Education Commons^™

International Early Learning And Child Well-Being Study, Australian Council For Educational Research

Assessment GEMS

The International Early Learning and Child Well-Being Study (IELS) assesses children at age 5, measuring key learning and development outcomes. The overall purpose of IELS is to help countries to better support the development and overall well-being of young children through improved early learning experiences. It achieves this by: providing robust empirical data on children’s early learning; identifying factors that enable and inhibit children’s early learning; and informing early childhood education centres and schools about skill levels of five year old children, as well as related contextual factors, which could be used to make more informed decisions about curriculums and …

The Early Grade Mathematics Assessment: Assessing Children’S Acquisition Of Basic Numeracy Skills In Developing Countries, Australian Council For Educational Research

Assessment GEMS

The Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA) is a one-on-one oral assessment designed to measure a student’s foundation skills in numeracy and mathematics in the early grades. The instrument was first developed by the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International through funding provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The EGMA has been designed to use as a country-level diagnostic tool to determine how students in a country are performing overall compared to its stated curriculum; and for program evaluation to examine the effectiveness of specific curricula, interventions, or teacher training programs

The Latin-American Laboratory For Assessment Of The Quality Of Education: Measuring And Comparing Educational Quality In Latin America, Australian Council For Educational Research

Assessment GEMS

The Laboratorio Latinoamericano de Evaluación de la Calidad de la Educación (Latin-American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality of Education or LLECE) is the network of national systems for the assessment of education quality in Latin America, created in 1994, and coordinated by UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC). LLECE’s purpose is to produce data and knowledge that inform educational policy in the region, contribute to capacity building, and serve as a forum for reflection, exchange and generation of new ideas and good practices in education evaluation. LLECE assessments aim to provide information about …

Process Drama: A Creative Way To Assess Ela Understanding, Nicole Rausch

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

With increasing demands and decreasing amounts of instructional time, teachers are constantly looking for creative ways to integrate, assess, and target instruction to meet the needs of each student. This article takes a look at how one teacher employed the use of a highly engaging process drama to teach and assess multiple subject area content standards. A process drama is remarkably creative, social, and applicable so can be easily adapted to meet the needs of any grade level. The low floor, high ceiling project allows students multiple avenues to demonstrate understanding of skills and concepts.

Student Teaching Internship Experiences And Perceived Success Of First-Year School Based Agricultural Education (Sbae) Teachers, Mary Samoei

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the perceived influence of student teaching internship experiences on the perceived success of school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers in their first year of teaching. An explanatory mixed-methods design was utilized to gather the both qualitative and quantitative data. Census sampling was used to select 30 SBAE teachers teaching within high schools in Arkansas. The researcher collected quantitative data using an adapted questionnaire and online interviews to collect qualitative data. Males (n = 12, 54.6 %) dominate as first-year agriculture teachers. Most teachers (n = 15, 68.2 %) graduated with a major in …

Investigating The Intersections Of Interpersonal Violence: Identifying Risk And Protective Factors For Hazing, Kayla E. Goodwin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Building on the work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s initiative to investigate the links between multiple forms of violence, this study used a “review-of-reviews” qualitative approach, a form of meta-analysis, to illuminate the intersections of sexual violence and hazing. Data were analyzed to uncover the risk and protective factors for hazing. These findings were then compared to the risk and protective factors for sexual violence to investigate any intersections, broadening the research about the intersecting forms of interpersonal violence. Eleven risk factors for hazing were identified, four of which intersect with previously identified risk factors for sexual …

Evidence-Based Social-Emotional Learning And Its Influence On Teachers’ Perception Of Student Behavior: An Analysis Of Ruler And The Anchors Of Emotional Intelligence, Brent B. Harrington

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to assess the extent by which an evidence-based Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) program influenced teachers’ perception of students’ behavior in a small and diverse PK – 8 school district in Westchester County, NY. Specifically, the researcher evaluated the Anchors of Emotional Intelligence and the RULER framework to determine its impact on school climate as viewed from the perspective of staff in the district. Prior to commencing the study, the researcher recognized the negative staff narrative around student behavior in the district as a significant problem of practice that was observable, actionable and high leverage.

This mixed-methods study …

Teen Stress And The High School Experience: Fostering The Adaptive Abilities To Survive And Advance, William P. Dewitt

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose if this study is to examine the stress experience of teenagers during their high school years. The study uses existing research to identify causes of stress and stress- management techniques and then gathers students’ perceptions through surveys and a group interview to provide student voice on the issue of stress.

