Education Commons^™

An Evaluation Of Fading Procedures On The Effects Of Children Using Activity Schedules To Play On The Playground Appropriately, Kylee Lewis

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Children with autism often have difficulty playing appropriately and independently. Activity schedules have been shown to be effective at teaching children with autism to play. Some individuals with autism engage in repetitive behaviors, especially on the playground. A previous study showed that activity schedules were effective at reducing repetitive or patterned behavior on the playground by teaching three students with autism to play appropriately and independently. This study investigated the effects of fading procedures on teaching independent and varied play skills to young children with autism during free play on the playground.

Effects Of A Self-Management Procedure Using Student Feedback On Staff Members' Use Of Praise In An Out-Of-School Time Program, Cade T. Charlton

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Out-of-school time (OST) programs are under increasing pressure to improve student achievement. However, OST program administrators face a number of challenges to improving program effectiveness including inconsistent student participation, inexperienced staff members, and a lack of high-quality professional development. OST program administrators can address these challenges by implementing staff development practices that encourage the use of effective instructional strategies.

Specific praise is a simple and effective instructional strategy that has been linked to improved student engagement, enhanced academic achievement, and stronger student-teacher relationships. Unfortunately, there have been very few studies examining the effects of interventions designed to increase OST staff …

Impulsive Choice, Alcohol Self-Administration, And Pre-Exposure To Reward Delay, Jeffrey S. Stein

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Prior research indicates that drug dependence is associated with a tendency to discount the future. For instance, compared to control participants, drug-dependent participants more strongly prefer small, immediate rewards (e.g., $10 now) over larger, delayed rewards (e.g., $100 in 6 months). Similarly, in animal models of addiction, impulsive preference for small, immediate over larger, delayed food rewards in rats is associated with greater consumption of a number of drugs of abuse, including alcohol, cocaine, and nicotine. These and other findings suggest that this form of impulsive choice plays a causal role in addiction; however, this account has not been tested …

Self-Determination Training: A Collaboration Model For Schools And Vocational Rehabilitation, Shannon M. Williams

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Transitioning from high school to postsecondary education and employment is often difficult for students with disabilities. Research has shown that students with increased self-determination skills have a greater likelihood of being successful in a postsecondary setting and in obtaining employment.

Students with disabilities often receive extensive specialized instruction in the areas of English and math, but their teachers have not historically been given training in teaching self-determination. Vocational Rehabilitation counselors are trained to give career guidance and encourage self-determination skills, but are not experienced teachers.

The purpose of this thesis was to determine whether or not a self-determination curriculum created …

The Effects Of Didactic Instruction On The Rate Of Preservice Teachers' Low-And High-Level Questions, Monica Lewis

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Developing a teacher’s ability to ask meaningful questions is a simple, effective way to influence learning outcomes. Questions serve as a beneficial instructional strategy, allowing teachers to facilitate student learning opportunities through engagement, and by reinforcing understanding, promoting higher levels of thinking, and providing feedback.

This study evaluated the use of questioning sequence, moving from low- to high-level questions, to support students’ reading comprehension. After engaging in instruction and practice in the TeachLivE™ Lab, two teacher participants implemented low- and high-level question sequences during reading instruction with elementary students. The study measured teacher performance as a rate of question sequences …

Teacher Attitudes And Perceptions Of Low And High Socioeconomic Status Students, Patty C. Norman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In this qualitative study, the author explored the perceptions of 10 middle-class, teachers regarding the socioeconomic class of both impoverished and advantaged students with whom they worked. Teachers in two public elementary schools from one Intermountain West school district participated; one school generally served children living in poverty and the other generally served affluent children. Through analysis of surveys, interviews, teacher journals, and researcher journal, the complex and often times contradictory feelings these teachers had about the socioeconomic class of students were revealed.

Literature in class, socioeconomic class, deficit thinking, race and whiteness, and identity and multiple identities situated the …

From Teachlive™ To The Classroom: Building Preservice Special Educators’ Proficiency With Essential Teaching Skills, Melanie Rees Dawson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Preservice special education teachers need to develop essential teaching skills to competently address student academics and behavior in the classroom. TeachLivE^TM is a sophisticated virtual simulation that has recently emerged in teacher preparation programs to supplement traditional didactic instruction and field experiences. Teacher educators can engineer scenarios in TeachLivE^TM to cumulatively build in complexity, allowing preservice teachers to incrementally interleave target skills in increasingly difficult situations.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of TeachLivE^TM on preservice special education teachers’ delivery of error correction, specific praise, and praise around in the virtual environment and …

Towards Alternative Pathways: Nontraditional Student Success In A Distance-Delivered, Undergraduate Engineering Transfer Program, Angela L. Minichiello

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Nontraditional students, including those who delay college entry, attend college part-time, work full-time, or financially support themselves or dependents, are highly underrepresented in engineering education. Recently, the United States began emphasizing a need to access this untapped human potential. U.S. educational policymakers now seek increased nontraditional student participation in engineering education through the creation of robust new pathways—within and between 2- and 4- year institutions—to undergraduate engineering degrees.

