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Full-Text Articles in Education

How Young Adult Literature Better Informs Canonical Literature In The 9th Grade English Language Arts Classroom, Amber Bernozzi Jan 2020

How Young Adult Literature Better Informs Canonical Literature In The 9th Grade English Language Arts Classroom, Amber Bernozzi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The purpose of this qualitative critical discourse analysis study was to determine if there was a benefit to using a young adult adaptation of a canonical piece to increase student comprehension in the 9th grade English-Language Arts classroom. The use of young adult literature in the secondary classroom is a prevalent topic that continues to circulate amongst educators and researchers. This research study addresses how canonical literature is far removed from the current set of twenty-first century students and its disconnect in the classroom. This study sought to discover student thoughts and perceptions on a specific set of text pairings …


Tenth Graders' Response To Dystopian Literature: An Exploratory Ethnography, Tevin Williams Jan 2020

Tenth Graders' Response To Dystopian Literature: An Exploratory Ethnography, Tevin Williams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Dystopian literature allows for there to be an avenue, or safety net as I would call it, for people to be able to discuss topics of a harsh nature. Students or young adults today are becoming increasingly more apolitical upon completion of high school. This is due in part to the lack of information or knowledge given to them prior to entering, "the real world." The gravity of situations occurring in today's world during the time of this paper such as the how similar living with COVID-19 is to a dystopian society, or the Black Lives Matter movement, it is …


An Investigation Of Factors Predicting Academic Writing Difficulties Among First-Year Doctoral Students, Iman Ibrahim Khudhair Jan 2020

An Investigation Of Factors Predicting Academic Writing Difficulties Among First-Year Doctoral Students, Iman Ibrahim Khudhair

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This exploratory study investigated the variables that predict academic writing difficulties (AWDs) among first-year doctoral students, international and domestic, at a large, publicly funded research university in Southeastern United States. Data were collected through an online survey. The final sample size contained 111 first - year students, domestic and international from various doctoral programs. The first analysis examined factors predicting first-year doctoral students' self-assessed writing difficulties, using Multiple Linear Regression. Five factors were statistically significant predictors of AWDs: Asian race, Colleges of Business, Engineering, and Science, and the age between fifty-five to sixty-four. The remaining factors associated with age, Race, …


The Position Of An Instructional Literacy Coach: A Case Study Of The Perceptions Of High School Administrators, Classroom Teachers, And Coaches In One Florida School District, Rachel Miracolo Jan 2020

The Position Of An Instructional Literacy Coach: A Case Study Of The Perceptions Of High School Administrators, Classroom Teachers, And Coaches In One Florida School District, Rachel Miracolo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The purpose of this quantitative case study was to examine the position of an instructional literacy coach as perceived by high school administrators, teachers, and coaches in one Florida school district and to determine if any perceptual variance existed among those groups. A problem existed with understanding how the instructional literacy coach position manifested in different school contexts and how that manifestation impacted workplace dynamics. Given the dynamic nature of instructional coaching, this study further explored the level of congruence or incongruence between key faculty groups in order to better understand perceptions of coaching as a professional learning tool. The …


The Relationship Between Student Self-Efficacy And Close Reading In A Ninth Grade Ela Classroom, Karishma Assudani Jan 2020

The Relationship Between Student Self-Efficacy And Close Reading In A Ninth Grade Ela Classroom, Karishma Assudani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This qualitative exploratory study aims to investigate the relationship between student self-efficacy and close reading strategies implemented in the researcher's classroom. The purpose of this qualitative study is to determine whether close reading strategies are informing 9th self-grader's efficacy in a 9th grade ELA (English Language Arts) classroom, and to determine the relationship between close reading and student self-efficacy in a classroom with CRM's (curriculum resource materials). Students' self-efficacy levels were determined on Robert Stavin's exploratory research; an altered exploratory survey was provided to determine results. This thesis explores the following research questions (RQ): (RQ1) How do students' responses of …


Using The Enneagram As A Lens For Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy In The Ninth Grade English Language Arts Classroom, Catherine Caudle Jan 2020

Using The Enneagram As A Lens For Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy In The Ninth Grade English Language Arts Classroom, Catherine Caudle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This study explores the relationship between student personality, student choice in novel selection in the high school language arts classroom, and student reading self-efficacy and enjoyment. Throughout a student's educational journey, from elementary school to high school, it is typical to see a decrease in student choice regarding the literature they read. In elementary grades, students learn about the parts of a book, are frequently read to with animated voices, and look forward to shelves of choice on library trips. Yet as students move into their middle and high school years, the excitement often dwindles. Choice is removed, for a …


