Education Commons^™

Utilization Of Virtual Reality For General Education Purposes, Amit Lal

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The use of Virtual Reality (VR) in a variety of professional, military, governmental, and educational fields has continued to expand over the past several decades, and the recent Covid-19 pandemic has brought attention to this field. This study surveys 154 college students over 23 questions that include various demographics that can be used to look for discriminators, multiple-choice VR-related questions, as well as a few free-form questions about use of VR in learning environments. The students’ experience with, interest in, and thoughts on how to best use VR vary considerably. The Covid-19 pandemic is found to have limited impact thus …

Instructional Decision-Making For Students In Community-Based Transition Programs, Rachel Knoepfle

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Per the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA), students with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities are eligible to receive transition services beyond twelfth grade, if they have not met the requirements for a high school diploma. There is not a formal model for how transition services should be implemented and there a number of factors in play when considering instruction for students in transition classrooms. Thus, the following questions arise: what does teaching and learning look like in such a classroom? How do teachers of CBT programs explain and understand their curriculum decision-making processes?

This study employed the methods …

Moving Quickly: One Student’S Reflections On The Value Of Secondary Accelerated Learning Programs, Rachel Marie West

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this interpretive biography was to understand how college graduates perceive their experiences in secondary (high school) accelerated learning programs and the impact of that participation on their continued education. This inquiry was guided by the overarching question: What are college graduates’ perceptions and understandings of their experiences in secondary accelerated programs? Using a postmodern philosophy to review the empirical materials, this interpretive biography focused on the lived experience of a college graduate who participated in an accelerated secondary program and focuses on her reflections after graduating from a four-year university. The study finds that generally, secondary accelerated …

Family Child Care Providers' Perceptions Of Quality Of Training In The Early Head Start Program, Carmen Zuleyma Hercules

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

In order to give children quality child care, child care providers need appropriate training and coaching to develop effective teaching practices. Compared to center-based educators, family child care providers tend to have less education and training and offer fewer educational experiences. The purpose of this study was to investigate how family child care providers perceived the quality of Early Head Start training to support professional development, and to identify what professional areas and experiences or activities providers deemed crucial to their professional-development training. Bandura’s (1997) social-cognitive theory described the way people learn from each other, and identified four factors—mastery experiences, …