To be impactful, alternative pathways must be grounded in knowledge related to nontraditional student success in engineering. To access this knowledge, this study qualitatively examined the experiences of 14 nontraditional students who …

An Examination Of How Qualitatively Different Delayed Outcomes Are Discounted, Jonathan E. Friedel

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Jonathan E. Friedel, a graduate student in the Experimental and Applied Psychological Sciences program at Utah State University, will complete this dissertation as part of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology.

Outcomes that are received far in the future are less valuable than outcomes that are to be received more proximally. Delay discounting describes how outcomes in the future lose value. The goal of this dissertation is to examine how people discount different types of delayed outcomes. Two experiments examine the value of a wide
variety of delayed outcomes for cigarette smokers and nonsmokers. These …

Robust Intelligent Sensing And Control Multi Agent Analysis Platform For Research And Education, Douglas Spencer Maughan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The aim of this thesis is the development and implementation of a controlled testing platform for the Robust Intelligent Sensing and Controls (RISC) Lab at Utah State University (USU). This will be an open source adaptable expandable robotics platform usable for both education and research. This differs from the many other platforms developed in that the entire platform software will be made open source. This open source software will encourage collaboration among other universities and enable researchers to essentially pick up where others have left off without the necessity of replicating months or even years of work. The expected results …

A Counting-Focused Instructional Treatment For Developing Number System Knowledge In Second-Grade: A Mixed Methods Study On Children's Number Sense, Jessica F. Shumway

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Instruction for developing students' number sense is a critical area of research in mathematics education because of the role number sense plays in early mathematics learning. Specifically, number system knowledge has been identified as a key cognitive mechanism in number sense development. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore variations in second-grade students' number sense development as they engaged in a counting-focused instructional treatment, geared towards developing number system knowledge, for differing amounts of time. Sixty second-grade students participated in number sense assessments and two students participated in in-depth, task-based interviews to provide quantitative and qualitative data …

Student Satisfaction At Utah State University Regional Campuses, Taylor K. Adams

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This research examined the difference between what undergraduate students at Utah State University (USU) regional campus locations perceive as important to their education and how satisfied students are with those education-related priorities. As institutions offer more distance education coursework, enrollment of nontraditional students is increasing. However, few studies examine satisfaction, which is a proven predictor of retention, of the student population described in this study.

The results of this study showed the highest discrepancies between priorities and satisfaction of undergraduate students at USU related to academic advising, course scheduling and registration; and finances including student fees, tuition, and financial aid …

Training Early Childhood Educators To Identify Behavior Function And Select Function-Matched Interventions, Laura V. Cox

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Problem behavior in the classroom can have a negative impact not only on the student’s learning but on his or her social interactions and the child may risk rejection by teachers and peers. This study evaluated the effects of a training package delivered to preschool teachers on their ability to identify what may be causing the problem behavior and identify strategies that may reduce problem behavior.

Previous research has demonstrated the effectiveness of this training package in older age groups or grade levels as well as to other professionals who work with children with problem behavior. Results from this study …

Making Statistics Matter: Using Self-Data To Improve Statistics Learning, Jeffrey L. Thayne

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Research has demonstrated that well into their undergraduate and even graduate education, learners often struggle to understand basic statistical concepts, fail to see their relevance in their personal and professional lives, and often treat them as little more than mere mathematics exercises. Undergraduate learners often see statistical concepts as means to passing exams, completing required courses, and moving on with their degree, and not as instruments of inquiry that can illuminate their world in new and useful ways.

This study explored ways help learners in an undergraduate learning context to treat statistical inquiry as mattering in a practical research context, …

Evaluation Of Interactive Computerized Training To Teach Paraprofessionals How To Implement Errorless Discrete Trial Instruction, Kristina R. Gerencser

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

As special education classrooms continue to rely on paraprofessionals to implement interventions, provide instructions, and monitor student progress— it is imperative paraprofessionals are well trained. Without adequate training, paraprofessionals can unintentionally create prompt dependency, limit academic growth, and reinforce problem behavior. However, providing quality training to paraprofessionals can be costly to school districts. Interactive computerized trainings may be a solution. The current study investigated the effectiveness of an interactive computerized training to teaching paraprofessionals a commonly used teaching strategy for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and other related developmental disabilities called discrete trial instruction. Often procedures to reduce student errors …

An Evaluation Of A Stimulus Preference Assessment Of Ipad Applications For Young Children With Autism, Lyndsay D. Nix

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The process researchers use to determine what children with disabilities like and dislike is called preference assessment. Studies have been conducted with preference assessments using different types of materials (e.g., food, toys, music). In this study, we used a preference assessment on the iPad for children with autism. The purpose was to see if iPad applications (apps) could be used to increase responding. The preference assessment ranked iPad apps for each participant in order of most-preferred to leastpreferred. Participants’ responding increased when they could receive the most-preferred iPad app for completing the task (i.e., stringing beads). These results show that …

The Effect Of Behavioral Skills Training On Teachers Conducting The Recess-To-Classroom Transition, Sarah C. Smith

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Although it may not seem harmful, students in the elementary grades often take several minutes to move from recess back to their classrooms. The problem, however, is that these lengthy transitions add up over time, and teachers lose valuable time to instruct. The less instruction students receive, the poorer their academic performance tends to be. But how much time can teachers save by reducing their students’ transitions?