An Analysis Of Teacher Decision-Making In Grading 10th Grade Student Writing In English Language Arts, Guy Swenson Jan 2020

An Analysis Of Teacher Decision-Making In Grading 10th Grade Student Writing In English Language Arts, Guy Swenson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This qualitative study was conducted to investigate teacher decision-making while grading samples of 10th grade student writing in English language arts. Extensive research spanning 100 years has shown that inter-rater agreement of student work is weak at best (Ashbaugh, 1921; Brimi, 2011; Starch & Elliot, 1912). A cognitive laboratory interview method was chosen to focus on real-time teacher decision-making due to a discrepancy between teacher beliefs and teacher practices (Phipps & Borg, 2009). Qualitative data were gathered from 21 cognitive laboratory interviews in which the participants graded two samples of student writing while verbalizing their thoughts. The grading data revealed …


Narrowing English Leaner (El) Achievement Gaps: A Multilevel Analysis Of An El-Infused Teacher Preparation Model, Nirmal Ghimire Jan 2020

Narrowing English Leaner (El) Achievement Gaps: A Multilevel Analysis Of An El-Infused Teacher Preparation Model, Nirmal Ghimire

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This non-experimental correlational study assessed the effectiveness of a model of teacher preparation that infuses a focus on teaching English learners, the One-Plus model, by examining pre-service teachers' (PST) effectiveness in narrowing English learner achievement gaps during their final student teaching experience. The study spanned five semesters of internship data, exploring how each semester's PST effectiveness changed over time. This study utilized teacher work sample data that interns collected and submitted to the institutional effectiveness division of the college, with an n of 20,809 K-12 students who attended the 768 One-Plus PSTs' classes during their semester-long internship. The results showed …


Educators' Storybook Reading Practices, Attitudes Toward Adopting Dialogic Reading, And Child Language Status In An Inclusive Early Learning Environment, Ruth Gorlin Jan 2020

Educators' Storybook Reading Practices, Attitudes Toward Adopting Dialogic Reading, And Child Language Status In An Inclusive Early Learning Environment, Ruth Gorlin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The purpose of this descriptive study is to characterize the natural context of routine storybook reading in an inclusive early learning environment by looking at educator variables and child language status. Early childhood researchers and scholars have well documented the importance of oral language development in young children for future reading and academic success. Evidence-based research literature advocates engaging young children in high quality interactive reading experiences, such as Dialogic Reading (Whitehurst, 2005), as effective means to facilitate young children's oral language development and emergent literacy acquisition. By understanding the features of natural story-time routines, researchers, speech-language pathologists, and early …


Pre-Service Teacher Perceptions Of Pronunciation Teaching: A Qualitative Investigation, Madelyn Diller Jan 2020

Pre-Service Teacher Perceptions Of Pronunciation Teaching: A Qualitative Investigation, Madelyn Diller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Pronunciation teaching has long been overlooked in areas of research, especially those of language teacher cognition (Couper, 2017; Macdonald, 2002). In language teacher education, narrative inquiry provides a basis for expert mediation and growth in perceived areas of challenge (Johnson, 2009; Johnson & Golombek, 2002) through the lens of language teacher cognition (Baker & Murphy, 2011). Through tracking reflections of pre-service teachers who observed a pronunciation course led by an experienced English teacher, this study examines a secondary data set of narrative reflections in correspondence with an observed pronunciation course. The results are organized into themes and subthemes which highlight …


First-Year Doctoral Students' Academic Writing Development: The Native- And Nonnative-Speaking Perspectives, Ying Xiong Jan 2020

First-Year Doctoral Students' Academic Writing Development: The Native- And Nonnative-Speaking Perspectives, Ying Xiong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Academic writing is central to doctoral growth. The purpose of this study was to better understand the similarities and differences between first-year native- and nonnative-speaking doctoral students in terms of academic writing and writer development. Data were collected for two semesters, including observational notes, transcribed audio diaries and interviews, and writing samples from three first-year doctoral students from an applied field of social science. Ethnographic data analysis described how text production and composing processes changed over the first year in relation to social and cultural factors. The first year of the doctoral program was critical to their growth as writers …


Transforming English As A Second Language Story Readers Into Storytellers: Examining Learners' Experiences In A Video Book Trailer Project, Shizhong Zhang Jan 2020

