Education Commons^™

Polymer Chemistry Education To Increase Student Awareness Of Plastic Pervasiveness And Environmental Impact, Victoria Hill

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

A polymer-pollution-focused laboratory sequence was written to teach general chemistry concepts in a course for pre-service elementary teachers. Students experienced the difficulties related to polymer pollution clean-up and made bio-based materials to see possible alternatives. In order to determine whether this laboratory sequence changed student understanding of the importance of polymers and their environmental impact, student opinions were gathered with pre/post-course sequence surveys, observations, post-laboratory surveys, and focus group interviews. These same data collection methods were also used to determine the likelihood that the pre-service elementary teachers would teach these polymer and environmental laboratories or their concepts in the future. …

Pre-Service Teachers’ Emerging Views On Educational Equity, Melody Wilson

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

An equity-based Statistics course for pre-service mathematics teachers could play a role in the development of pre-service teachers’ equity literacy, encouraging conversations about equity in education and illuminating structural factors that contribute to the educational opportunity gap in the U.S. In the Winter 2019 semester, a faculty team at the author’s university piloted such a course. The course included data explorations dealing with structural inequities by race – one of the most difficult topics to address productively in a teacher preparation course. For the present study, a survey of pre-service teachers’ views on educational equity was administered in a required …

Writing And Evaluating The Effectiveness Of A Modern Physics Laboratory Manual, Brendan Jacob Pickard

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Undergraduate physics laboratory activities are the main way that students get to apply physics concepts and develop experimental skills. Consequently, the presentation of experimental techniques is exceedingly important, and a poorly constructed guide could hinder student success. I have created a lab manual for use in PHY 372 Modern Physics Laboratory at Eastern Michigan University (EMU). This lab manual helps students develop experimental skills valuable in their future careers in a variety of fields. I evaluated the teaching effectiveness of the lab manual using a survey at the end of the Fall 2017 semester, revised the lab manual, and evaluated …

Exploring How Integrating Art & Animation In Teaching Text-Based Programming Affects High School Students' Interest In Computer Science, Hadeel Mohammed Jawad

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

As oil is the fuel of the industrial society, software is the fuel of our current information society. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be more demand for computing jobs in the future. By 2024, more than one million computing jobs will be available. Statistics show that there is more demand for computing jobs than there is a supply of qualified graduates from universities. In this experimental study, three groups of high school students were targeted to explore how integrating art, animation, and code sharing into programming affects their interest in pursuing a degree in computer science …

Expectations And Experiences In A Modern Physics Laboratory Course, Helen Mae Cothrel

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines students’ expectations for and experiences within a modern physics laboratory course. The course instructor and several students were interviewed using a semi-structured protocol at the beginning (pre) and end (post) of the semester. Interviews were video-recorded, then transcribed to text. This thesis presents the results of three students’ interviews as case studies; their interview transcripts were adapted to a more narrative style for inclusion in this report. An interpretation of each student’s responses from pre- to post-interview is given, followed by conclusions which incorporate all three students’ interviews. Particular attention is paid to students’ ideas about experimenting …

Access Granted: A Study Of The Factors Affecting The Development Of Technology Literacy In Black Males, Carlton Bernard Bell

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

One of the most urgent challenges of the digital divide is the need to expand technology literacy. Access to technology was believed to be one of the causes for the discrepancy that exists, but there is a deeper divide: the divide that exists between technology literacy, and career readiness. Although access to technology has improved over time, the educational outcomes for Black males in related fields have not. A critical area of concern is the lack of a Black male professional presence in technology fields, which has serious implications for the future of our society. These implications include a less …

Students’ Interpretations Of Categorical Data Using Dynamic Graphical Representations, Adam Eide

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Statistical association is an important concept in statistics. An exploratory study examined how students reason about statistical association utilizing graphical representations constructed with CODAP, a dynamic statistical graphing software. Task-based interviews were conducted with three 6th grade students prior to formal instruction. Students’ conceptions of a statistical relationship, proportional reasoning skill level, ability to interpret bivariate categorical graphs (particularly segmented bar graphs and two-way binned plots), and ability to identify association of two categorical variables were all investigated through interview tasks and responses to inquiry. Students were found to have developing proportional reasoning skills and struggled to correctly define and …

The Effects Of Gender And Ethnicity On Students' Perceptions Of Small-Group Learning In Collegiate Mathematics Courses, Layla Potts

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Qualitative studies of students' perceptions on small-group work are limited, and few offer insights on the perceptions of women and minority students, for whom quantitative research suggests that small-group work is most beneficial. The aim of this research project is to conduct a qualitative analysis on the perceptions of women and minority students on their small-group learning experiences in collegiate mathematics courses. We conducted a Likert-scale survey of 114 Eastern Michigan University undergraduate students who were enrolled in a cross section of mathematics courses. The data were analyzed using statistical measures such as the frequency and modes of each response, …

Scaffolding With Video Prior To Sophomore Physics Lab: The Addition And Resolution Of Vectors, David J. Sitar

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Implementation Of Labcreator And The Integration Of Cyberlab, Kang Zhao

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

With the development of the World Wide Web, online courses are becoming more and more popular in modern science education. CyberLab aims to solve an important issue in distance science education -- laboratory experiments in online courses. It is a toolkit that handles creation, exportation, and execution of virtual experiments (within web browsers). It consists of LabCreator and LabExecutor. With LabCreator, instructors can create virtual experiments and export them into intermediate files. Students can download those files from online course websites and execute them in LabExecutor on their own computers.

The paper reports on the completion of two important tasks …