Education Commons^™

Children’S Books And The Nature Of Science: A Multisite Naturalistic Case Study Of Three Elementary Teachers In The Rural Southeast, Patricia Lynn Bricker

Doctoral Dissertations

This naturalistic case study describes the efforts of three elementary teachers in a rural southeastern school to use children’s books in support of inquiry-based science and specifically addresses issues related to the nature of science. Data were collected through 26 classroom and meeting observations, 16 semi-structured and informal interviews, 35 documents and 76 children’s books used by the teachers. Three themes were identified related to the nature of science and the selection and use of children’s books in the teachers’ second, fourth, and fifth grade classrooms.

1. Science was portrayed as a human endeavor that connects to the lives of people …

An Interpretive Analysis Of The Formative Period Of Journal Publications Related To Multicultural Education: 1977-1987, Renard B. Harris

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of multicultural education in educational literature over a ten year period, 1977-1987. The evolution of multicultural education since its first inclusion into the Education Index, 1977, was of major concern. The researcher wanted to know how the development of multicultural education was influenced by the scholarly writing of that period.

Two hundred-twenty articles listed under the multicultural education heading in the Education Index from 1977-1987 were used as data for this study. Sixty-two articles that appeared in journals in 1977 were used to identify the early common themes of multicultural …

Differences In Teacher Qualifications And The Relationship To Middle School Student Achievement In Mathematics, Carrie R. Ferguson

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to compare mathematics teacher preparation and experience to the achievement of middle school students (grades 6–8) on the mathematics section of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS). Using a theoretical framework, the research examined the extent to which the teacher qualification variables were related to the student achievement. Measures of teacher qualifications included four independent variables: (a) number of mathematics content hours, (b) level of teaching certification, (c) number of years teaching experience, and (d) number of years teaching middle school/junior high mathematics. Participants in this causal-comparative study included 97 teachers and …