Transforming English As A Second Language Story Readers Into Storytellers: Examining Learners' Experiences In A Video Book Trailer Project, Shizhong Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Reading is a challenging task for English as a Second Language (ESL) students (Pang, 2008; Nassaji, 2011). Instructors and researchers have explored various ways to promote ESL students' reading development. Since research on story-based pedagogy has shown benefits in the area of language development, stories can be used to promote ESL reading development. Furthermore, research on Digital Booktalk shows that when students engaged in after-reading video production activities they found a new purpose in reading (Gunter & Kenny, 2012). Additionally, digital storytelling (DST) research has revealed that DST can foster learner motivation and autonomy (Hafner & Miller, 2011; Kim, 2014). …


Identity And Second Language Acquisition: Adult Puerto Rican Migrants Living In The United States, Marcio Rubens Soares Gomes May 2019

Identity And Second Language Acquisition: Adult Puerto Rican Migrants Living In The United States, Marcio Rubens Soares Gomes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on the poststructuralist construct of identity and on Norton's (1995) concept of investment, as well as on Bourdieu's (1977) notion of capital, this qualitative research study relies on data gathered through interviews conducted with two adult female participants from Puerto Rico, who migrated to Central Florida approximately ten years ago. It aims at answering the following questions: (i) what identity-related factors facilitate or hinder the acquisition of the target language by Puerto Rican migrants? (ii) what social forces or barriers impact learning ESL in the context of Puerto Rican migration to the United States? The findings indicate that investment …


A Mixed-Method Examination Of The Impact Of Academic, Social, And Personal-Emotional Adjustment On The English Performance Of Arabian Gulf Students Studying In American Intensive English Programs, Mais Flaieh Hasan Al Jabbawi Jan 2019

A Mixed-Method Examination Of The Impact Of Academic, Social, And Personal-Emotional Adjustment On The English Performance Of Arabian Gulf Students Studying In American Intensive English Programs, Mais Flaieh Hasan Al Jabbawi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study identifies and discusses the adjustment challenges facing Arabian Gulf Students (AGSs) that may affect their English performance (EP) in intensive English programs (IEPs) in the United States. The current study uses student departure theory to lead the theoretical framework and incorporates Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ) and Social Integration Questionnaire (SIQ) to lead the methodology of this study. The mixed-method investigation with multi-location sampling examined 160 AGSs, enrolled full-time in different IEPs in the U.S. during the spring semester of 2019. The AGSs participants were from Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, …


An Ethnographic Study Examining The Effect Of Teachers' Socio-Political Bias On Latinx Students And School Culture, Jessica Mcmaster Jan 2019

An Ethnographic Study Examining The Effect Of Teachers' Socio-Political Bias On Latinx Students And School Culture, Jessica Mcmaster

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Academics such as Geneva Gay, Christine Sleeter, Samy Alim, and Django Paris have conducted research that illustrates the importance of educators being not only aware of the culture of their students but implementing curriculum that supports the diverse cultures of their students. A common finding among this research is that a culturally sustaining pedagogy is essential to the inclusion of all students in the classroom and the level of academic success they have in schools. This study aims to investigate the effect of teacher beliefs on the academic performance of Latinx students and on the culture and atmosphere of the …


Using Argument As A Bridge Between Literacy And Science: An Intervention Study In A Science Methods Course For Elementary Preservice Teachers, Rebeca Grysko Jan 2019

Using Argument As A Bridge Between Literacy And Science: An Intervention Study In A Science Methods Course For Elementary Preservice Teachers, Rebeca Grysko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of an intervention on teaching science as argument within a science methods course on elementary preservice teachers' (PSTs') (a) understandings of the nature of science (NOS), (b) knowledge about argumentation, (c) complexity of their written explanations, and (d) ability to incorporate components of the framework for teaching science as argument to support students' literacy and science learning. This mixed-methods study utilized an embedded quasi-experimental design with a treatment (n = 20) and control group (n = 25). The treatment group instructor, who completed an eight-week professional development course, implemented the …


Digital Education: The Impact Of Change, Acceleration, And Student Achievement Improvement, Sarah Walsh Jan 2019

