Education Commons^™

Capturing And Scaffolding The Complexities Of Self-Regulation During Game-Based Learning, Daryn Dever

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Game-based learning environments (GBLEs) can offer students with engaging interactive instructional materials while also providing a research platform to investigate the dynamics and intricacies of effective self-regulated learning (SRL). Past research has indicated learners are often unable to monitor and regulate their cognitive and metacognitive processes within GBLEs accurately and effectively on their own due mostly to the open-ended nature of these environments. The future design and development of GBLEs and embedded scaffolds, therefore, require a better understanding of the discrepancies between the affordances of GBLEs and the required use of SRL. Specifically, how to incorporate interdisciplinary theories and concepts …

Digital Humanities & Community College Libraries: Opportunities And Challenges, Mia Tignor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Digital humanities study applies technological tools to the study of humanities topics and allows for the exploration of new questions in ways that were not possible using traditional research models. Librarians have been active participants of the field since its inception, as they explore new ways to critically engage with information organization and information literacy instruction, and most research that focuses on the intersection between these fields takes place within research universities . In contrast, there is very little research examining digital humanities work at the community college, which primarily offers associate degrees, vocational certificates, and other workforce based training. …

Methodology Of Augmented Reality Chinese Language Articulatory Pronunciation Practice: Game And Study Design, Daria Sinyagovskaya

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Learning a language can be hard. Learning a language that contains tones to convey meaning is even harder. This dissertation presents a novel methodology for creating a language practice using augmented reality that has never been used before. The design of a new app in AR and non-AR versions can evaluate the same practice methodology. This methodology was applied to new software and was examined in regard to the importance of this software. Although the study results are inconclusive, progress has been made in answering research questions on the effectiveness of AR versus non-AR and the reliability of peer assessment. …

Examining The Prevalence And Representation Of Diverse Populations In Children's Literature Found In Elementary Classroom Libraries, Trishell M. Matthews

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to (1) examine the prevalence of diverse populations in the pieces of children’s literature found in three Title I third grade classrooms, and (2) to examine if the diverse populations are authentically and relevantly represented. Researchers have emphasized the impact and importance of children’s literature that represent student’s diverse backgrounds authentically and relevantly, as they have the potential to affect students’ motivations, aspirations, and how they view themselves and the world at large. Particularly, Bishop (1990) suggested that students need books that act as “mirrors” that allow them to see themselves, their experiences, and …

¡Controlamos La Narrativa!: Collaborative Dramaturgy As A Tool For Latine Representation In Secondary Theatre Education, Domenika N. Moncayo

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Current secondary theatre education in America places a priority on Western ideals of theatre history and practices. Latine theatre history is hardly taught, and if it is, it is touched minimally. Latine culture places an emphasis on a collective, both in theoretical and practical work. Similarly, the practice of dramaturgy itself is rarely mentioned in curriculums, rather intertwined within lessons of acting, directing, and design. This creates an imbalance in practice versus theory in theatre education. I intend to introduce the concept of collaborative dramaturgy: a form of dramaturgy where students collaborate as dramaturgs to bring about discussions about identity. …

Exploring Career Development Pathways In Postsecondary Film Studies Programs, Cesare Giovanni Fabietti

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study sought to determine what factors could impact career development pathways for postsecondary film studies through survey research. The selected determining factors that offered eventual success as a filmmaking professional were students' personality characteristics and unique, innate abilities. The survey questions polled film study educators whose primary contact with film students was at college-level classrooms and could offer significant opinions about the factors measured. Only those educators with demographic characteristics that dealt with actual filmmaking procedures of production and post-production gave a measurable statistical result related to a single dependent variable. The differentiator between filmmaking disciplines was distinguished by …

Difficult History Education Via Design-Based Research: Teaching Historical Empathy Using Lucie Aubrac And The French Resistance As A Case Study, Sahar Eissa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Technology-enhanced learning environments (TELEs) are educational tools that enable students to acquire knowledge, improving the quality of their educational experience. Educators face many challenges when teaching difficult histories about French resisters in World War II, such as Lucie Aubrac. Resisters' histories include deep emotions, choices, and hard decisions. There is a need for a new approach for teaching these topics and designing innovative digital tools to encourage educators and students to explore them. The current study designs and evaluates a TELE to teach difficult history via a historical empathy approach that engages students with difficult histories and provides them with …