Recent nation-wide efforts have been made in schools to provide more supports for the social and emotional well-being of students, but despite these efforts, stress levels of high school students remain elevated. Understanding the ways in which students identify stress and the adaptive abilities they use to manage …

Students' Attitudes Towards Standardized Testing: A Literature Review, Kelly Gard

Curriculum and Instruction Undergraduate Honors Theses

Standardized testing is a task that all students must undertake during their educational careers. Standardized tests are large determinants to course placements, exceptionality placements, grades, school sanctions or rewards, and education policy. It is imperative that all students have an equal opportunity to succeed on standardized tests. However, bias, stress, and anxiety in standardized testing often hinders the opportunity for many students to excel on the tests.

The purpose of this literature review is to discuss the research conducted on standardized testing bias which includes the prevalence of testing bias as well as the causes and types of testing bias. …

How Does Disproportionality In Discipline Manifest In Rural Schools In Southeast Arkansas?, Julie Workman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

African American students are disciplined in schools at disproportionately higher rates than White students. This trend was first reported in 1975 in a report by the Children’s Defense Fund and since that time, has been highly studied. However, most research has been conducted in urban or suburban schools, with less known about disproportionate discipline in rural schools. This study utilized an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach to explore disproportionate discipline between African American and White students in five rural schools located in Southeast Arkansas. The research questions were as follows: (1) How is discipline disproportionality perceived in specific rural schools …

How Do Student And Secondary School Characteristics Explain College English I Completion In A Rural Arkansas Community College?, Jessica Rohlman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Community colleges serve diverse populations that may not be as academically prepared as at four-year institutions. Accountability of higher education institutions is ever-increasing in importance, so understanding the contributing factors to student success is critical. Students bring a unique set of characteristics to the community college, including individual traits and secondary school experiences. Many studies have examined these characteristics at large urban or mid-western institutions, but few in rural settings. Rural areas of the United States have lower rates of educational attainment than other areas, which often translates to lower incomes. It is the mission of community colleges to train …

Conservation And Farm Viability On Vermont Small Farms, Mark Cannella, Anthony Kitsos

UVM Extension Faculty Publications

In spring 2019 the UVM Extension Agricultural Business program conducted a survey of Certified Small Farms (CSFO) in Vermont. The goal of this survey is to gather information on the economic situation across Vermont’s small farms, explore their adaptation to water quality regulations and to understand the next steps for farms moving forward. Vermont implemented new Required Agricultural Practices (RAPs) in 2017. The anonymous survey was distributed to 334 CSFO businesses owners through postal mail. The survey was completed by 173 respondents.

Results show that small farms made many conservation improvements to attain compliance new regulations. Lower cost investments in …

Effects Of Chair Testing In Orchestra On Student Motivation: Student Perspectives And Applications From Motivational Theories, Rosanna Christine Honeycutt

MSU Graduate Theses

The purpose of this descriptive study was to examine how string students perceive achievement on chair testing through the lens of attribution and achievement goal motivational self-theories. A teacher survey was administered to identify the goals of chair testing in two high school and seven middle school orchestra classrooms. A student survey was used to collect data in those same classrooms on (a) the reasons why students do and do not do well on chair tests, (b) the perceived goals of chair testing and (c) the ratings of motivation and self-achievement. Qualitative techniques were used to analyze attributions within both …

Incentivized Learning And Libraries: A Comparative Study Of Summer Reading Programs In Connecticut, Andrew Morrison

Honors Scholar Theses

With digital forms of entertainment and media more inescapable than ever, it has become increasingly difficult to encourage children and teens to read. Simultaneously, despite an overwhelming amount of literature demonstrating the educational benefits of reading, especially as a necessity in the summer between academic years, library budgets are shrinking as federal funding nears its end. How do libraries promote summer reading amidst declining interest and decreased funding? Using data from public libraries across Connecticut, this paper investigates how libraries are adapting their children's summer reading programs to a changing landscape, how programs are designed to incentivize reading without eliminating …

Rancho Cielo Value Added Program Evaluation, Yacin Cardenas Alfaro

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Rancho Cielo Youth Campus is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization located in Salinas CA. The agency serves underserved and disconnected youth that have dropped out of school, are on probation, or under truancy regulations in Monterey County. The problem this capstone addressed is that the recidivism rate for at-risk youth is too high. Rancho Cielo’s Value-added program seeks to alleviate this problem by training youth in agriculture technology as a way to connect them with careers in the sector. The capstone project consisted of a program evaluation that documented the program implementation and the creation of a program logic …

A Study Of One-To-One Computer Usage And Student Levels Of Engagement And Rigor And Teacher Perception, Matthew Mooney