Digital Education: The Impact Of Change, Acceleration, And Student Achievement Improvement, Sarah Walsh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The aim is to understand if the implementation plan in place by the public school system is exceeding the expectations of the stakeholders or if it is falling below what is expected. This quantitative research examines the English Language Arts (ELA), Florida Standard Assessment (FSA) scores for the state of Florida with a closer inspection of Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) with relation to their digital implementation plan. With an increase in digital technology and amplified emphasis on technology-based learning, the objective of this research was to determine what impact students and schools are experiencing in regards to test scores …


A Narrative Research Study Of Self-Selected Tracking On Motivation In 10th Grade English Language Arts Classes, Audra Greuel Jan 2019

A Narrative Research Study Of Self-Selected Tracking On Motivation In 10th Grade English Language Arts Classes, Audra Greuel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The practice of tracking has had longstanding negative impacts on students, especially students in lower academic tracks. This research suggests that tracking develops the themes of a narrative of deficit through inequality and exclusion and impedes student motivation due to the negative implications. A common finding of outside research studies was that of disapproval for the current school organizational structure of tracking due to the negative consequences on students. Furthermore, several research studies developed an outline of positive ways to advocate for a unifying system of educational change. Educational leaders should heed the suggestions of researchers to promote changes within …


Cultural Responsiveness And K-12 English Learners: Exploring Policy And Implementation Fidelity, Lauren Raubaugh Jan 2019

Cultural Responsiveness And K-12 English Learners: Exploring Policy And Implementation Fidelity, Lauren Raubaugh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This critical policy analysis and collective case study, informed by ethnographic techniques, involved reviews of twelve Florida school district ESOL policies (included within the 2016-2019 District English Language Learner Plans, required of all Florida districts to complete) whose English learner (EL) populations met or exceeded ten percent (10%) of their total enrollment. A priori coding of these policy documents was conducted using nine criteria pulled from the literature on culturally responsive practice (CRP), which served as the theoretical framework for the study. Subsequent observations and practitioner interviews within two schools from the same district were conducted in order to ascertain …


A Grounded Theory Survey Study Of Teachers Perception Perpetuating The Deficit Narrative About Marginalized Students Of Color, Cavel Austin Jan 2019

A Grounded Theory Survey Study Of Teachers Perception Perpetuating The Deficit Narrative About Marginalized Students Of Color, Cavel Austin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The deficit narrative about marginalized students of color attributes their failure in school to some nature of innate cognitive deficiency, cultural, social, and familial dysfunctions among other schools of thoughts. The purpose of this grounded theory study is to provide a rich description about this phenomenon and to propose theoretical pedagogical adjustments in the classroom as it relates to educating students of color. The study applies Charmaz (2014) Constructivist approach to grounded theory methods to examine the following research questions: (RQ1) How do teachers' narratives about students of color depict their teaching experiences and (RQ2) How do teachers' narratives about …


Willingness To Communicate And International Students' Use Of L2, Michelle Verbitskaya Jan 2019

Willingness To Communicate And International Students' Use Of L2, Michelle Verbitskaya

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in the second language (L2) is the "readiness to enter into discourse" which is considered to be the direct precursor of students' communication in L2 (MacIntyre et al., 1998). Oral language is thought to precede written language which creates an assumption that ongoing refining of oral skills may impact writing fluency. In respect to WTC model, there have been several versions that describe the construct (MacIntyre et al., 1998; Wen & Clement, 2003; Matsuoka, 2006). This study references self-efficacy, a cognitive variable in Matsuoka's (2006) proposed model, when analyzing writing as a phenomenon in relation to …


A Comparative Study Of Two Models Of Presenting Phrasal Verbs, Nagham Majeed Jan 2019

A Comparative Study Of Two Models Of Presenting Phrasal Verbs, Nagham Majeed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Learning phrasal verbs (PVs) is of vital importance in both written and spoken English, especially for those English learners who must use English as a second language (ESL) in their daily interactions with proficient speakers. This study focused on two particles (out and in) in exploring a more effective model for presenting PVs in an ESL context. PVs are the focus of this empirical study because they are an essential component of English vocabulary but are typically regarded as very difficult for ESL students to master. This study used a quasi-experimental design to compare the effect of instruction through image-schematic …


Analyses And Comparisons Of Three Lexical Features In Native And Nonnative Academic English Writing, Xiaoli Yu Jan 2018

