for use with Latina/o college students. Sample sizes used in this study are N = 207 (99 women and 104 men; 4 did not identify) for the MAAS and N = 127 (84 women and 38 men; 5 did not identify) for the …

How Select Groups Of Preservice Science Teachers With Inquiry Orientations View Teaching And Learning Science Through Inquiry, Peggy Diana Ward

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although hailed as a powerful form of instruction, in most teaching and learning contexts, inquiry-based instruction is fraught with ambiguous and conflicting definitions and descriptions. Yet little has been written about the experiences preservice science teacher have regarding their learning to teach science through inquiry. This project sought to understand how select preservice secondary science teachers enrolled in three UTeach programs in Arkansas conceptualize inquiry instruction and how they rationalize its value in a teaching and learning context. The three teacher education programs investigated in this study are adoption sites aligned with the UTeach Program in Austin, TX that distinguishes …

Final Ma Portfolio, Lindsey Balla

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio contains four works completed at the graduate level at Bowling Green State University. The first research paper explores the effects of social media and texting in adolescent students. The second examines Psychoanalysis in the context of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The third compares the texts Northanger Abbey and "The Grey Woman," and the fourth research paper explores effective methods of providing feedback to student writing at the secondary level. This portfolio is a compilation of work and research completed as a capstone project for MA in English with a specialization in teaching English.

Education Individualized Through Technology, Rachel M. Leers

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis will overview technology in the classroom and the impact as well as the potential that is has individualizing instruction in order to meet the needs of every kind of student. The thesis will consist of thorough research on the subject matter. Technology is a great tool to use for individualizing instruction as it consists of many recourses, it increases communication, increases discussion, has high availability, it is affordable, and consists of a variety of lesson plan ideas to meet the needs of each student. Individualized learning is especially important in the classroom as it increases student achievement, provides …

Reification, Resistance, And Transformation? The Impact Of Migration And Demographics On Linguistic, Racial, And Ethnic Identity And Equity In Educational Systems: An Applied Approach, Rebecca Ann Campbell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using an applied anthropological approach focused on language, this study investigates the relationship between linguistic, racial, and ethnic identities and school resource access in the context of migration. This project examines how these identities are established, experienced, reified, and resisted by various school actors. Exposing power at its roots through a multi-level analysis, this research informs on how people negotiate socialization into particular identities, propelling them toward positions in school and society of varying opportunity.

Focused on two elementary schools in a central Florida county that has been and is undergoing demographic changes, this work offers applications for educational institutions …

Levels Of Distress Among Women Veterans Attending A Women’S Health Specialty Clinic In The Va Healthcare System, Debbie T. Devine

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Currently, between 21.9 and 23 million veterans have served in the United States armed forces. Of those, 2 million are women, and of those, only 6.5% use the Veterans Health Administration system. These females often suffer from physical and mental health disorders, and overall impaired quality of life (QOL), rendering their healthcare needs complex. Seeking, and providing care in this specialty area may become overwhelming not only for the women seeking the care, but also for healthcare systems that are unfamiliar with the specific needs of this population.

A retrospective medical records review was completed of 51 female veterans between …

Parental Attitudes/ Locus Of Health Control And Caries Experience In Their 3-5 Year Old Children, Cassandra Garcia

Dental Hygiene ETDs

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Childhood caries represents a public health issue especially for the Head Start population due to many disadvantages. Behavioral risk factors such as locus of health control (LoC) could act as indirect casual agents in the development of dental disease, but has not been fully studied. This research was to assess the relationship between parental attitudes/ health locus of control, parental age, and parental marital status with caries experience in their preschool children by using a validated survey.

Methods: The target population assessed in this study was the parents of children enrolled in Head Start Programs, in Santa Fe …

Relevance Of Education For Women’S Empowerment In Punjab, Pakistan, Shehzadi Zamurrad Awan

Journal of International Women's Studies

In Pakistan, women’s empowerment has always been a subjective matter of debate among the media, civil society and the state machinery because of its multifarious connotations and dimensions. The focus of my study is to evaluate how, along with many other agents of modernization (for example, media, state legislation, and civil society), female education plays a fundamental role in transforming the traditionally conceived submissive role of Punjabi women into individuals, whose potentials are fully realized. Although in comparison with males, the female literacy rate and workforce percentages have been disappointing in Pakistan. Nevertheless some improvement can be witnessed, depending on …

What Kind Of Teacher For Our Citizens? A Book Review Of What Kind Of Citizen? Educating Our Children For The Common Good, Tony Decesare

Democracy & Education

Westheimer’s central argument in What Kind of Citizen? Educating our Children for the Common Good is that the current climate around public education—marked, in general, by standardization in our schools—is not conducive to the development of thoughtful and critically engaged public citizens. Westheimer demonstrated convincingly that schools—in response to recent education reform and, in some cases, pressure from parents and other education stakeholders—have increasingly emphasized individual goals at the expense of educating children for the common good. Furthermore and related, in this age of standardized testing, school curricula have become more narrowly focused on achievement in math and literacy at …

Media Literacy As Mindful Practice For Democratic Education. A Response To “Transaction Circles With Digital Texts As A Foundation For Democratic Practices”, Theresa Redmond