Dissertations

At the time of this writing, one-to-one technology programs at the secondary level were increasingly common in public schools in the United States. The debate over the value and benefit technological devices provided continues. The researcher compared observational data from a school prior to one-to-one computer implementation and post one-to-one computer implementation, collecting the Depth of Knowledge associated with the classroom learning activity. Using a rigor and engagement technology tool for data collection, classrooms were observed the year prior to a one-to-one program and then the following year, during the implementation. This quantitative study revealed the overall rigor levels did …

Who Is Riding The Bus And How Does It Impact Student Sleep, Attendance, Discipline, Mental Health, And Achievement?, Curtis Neil Hicks

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to determine the relationship between morning transportation mode choice, sleep, and factors that impact achievement for students in grades 9-12 at Sleepy Valley High School. The study also examined the relationship between race and/or socioeconomic status and morning transportation mode choice to determine to what extent, if any, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and minority populations are disproportionally affected by the district’s pupil transportation system.

Data related to morning transportation mode choice, factors that impact mode choice, student sleep, and mental health were collected through a 12 question Student Transportation Survey. Each survey …

College Student Changing Attitudes And Beliefs About The Nature Of And Teaching Of Mathematics And Science, Stephen R. Skinner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With an estimated 17.3 million STEM jobs in the US, there exists a need for a STEMready workforce that is science literate with positive attitudes and beliefs toward the learning and teaching of mathematics and science (Graf, Fry, & Funk, 2018). However, the US has seen a steady decline in the number of high school students interested in STEM-related fields with only 16% of interested students with proven proficiency in mathematics and science and are ready to enroll in college STEM programs (ACT, 2017; Osborne & Dillon, 2008; Stake & Mares, 2001). With the decline in student interest, the US …

Understanding One’S Own Teaching Experiences: New Family And Consumer Sciences Teachers Reflect On Their First-Year Of Teaching Through Video-Recorded Classroom Observations And Interviews, Sheila K. Cook

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of new Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) teachers and to describe their perceptions of classroom teaching readiness. The researcher completed a series of three classroom observations and three interviews of five first-year FCS teachers. The Danielson’s Framework for Teaching instrument was used for all observations and two sections of interviews used Interview Questions for Family and Consumer Sciences Educators instrument, which was taken in part, with permission, by Horizon Research, incorporated. All observations and interviews were completed over a time span of two to three weeks and examined essential teaching …

Doctoral-Level Students Experience Adopting Gatekeeping Roles And Responsibilities Within Counselor Education, Evan Smarinsky

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In counselor education and supervision, the term gatekeeping is used to describe the ongoing process of monitoring, evaluating, and remediating a student through their professional identity as a counselor. Gatekeeping is an ethical responsibility of counselor educators and supervisors, both faculty and doctoral-level students who supervise master’s-level students and is often identified as being one of their most difficult responsibilities. Doctoral-level supervisors play an important role in gatekeeping, although they are not involved in formal gatekeeping decisions and have not typically been the focus of research. Researchers have suggested there is a need to develop a better understanding of how …

Interventions For Anxiety In Mainstream School‐Aged Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review, Kylie Hillman, Katherine Dix, Syeda Kashfee Ahmed, Petra Lietz, Jenny Trevitt, Elizabeth O'Grady, Mirko Uljarević, Giacomo Vivanti, Darren Hedley

Student learning processes

Anxiety is a common problem in school‐aged children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and other psychosocial interventions have been developed as alternatives to pharmacological intervention to treat anxiety symptoms in students with ASD without co‐occurring intellectual disability. This present synthesis of evidence is a systematic review and meta‐analysis examining the efficacy of interventions for reducing anxiety among school‐aged children with ASD. The review summarizes evidence from 24 studies using an experimental or quasi‐experimental design. The authors’ conclude that there is evidence that CBT is an effective behavioral treatment for anxiety in some children and youth with …

Pay No Attention To The Regulation Behind The Curtain: The Implications Of The Return To Title Iv (R2t4) Federal Aid Policy On Time To Degree, Apri Medina

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Federal aid programs and their effect on student persistence, stopout, and completion have long been studied, but current literature does not fully capture the temporal nature of these programs due to insufficient methods, imprecise data, or both. Using event history methodologies, I leverage a unique level of access to data at a public four-year, research intensive university to explore how the Return to Title IV federal aid withdrawal policy, one of the most prominent yet understudied aspects of federal financial aid policies, influences time to degree. The treatment of this policy is associated with a 58.6% reduced risk (reduced conditional …

Development And Validation Of The Measure Of Perceived Safety In The College Classroom: A Mixed Methods Phenomenological Research Study., Jennifer Ballard-Kang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, safety has become a focus of discussion in the field of higher education as research indicates that college students’ perceptions of safety are related to several indicators of student engagement. Despite increased recognition of the importance of safety, there remains a lack of consensus with regard to its definition and conceptualization in the higher education context. This lack of a conceptualization of safety that reflects the complexity of the construct within the postsecondary context has acted as a barrier to the development of quality measurement instruments that can be utilized by researchers and practitioners to understand and …