Analyses And Comparisons Of Three Lexical Features In Native And Nonnative Academic English Writing, Xiaoli Yu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Built upon the Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (CIA) framework, this corpus-based research analyzes three lexical features (lexical diversity, lexical sophistication, and cohesion) in native and nonnative English writers' academic writing and examines the potential differences in lexical performance 1) between native and nonnative English writers and 2) across all writers from various language backgrounds. The differences in lexical performance in academic writing between native and nonnative English writers and the unique characteristics of writers from different language backgrounds suggest the necessity of targeted academic writing instruction based upon learner needs. Using text length as the covariate, two Multivariate Analysis of Covariate …


Passive Voice Usage In Undergraduate Stem Textbooks, Huiyuan Luo Jan 2018

Passive Voice Usage In Undergraduate Stem Textbooks, Huiyuan Luo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study, a corpus-based quantitative analysis, investigated the use of passive voice in terms of percentage (percentage of total passive usage), constructions (the most commonly used passive forms), and dispersion (the verbs that tended to be associated with passive usage) in college STEM textbooks, more specifically in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The corpus consisted of twenty textbooks with over 1 million running words selected from the textbooks' chapters. By identifying the main verbs and passive verbs used in the textbooks, the percentage of passive voice usage was calculated. The statistical difference of passive constructions between disciplines was examined …


Post-Secondary Faculty Treatment Of Non-Native English-Speaking Student Writing Errors In Academic Subject Courses, Laura Monroe Jan 2018

Post-Secondary Faculty Treatment Of Non-Native English-Speaking Student Writing Errors In Academic Subject Courses, Laura Monroe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As more non-native English-speaking students enroll in English-medium universities, even more faculty will instruct students who are unprepared for the rigors of post-secondary academic writing in English. Many faculty members lack training and knowledge regarding the assessment of non-native English-speaking students' writing, as well as the ability to provide effective feedback. This quantitative study investigated the possible attitudinal factors, including demographics, which might affect faculty preparedness and grading practices for both native and non-native English-speaking students' academic writing and plagiarism, as well as the reasons faculty do not deduct points from both populations' writing errors. Structural equation modeling and SPSS …


Exploring High Performing Second Grade Students' Reading Achievement And Time Spent On I-Ready With Their Motivation To Read., Chloe Webb Jan 2018

Exploring High Performing Second Grade Students' Reading Achievement And Time Spent On I-Ready With Their Motivation To Read., Chloe Webb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The motivation to read plays a key role in any student's reading development and success. In the context of 21st century literacies and learning, students engage in reading with print and digital texts and read in traditional and multimodal settings. This situated thesis explored the topic of second grade students' motivation to read through the lens of reading performance and time spent reading and improving their reading skills using i-Ready. Fourteen second grade students in a Central Florida elementary school classroom received the Motivation to Read Profile- Revised (MRP-R) (2013), an established survey, that is designed to gauge elementary school …


Exploration Of Teaching El Students Using The Arts With The Focus On Theatre Arts, Carinita Quintero Jan 2018

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 …


Lexico-Grammatical Complexity In Eap Student Writing: A Learner Corpus Analysis, Ekaterina Goussakova Jan 2018

Lexico-Grammatical Complexity In Eap Student Writing: A Learner Corpus Analysis, Ekaterina Goussakova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this descriptive linguistic study, the lexico-grammatical complexity of placement and exit English for Academic Purposes (EAP) student writing samples was analyzed using corpus linguistic methods to explore language development as a result of student enrollment in the EAP program. Writing samples were typed, matched, and tagged. A concordance software was used to produce lexical realizations of grammatical features. A comparison was made of normed frequency counts for nine phrasal and clausal features as well as raw frequencies for type to token ratio (TTR), average word length, and word count. In addition, the contribution of variables such as advanced grammar …


An Exploration Of Representations Of Race And Ethnicity In Three Transitional Series For Young Children, Sonia M. Balkaran Jan 2018

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 …


Transitioning From A Monolingual To A Dual Language Program: A Case Study Of An Elementary School, Alex Davies Jan 2018

Transitioning From A Monolingual To A Dual Language Program: A Case Study Of An Elementary School, Alex Davies

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study investigated the lived experiences of administrators, teachers, and parents from an elementary school that was in its first year of dual language transition. The majority of past studies conducted on dual language education focused on students' linguistic and academic outcomes (Lindholm-Leary, 2012). Studies investigating dual language schools' planning, policies, and classroom implementation are significantly less, and those that have, were at schools that were already functioning as dual language with the intent to examine what made the school successful (Alanis & Rodriguez, 2008; Freeman, 1996; Hunt, 2011). Through a phenomenological and case study approach, the current study …