According to the current study, the answer is a lot. Dr. Thomas S. Higbee and Sarah C. Smith of Utah State University recently conducted a study in which they trained second, third, and …

An Analysis Of Variability Of Play Behavior With Preschool Children With Autism, Mary Katherine Endicott Harris

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Children with autism often display repetitive, stereotypical movements with toys in lieu of appropriate play skills. Unlike typically developing children, they do not vary their play with toys. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine whether three preschoolers with autism would vary their play actions when exposed to a lag schedule of reinforcement and physical prompting procedure. All three participants demonstrated varied play actions with the lag schedule and prompting procedure in place. These behaviors maintained when a probe was conducted two weeks later in the absence of the lag schedule. Although responding was high in the 2-week …

Peer-Implemented Script Fading To Promote Play-Based Statements In Children With Autism, Jessie Rosdahl

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Teaching communication and social skills to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) requires systematic teaching and instruction. Teachers provide these interventions to multiple students and the efforts can be strenuous. In order to help relieve teachers, as well as provide a more efficient way to teach social skills, this study was conducted to assess the benefits of using peers as implementers and communication exchange partners for children with ASD. In this study, we used an intervention called script fading, a prompt procedure that provides children with ASD with an appropriate audio phrase, which they then repeat during play. This study …

Exploring Trends In Middle School Students' Computational Thinking In The Online Scratch Community: A Pilot Study, Kevin N. Lawanto

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

We live in a century in which technology has become part of our lives, and it is crucial that we become active creators and not merely passive users of technology. One characteristic that might distinguish someone who uses the ideas of others from one who innovates his own ideas is the ability to computer program. Computer programming is more than just learning how to code; it also exposes students to computational thinking (CT), which involves problem-solving using computer science (CS) concepts, such as decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithm design.

The rationale for introducing computing in K-12 in order to …

The Implementation Of Interventions For Problem Behavior Based On The Results Of Precursor Functional Analyses In The Early Childhood Setting, Hayley Halversen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study consisted of three parts. We first used a video observation method and statistical analysis to identify benign behaviors that occurred before the problem behavior. These benign behaviors are known as precursor behaviors. We then used a precursor functional analysis to identify the function of the precursor behaviors. Lastly, we developed and implemented an intervention based on the results of the precursor functional analysis. The interventions effectively reduced problem behavior for the participants in the study. The participants engaged in minimal instances of problem behavior throughout the study. The results of this study may be useful to teachers and …

Epistemic Beliefs Of Middle And High School Students In A Problem-Based, Scientific Inquiry Unit: An Exploratory, Mixed Methods Study, Jiangyue Gu

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Epistemic beliefs are individuals’ beliefs about the nature of knowledge, how knowledge is constructed, and how knowledge can be justified. This study employed a mixed-methods approach to examine: (a) middle and high school students’ self-reported epistemic beliefs (quantitative) and epistemic beliefs revealed from practice (qualitative) during a problem-based, scientific inquiry unit, (b) How do middle and high school students’ epistemic beliefs contribute to the construction of students’ problem solving processes, and (c) how and why do students’ epistemic beliefs change by engaging in PBL.

Twenty-one middle and high school students participated in a summer science class to investigate local water …

A Study Of The Pedagogical And Structural Elements Being Incorporated Into The Design Of Hybrid Courses For Higher Education, Deborah Kezerian Baird

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study examined a new course design for teaching adults in higher education. Increasingly referred to as the hybrid course format, it entails purposefully dividing a course into face-to-face class sessions and online class sessions in separately calendared periods. Hybrid courses are a specific iteration of a broader category of courses that utilize technology in many configurations. Research into the potential for the hybrid format to be a highly effective way of teaching adults was found to be new and fragmented.

Adult education theories, including the andragogy model, the self-directed learning model, the transformative learning model and the experiential learning …

A Mixed-Method Study Of Mobile Devices And Student Self-Directed Learning And Achievement During A Middle School Stem Activity, Scott Bartholomew

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

With the increasingly ubiquitous nature of mobile devices among K-12 students, many argue for and against the inclusion of these devices in K-12 classrooms. Arguments in favor cite instant access to information and collaboration with others as positive affordances made possible through mobile devices. Self-directed learning, a process where individuals take charge of their learning and decide what they will learn, how they learn it, and how they assess their learning, has been identified as an increasingly important trait for K-12 students. The relationship between mobile device access in K-12 education settings and student self-directed learning has not been explored. …

Incorporating A Training Construct Into The Unified Theory Of Acceptance And Use Of Technology, Matthew E. Harris

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to determine if a prominent theoretical model, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), which is used to predict the likelihood that users would adopt a given technology, could be improved by adding a training reactions component as outlined in prominent training theory.

Online pre- and post-training surveys were received from 111 students who participated in face-to-face training on Structured Query Language (SQL) during spring 2014 and 2015 semesters. Survey questions were created from previously validated technology acceptance and training studies. From these responses, the basic structure of the original UTAUT …