The History Of Learning Disabilities And The Hidden Stories Of Students, Parents, And Teachers: How Traditional Classrooms Can Improve, Gabriella G. Catania

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This research will differentiate between the various learning disabilities and their history of when they were first discovered. This research reveals how classrooms have improved and what needs to be changed in order to guarantee every student can receive an equal education despite their learning disability. This paper is constructed through research and interviews with parents, teachers, and students about why the education system needs to move against conformity and standardization. This research demonstrates each learning disability and its effect on students learning. The main focus is on what issues need to be improved in the traditional education system to …

Students’ Conceptions Of Bell Curve Grading Fairness In Relation To Goal Orientation And Motivation, Lynette Tan, Brenda Yuen, Wee Ling Loo, Christiaan Prinsloo, Mark Gan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The controversial bell curve has received considerable attention in recent years as a grade distribution tool where “norm-referenced grading involves comparing students’ performances with each other” rather than where they fall on a “predefined continuum of quality” (Brookhart, 2013, p. 258). Despite educators’ deep concern on the fairness of bell curve grading, there is little research done on students’ conceptions of that grading system in higher education. This correlational study uses open-ended questions and three instruments to measure students’ conceptions of the fairness of bell curve grading, their goal orientations, and motivation. Undergraduates from three universities participated in the survey …

Parental Involvement In Children’S Education At A Christian School: A Transcendental Phenomenological Approach, Deborah Ann Minix-Fuller

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Parents share collective experiences of either involving themselves or not in their child’s education. This transcendental phenomenological study’s rationale was to explore the views, experiences, beliefs, and motivations of parents who are involved in their children’s education. Eleven participants who engaged in this research are from a small-sized Christian school in Kentucky. The theory guiding this study is Urie Bronfenbrenner’s theory (1979), the Ecological System (microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem). The data collected from interviews, a focus group, and two surveys. NVivo12 plus Qualitative Data Analysis Software (Q-DAS) implemented to analyze the qualitative data collected. Moustakas’ (1994) phenomenological seven …

Udl And Motivation: Student Perceptions Of The Impact Of Universal Design For Learning On Motivation Of First-Year Community College Students In Rural East Tennessee, Jennifer Mayes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to identify the perceptions of how Universal Design for Learning (UDL) impacts motivation in first-year community college students in rural East Tennessee. This study investigated the effects of UDL on motivation of first-year community college students in East Tennessee. This involved multiple sections of courses participating in a UDL pilot training program with the college’s Instructional Design department. Two of the courses were part of the UDL pilot, and two of the courses were teaching the Standard approved Master Curriculum. The study had a total of 109 participants, and 9 research questions were …

Positive Effects Of A Small Grant For Creation Of Open Education Resources, Cherian Mathews

All Faculty Presentations - School of Engineering and Computer Science

Open educational resources have been shown to have the potential to improve student learning outcomes while lowering student costs associated with curricular materials. University competitively awarded small grants of $2500 to encourage faculty to create or adopt Open Educational Resources (OER) to help reduce student costs or enhance the student learning experience. This paper outlines how the grant award was used to create open tutorial resources and lab materials that helped students independently learn to use the simulation software Simulink in conjunction with a Digital Signal Processing course. Students were required to review the OER materials and complete the lab …

Getting To Denver: Instructor Participation In The Design Of Writing Program Assessment Technologies, Soha Fransis Turfler

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation presents a framework for writing instructor participation in the design of writing program assessment technologies. I base this framework on a case study into the participation of 16 non-tenure track (NTT) and graduate teaching assistant (GTA) writing instructors in the design of a final portfolio assignment prompt for the first-year composition (FYC) program at the University of New Mexico (UNM). I specifically question how Writing Program Administrators (WPAs) and assessment designers can address the needs, interests, and values of writing instructors in the design of writing program assessment technologies, including the important need for agency and professional autonomy. …

Libraries, Their Communities, And White Flight: A Social Impact Assessment Of Public Libraries In The Jackson Metro Area, Wesley Craft

Honors Theses

In 1969, federal courts forced Mississippi to integrate public schools. Following, droves of white families moved out of Jackson for suburbs in nearby Madison and Rankin Counties. Today, the Jackson metro area is the most partisan segregated and among the top five racially segregated metro areas in the U.S. (Dottle, 2019). With that in mind, I sought to find out: How do libraries in the Jackson metro area impact their communities, and do disparities exist between Jackson’s libraries and white flight libraries?

I researched seven libraries inside the metro area’s three library systems –– three libraries in Jackson and four …