Effectiveness Of Digital Interactive Experiment In Learning Outcomes And Engagement, Matin Salemirad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Despite some ongoing debates over the positive or negative impact of digital games, educational games are powerful tools to increase engagement and improve learning outcomes. Scientific concepts about the weather are complicated for younger learners and deep learning often requires long-term cultivation. This thesis presents a novel interactive educational simulation called the Science of Meteorology with Interactive Learning Experience (SMILE). In it, students interact with a touchscreen monitor to change weather conditions and learn about clouds and weather science. The relationship between engagement and learning outcomes and the effectiveness of the experience is evaluated using a formal user study. Online …

Exploring Portrayals Of Black American Culture In Coretta Scott King Picturebooks Awarded From 2013 To 2020, Rebecca Jesse

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Children's literature is crucial in shaping the way young children see and think about themselves in the eyes of society. Although diversity is increasing, a need remains for books that feature Black children as well as accurate portrayals of their lifestyles. According to the Cooperation Children's Book Center (2020), only 400 books out of 3,299 are about Black Americans, while a little over half of that number are actually written by Black authors. Why should children of color have to suffice with reading books that have no connection to their real-world life? Black children should have access to and enjoy …

Using Children's Literature To Support Social And Emotional Learning In Third Through Sixth Grade Classrooms, Hayley L. Paljug

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research examined the use of award-winning children’s literature for social and emotional learning, focusing on its use for children in third through sixth grades. The world is ever-changing, and, as a result, the need for children to learn necessary social and emotional skills continues to increase. These skills include, but are not limited to, perseverance, friendship, grit, caring, and the like. It has been found that teaching social and emotional skills through bibliotherapy is an engaging and successful method that can be used by schools and teachers. Teachers or other educational stakeholders can use this document to begin to …

Gamification: Badges And Feedback, Brian Macon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Gamification, the implementation of game elements in a non-game context, is a rapidly growing field of research. One element of gamification that has experienced a rapid growth in popularity is the use of digital badges. Despite widespread adoption in educational settings, there are still gaps in the understanding of their effects on motivation, engagement, learning, and other factors. Furthermore, feedback delivered through badges can include a symbolic reward for successful completion of a task, providing a credential for gaining a skill, or acknowledging mastery of a particular piece of knowledge. This study implemented digital badges in online courses at a …

Latinx Student Success In Higher Education: Genres, Racialization, And Generic-Racial Interactions., Delia Garcia

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using a transformative mixed methods approach, I explored the ways in which genres and racial projects are constitutive of each other and contribute to the racialization of Latinx students in higher education and result in disparate outcomes for Latinx students. Latinx research participants revealed the myriad ways in which they are racialized throughout the education system and the numerous ways they encounter whiteness on a daily basis. I focused on two genres in particular: the federally mandated race and ethnicity categories and their intersections with Big Data/Predictive Analytics (BDPA) projects at the university. Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) and Racial Formation …

The Relationship Of English Language Scores On International Students' Academic Success, Rebekah Shbeeb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

International graduate students at the University of Central Florida (UCF) are not completing graduate programs at the same rate as domestic graduate students. One of the main differences in the admissions process for international graduate students compared to domestic students is the English language test requirement. The purpose of this study was twofold: to test if the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the (International English Language Testing System) IELTS scores have any statistically significant linear relationships to international graduate students' academic success as defined by their cumulative grade point average (CGPA). Secondly, this study sought to …

Phenomenological Study Of Urban Elementary Teachers With Proficient English Language Learners, Tracy Webley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of fourth grade teachers working in a large urban school district, where the achievement gap between English Language Learners (ELLs) and non-ELLs was smaller when compared to other schools within the district. The problem originated from the need to consider factors beyond teacher training that potentially influenced academic achievement. The research question guiding this study asked: What are the lived experiences of 4th grade teachers who have taught at identified elementary schools, where ELL students have demonstrated proficiency on the ELA portion of the state standards assessment? …

The Use Of Children's Literature And Reflective Writing As A Means To Help Primary Elementary Students Cope With Natural Disaster, Connie T. Zenz

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, tsunamis, and earthquakes frequently happen across the world. Many of these natural disasters bring destruction to homes, loss of loved ones, and emotional or physical trauma. For children who are still developing coping skills, these natural disasters can bring them emotional distress because they are unable to processes their experiences in a healthy way. In a review of literature on the topic of bibliotherapy and reflective writing to help children learn coping skills, I discovered a need for these processes to be introduced in normal settings, such as school and home, to help …

A Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual And Transgender + Student Support Group Within A Central Florida State College: A Qualitative Study, Remy Ansiello

