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Smooth Sailing Through Stormy Seas? High School Social Studies Teachers Navigating Their Informal Professional Learning, Emma Sowards Thacker

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

The present study used Nardi and O’Day’s (1999) information ecology theory, along with activity theory (Wertsch, 1998), social learning theory (Wenger, 1998), and situated learning theory (Lave, 2009; Lave & Wenger, 1991) to examine the informal professional learning of a high school social studies department. Existing literature is just beginning to attend to the potential of informal professional learning, so this exploratory study used a single-case study of a high school social studies department made up of 12 teachers. Data included observations of scheduled and spontaneous collaborative learning activities, department meetings, and in-service meetings; semi-structured interviews; and relevant documents to …

Fourth And Eighth Grade Students' Conceptions Of Energy Flow Through Ecosystems, Ashlie Beals Arkwright

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

This mixed methods status study examined 32 fourth grade students’ conceptual understandings of energy flow through ecosystems prior to instruction and 40 eighth grade students’ conceptual understandings of the same topic after five years of daily standards-based instruction in science. Specific ecological concepts assessed related to: 1) roles of organisms; 2) the sun as the original energy source for most ecosystems; and 3) interdependency of organisms.

Fourth and eighth grade students were assessed using the same three-tiered forced-choice instrument, with accompanying tasks for students to defend their forced-choice selections and rate their level of confidence in making the selections. The …

Effects Of Item-Level Feedback On The Ratings Provided By Judges In A Modified-Angoff Standard Setting Study, Michael R. Peabody

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Setting performance standards is a judgmental process involving human opinions and values as well as technical and empirical considerations and although all cut score decisions are by nature arbitrary, they should not be capricious. Establishing a minimum passing standard is the technical expression of a policy decision and the information gained through standard setting studies inform these policy decisions. To this end, it is necessary to conduct robust examinations of methods and techniques commonly applied to standard setting studies in order to better understand issues that may influence policy decisions.

The modified-Angoff method remains one of the most popular methods …