Democracy & Education

This essay is a response to Brown’s (2015) article describing her strategy of transaction circles as a student-centered, culturally responsive, and democratic literacy practice. In my response, I provide further evidence from the field of media literacy education (MLE) that serves to enhance Brown’s argument for using transaction circles in order to promote democratic discourse, specifically augmenting her ideas by connecting the purposes and processes of transaction circles with key implications of media literacy pedagogy. I invite Brown to consider how her concept of transaction circles may be extended in three ways: (a) through acknowledging the indispensable role of the …

Sam And Cristina: A Critical Dialogue Between A Teacher And Student About The Commoditization Of People Of Color By Schools, Samuel J. Tanner, Cristina Corrie

Democracy & Education

This article was written by a white high school teacher (Sam) and a high school student of color (Cristina) in order to consider the harmful potential for schools in the United States to commoditize students of color at the expense of critical, antiracist work. It was written out of a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) study and uses a critical whiteness framework in order to examine how Cristina, in dialogue with Sam, came to theorize that her racial identity was commoditized as a cultural asset of their high school in exploitative ways. Her thinking, juxtaposed with Sam’s consideration of his …

The Challenges Of Gaming For Democratic Education: The Case Of Icivics, Jeremy Stoddard, Angela M. Banks, Christine Nemacheck, Elizabeth Wenska

Democracy & Education

Video games are the most recent technological advancement to be viewed as an educational panacea and a force for democracy. However, this medium has particular affordances and constraints as a tool for democratic education in educational environments. This paper presents results from a study of the design and content of four iCivics games and their potential to meet the goals of democratic education. Specifically, we focus on the games as designed experiences, the nature and accuracy of the content, and the nature of intellectual engagement in the games. We find that the games, while easily accessible and aligned with standardized …

Hb 801 - Postsecondary Education: Hope Scholarship, S. Umarah Ali, Sakinah N. Jones

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act amends provisions of the HOPE scholarship by allowing students who choose to take more rigorous courses to have a weighted grade point average for the evaluation of their HOPE scholarship disbursement.

Evaluating The Impact Of Serious Games: The Effect Of Gaming On Entrepreneurial Intent, Robert Newbery, Jonathan Lean, Jonathan Moizer

Plymouth Business School

Purpose - Serious games are playing an increasingly significant role across a range of educational contexts. Business focused serious games can provide students with an authentic learning experience and their use has been increasingly taken up by business school faculty, including those delivering entrepreneurship education. This paper seeks to evaluate the impact of participation in a serious business game on the Entrepreneurial Intent of undergraduate students. Design/methodology/approach - The study adopts a pre-test / post-test quasi-experimental design. It employs a modified version of Linan et al.’s (2011) Entrepreneurial Intent model in the form of a questionnaire survey completed by 263 …

Universal Design In Curriculum Development To Address Issues Of Socio-Cultural Capital In Third-Level Education, Brian Vaughan

Conference papers

Universal Design for Instruction (UDI) is primarily focused on ensuring that curricula are as accessible to students with a range of disabilities and difficulties. However, UDI can also be leveraged as a means of addressing issues of socio-cultural capital in third-level education. The assumption that all students belong to the dominant habitus can have a detrimental effect on those seen as being external to it. This paper examines the use of UDI as part of a wider approach to curriculum development as a means of addressing these issue. This is especially pertinent in light of the amalgamation of a number …

Rates Of Poverty And Special Education Students Among Open Enrollment Students, Heather D. Nebesniak

Student Work

The school choice movement is gaining momentum across the nation. More now that ever, families are looking beyond their local neighborhood schools to find a school that they feel reflects their educational values. Societal structures are changing and families look to the schools to provide resources that were historically outside the school realm. At-risk students, such as students living in poverty and students requiring special education services both require a greater pool of resources. In order to plan for enrollment growth and to meet student needs, educational administrators are faced with the task of predicting needs of students and securing …

A Program Evaluation Using Stufflebeam’S Cipp Model To Evaluate Educational Service Unit 2 (Esu 2) Consortium For Special Education Of Administration Services (Cases), Jodie L. Sams

Student Work

The purpose of the study is to conduct a program evaluation utilizing Stufflebeam’s 2007 CIPP Model to determine if the Educational Service Unit 2 (ESU 2) Consortium for Administration of Special Education Services (CASES) effectively serves CASES member districts. The results of the program evaluation is intended to provide Educational Service Unit 2 (ESU 2) with results and feedback on how 1) to determine the extent to which CASES has successfully met program goals (Product Evaluation), efficiently utilized resources (Input Evaluation), and appropriately selected and implemented program activities (Process Evaluation), and 2) to examine how the program was developed (Context …

Traditional Vs. Blended: The Effect Of Instruction Methods On Sixth Grade Pre-Algebra Students’ Performance And Perceptions, Lynn Marie Spady

Student Work

This study examined sixth grade students’ math performance under two models of instruction: traditional and blended. Blended instruction requires face-to-face learning with an instructor, but allows students to do a portion of the work independently online. Traditional instruction takes place with an instructor present at all times. One area of interest in this study was the level of procedural knowledge acquired under the two different models of instruction. Results from three different assessments indicated no significant difference between the two groups of students. An additional area of interest was students’ preferences in teaching strategies in math and approaches to learning. …