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For decades, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) + students attending institutions of higher education have been marginalized and have experienced hostility and outright discrimination, causing the need for student support groups for this population on college campuses. Recent laws passed at a national level have brought a greater level of equality to this minority group; however, feelings of marginalization, homophobia, heterosexism, and heteronormative culture persist. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to ask how students participating in an LGBT + support group within a Central Florida public state college perceive their experiences in college. The researcher also asked …

Bursting The Filter Bubble: Information Literacy And Questions Of Valuation, Navigation, And Control In A Digital Landscape, Komysha Hassan

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The evolution of social media platforms and other public forums in the digital realm has created an explosion of user-generated content and data as a component of the already content-saturated digital landscape. The distributed, horizontal nature of the internet as a platform makes it difficult to ascertain value and differentiate between texts of varying validity, bias, and purpose. In addition, the internet is not an inanimate interface. As Pariser (2011) argues, content aggregators, such as Google, actively filter, personalize, and therefore limit each individual's access to information, in both range and type. This has created a crisis of information valuation …

An Exploration Of Representations Of Race And Ethnicity In Three Transitional Series For Young Children, Sonia M. Balkaran

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis seeks to explore the related research literature surrounding representations and portrayals of protagonists of various multicultural backgrounds in series or transitional books. As teachers, it is essential to acknowledge the lack of multicultural characters in children's literature among elementary classroom bookshelves and learn how to incorporate literature featuring strong main characters of varying races and ethnicities so that children can see role models who mirror their own contexts. Prior studies, such as Gangi (2008) and Green and Hopenwasser (2017) have examined the deficiency of multicultural literature in the classroom, particularly among transitional stories, which shows the importance of …

Exploring The Portrayals Of Modern First Ladies In Children's Picturebook Biographies, Kaitlin N. Elmore

Honors Undergraduate Theses

No study to date has been uncovered in regard to the presence of First Ladies in children's biographies. However, related prior studies, such as a study on the effect of gender in scientific children's biographies (Owens, 2009) have stated that the portrayal of women in children's biographies has evolved over time. Therefore, I wondered how First ladies were portrayed in children's books, specifically biographies, for elementary aged students. Therefore, this study examined a collection of picturebook biographies written for children about First Ladies in order to explore how First Ladies are portrayed. For the purpose of this study, I chose …

Exploration Of Teaching El Students Using The Arts With The Focus On Theatre Arts, Carinita Quintero

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Education has become a revolutionary field in which constant change and diversification of students in the classroom has sought for much differentiation in lessons and instructions. One of the popular forms for differentiation is that of drama or theatre techniques. Theatre has been used in many forms for fostering education. One of the elements from ESL teacher's experience is using theatre in the English as a Second Language classroom or EL class to aid students in learning English. The study focused on the influence theatre arts components have on students learning English as a second language. I proposed to present …

Consequences Of Skipping First Year Composition: Mapping Student Writing From High School To The Academic Disciplines, Craig Bell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research in writing studies has focused on students who make the traditional transition from high school to first year composition, to the entry level discipline specific courses in their chosen majors (Wardle, 2007, 2009; Sommers and Saltz, 2004; Beaufort, 2007; Carroll, 2002). Very little scholarship addresses those students who "skip" first year composition and find themselves in entry level discipline specific courses classrooms. With three former students, I conduct a case study over the course of eight months via a series of face to face, facetime, skype and email interviews. Each of these students, through earning high test scores in …

The Effect Of Speech Elicitation Method On Second Language Phonemic Accuracy, Nicole Carrasquel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study, a One-Group Posttest-Only Repeated-Measures Design, examined the effect of speech elicitation method on second language (L2) phonemic accuracy of high functional load initial phonemes found in frequently occurring nouns in American English. This effect was further analyzed by including the variable of first language (L1) to determine if L1 moderated any effects found. The data consisted of audio recordings of 61 adult English learners (ELs) enrolled in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses at a large, public, post-secondary institution in the United States. Phonemic accuracy was judged by two independent raters as either approximating a standard American …

School Has A Bad Storyline: Gamification In Educational Environments, Irene L. Pynn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

School often has low engagement and frustrating or absent options for the kind of agency the Federal Government's 2016 National Education Technology Plan now recommends educators include in their curriculum. Video games offer opportunities for people to participate in critical problem solving through creative projects. From balancing character statistics, to collaborating with other players, to making ethical and tactical decisions that can change the outcome of the story, successful games draw on the player's interest in learning and analyzing numbers, locations, visual clues, narrative elements, people, and more. One useful example may be found in visual novels (VNs), a medium …

An Examination Of Relational Bullying In Award Winning Newbery Books, 1996-2016, Kaysey N. Wann

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Relational bullying, although covert in nature and difficult for adults to notice and identify, is becoming increasingly prevalent among young children and teens. The success of bibliotherapy as preventative and intervention practices for bullying shows that portrayals of relational bullying in quality children’s literature would be effective in reducing and preventing it. However, relational bullying is rarely portrayed in children’s literature. My goal was to find quality children’s realistic fiction literature that portrays relational bullying in Newbery award-winning books, and to bring them to the attention of teachers.

After creating a table to determine what types of bullying, if any, …

The Impact Of Voluntary Prekindergarten On Kindergarten Reading Readiness In A Large Suburban School District In 2012-2014, Brandon Hanshaw

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the effects of participation in the Florida Voluntary Prekindergarten Program are sustained in kindergarten reading readiness for those who participated in the research school district VPK, those who participated in another provider VPK, and compared to those who did not participate in VPK. Select stakeholder perceptions were also gathered and analyzed, to include research school district parents of VPK participants, research school district VPK instructors, and research school district administrators. Academic effects were analyzed for VPK participants and non-VPK participants in 2012-2013 within their kindergarten 2013-2014 school year using the FAIR-K …

The Relationship Between Comprehension Of Descriptive And Sequential Expository Texts And Reader Characteristics In Typically Developing Kindergarten Children, Cheran Zadroga

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Researchers have found that children need to be proficient in reading and writing expository text to succeed academically as well as in their future careers. More than ever before, children in primary grade classrooms are being exposed to and expected to comprehend a variety expository text types. However, empirical evidence to support the use of expository texts in kindergarten classrooms, in particular, is sorely lacking. To begin to fill this gap, this study was conducted to investigate kindergarten children's comprehension of two types of expository text structures (i.e., descriptive and sequential) commonly found in kindergarten classrooms. Specifically, the aims of …

The History Of Inequality In Education And The Question Of Equality Versus Adequacy, Diana Carol Dominguez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Although the U.S. Constitution espouses equality, it clearly is not practiced in all aspects of life with education being a significant outlier. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote about inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These two theories are related to education through educational adequacy and equality. Sufficientarianism, or educational adequacy, says that what is important is that everyone has “good enough” educational opportunities, but not the same ones. Egalitarianism, or educational equality, says that there is an intrinsic value in having the same educational opportunities and only having good enough opportunities misses something …

Composing The Classroom, Constructing Hybridity: Writing Technology In(To) First-Year Composition Course Design, Christopher Friend

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Online education has received excessive attention in recent decades as its characteristics and potential have undergone intense debate and scrutiny. Similar debate and scrutiny surround the content of first-year composition (FYC) courses. As we continue to define what composition studies entails, we redefine what we study in FYC. Yet discussions of blended delivery mode---using both online and on-ground teaching methods---get lost amid these debates. This dissertation addresses the dearth of research on blended online writing instruction by asserting the essential nature of connections between the content and the delivery of FYC courses. Through case studies of two experienced instructors teaching …

Ar Physics: Transforming Physics Diagrammatic Representations On Paper Into Interactive Simulations., Yao Zhou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A problem representation is a cognitive structure created by the solver in correspondence to the problem. Sketching representative diagrams in the domain of physics encourages a problem solving strategy that starts from 'envisionment' by which one internally simulates the physical events and predicts outcomes. Research studies also show that sketching representative diagrams improves learner's performance in solving physics problems. The pedagogic benefits of sketching representations on paper make this traditional learning strategy remain pivotal and worthwhile to be preserved and integrated into the current digital learning landscape. In this paper, I describe AR Physics, an Augmented Reality based application that …

Digital Interactive Games For Assessment: A Study Of The Effectiveness Of A Digital Game As A Measure Of Students' Understanding Of Boolean Logic, Mohammad Ali Haji

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Digital games have been used mostly for entertainment but recently researchers have started to use digital games in other areas such as education and training. Researchers have shown that digital games can provide a compelling, creative, and collaborative environment for learning. However, the popularity of computers and the Internet brings this question to mind: Are the assessment methods falling behind and remaining traditional? Will the traditional methods of learning and knowledge assessment be sufficient for this new generation who are starving for new technology? This study investigates the effectiveness of using a digital interactive game as an assessments method - …