Education Commons^™

Effective Training Modalities To Teach The Use Of Naloxone Nasal Spray, Dominick V. Zurlo

Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

This paper examines the use of four different modalities to teach the correct assembly and administration method to use a naloxone nasal device. Naloxone is a medication which can reverse an opioid overdose when administered correctly. This specific device has been used for over a decade, and has been instrumental in opioid prevention educational programs to bystanders and individuals who use substances (NMDOH, 2017). Prior research studies utilizing naloxone nasal devices, have included outcome data collected from programs which train individuals who use opioids, and distribute the naloxone nasal device (Kerr, 2008). Others have included examination of curriculum content with …

The Effect Of The Sophomore Slump On Students’ Persistence, Vanessa Harris

Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

For years, universities have focused on student admissions and getting students through their first-year. According to Schaller (2010), this has resulted in limited literature and research regarding the persistence of sophomore students. From Fall 2010 to Fall 2015, the University of New Mexico (UNM) has experienced a decrease in the persistence of its cohorts from the third to the fifth semester. The existence of this higher attrition rate amongst sophomore students has been associated with a phenomenon known as the “sophomore slump” (Tobolowsky & Cox, 2007). The purpose of this research study was to utilize student retention conceptual models to …

Supporting A Growth Mindset In High School Classroom Teachers, Peter Abboud

Dissertations

Purpose. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to identify and describe the strategies that California public high school principals utilized to develop a growth mindset in classroom teachers.

Methodology. This qualitative case study used interviews from 12 high school principals to gain an understanding for how they supported a growth mindset in their classroom teachers. The population for the case study was northern California high school principals, and the sample included high school principals from Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Marin, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties. To participate in the study, principals needed to be serving in at …

Bridge Over Troubled Water: Creating An Ecology Of Transformative Care For Students At Risk Of Their Promise, Cherina O. Betters

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The teacher-student relationship is multidimensional and fluid. This is especially true for students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Educational leaders in the public school setting cannot control which students enroll at their school sites. The only thing teachers, as educational leaders in K-12 public education, have complete control over is the environment they create in their classrooms. Among those student groups most reflecting few gains on state and federal reports of proficiency data are students who typically come from backgrounds besieged with challenges or from historically underserved and marginalized communities. In this transcendental phenomenological study, the phenomenon investigated was how …

Teaching Students Who Have Difficulty Mastering Lmitation, Jennifer Mrljak

Dissertations

Some children with autism are unable to acquire imitation despite receiving early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) meant to teach that and other important skills. Many EIBI programs use physical-prompting hierarchies either as a component of the discriminative stimulus or the correction procedure following an error (Lovaas, 1981; Maurice, Green, & Luce, 1996). But even after lengthy exposure to these teaching techniques, some children still do not acquire imitative repertoires. In the present study, working with students who were not acquiring imitative repertoires, we started with shaping the initial imitative responses as a method to gain stimulus control and then introduced …

Practicing Freedom: Effects Of Personal Anti-Racist Engagement On A Montessori Educator's Experience, Maggie Mccaffrey

Masters of Arts in Education Action Research Papers

This self-study was designed to assess the effects of engagement with antiracist media on the work of a Montessori educator in the classroom. Conducted over eight weeks, the study used nightly readings, daily reflections, a tally of daily antiracist thoughts, and a scale of one through five measuring the participant’s optimism regarding the integration of antiracist pedagogy with Montessori philosophy and practice. The study was performed at a racially and economically diverse private Montessori school in a Midwestern metropolitan area in a class of twenty children ranging from 2.7 to 5 years old. The results indicated that, although the intervention …

A Qualitative Investigation Of The Interpersonal Changes White Psychology Trainees Experience During Their Race-Based Learning And Development, Molly K. Beagle

Dissertations

The current study expands upon prior research that has explored how white psychology and counseling graduate trainees are impacted by their learning about racism. Prior to this study being conducted, research primarily addressed the psychological impact of learning about racism for white trainees. There was minimal acknowledgment and exploration of how learning about racism impacted the interpersonal aspects of trainees’ lives, such as their relationships and larger social networks. The current study addresses this gap within previous research, with it being the first to have an intentional, exclusive focus on the interpersonal impact of learning about racism. The primary purpose …

The Design And Validation Of A Rhythm Span Task, Elizabeth Hofschulte Collins

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to design and validate a rhythm span task. Existing rhythm span tasks do not address important elements of rhythm and music such as tempo (speed), length (duration in beats per minute), and complexity (level of syncopation). This rhythm span task includes every combination of these criteria. The rhythmic sequences were presented with a piano sound from computer audio speakers. To align with traditional simple span tasks, the rhythm span task required participants to reproduce the rhythmic sequence. Results from this study showed that length was a significant factor for difficulty. Short rhythms were found …

Using Mindfulness To Self-Regulate In The Upper Elementary Classroom, Ashleigh L. Bartz

Masters of Arts in Education Action Research Papers

The purpose of this research was to determine the effects on students’ ability to self regulate while learning about daily mindfulness lessons. The study took place over the course of six weeks in an upper elementary class of 20 students, including four fourth graders, nine fifth graders, and seven sixth graders. The study was conducted in a rural public Montessori school in the Midwest. Students participated in a six-week mindfulness unit from The Mind Up Curriculum (The Hawn Foundation, 2011). The researcher collected data through a pre-and postassessment, students’ self reflections and graphs, researcher’s observation, and researcher’s daily journal. The …

Emotional And Cognitive Engagement In Higher Education Classrooms, Kristine C. Manwaring

Theses and Dissertations

This is a multi-article format dissertation that explores emotional and cognitive engagement in higher education classrooms. Student engagement in higher education classrooms has been associated with desired outcomes such as academic achievement, retention, and graduation. Student engagement is a multi-faceted concept, consisting of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive components. A deeper understanding of how these components interact would allow instructors and course designers to facilitate more engaging learning experiences for students. The first article is an extended literature review that investigates the extant empirical research on the relationship between emotional and cognitive engagement, and between emotional engagement and academic outcomes in …

Using Dr. Scratch As A Formative Feedback Tool To Assess Computational Thinking, Samuel Frank Browning

Theses and Dissertations

Scratch is one of the most popular ways to teach younger children to code in K–8 throughout the U.S. and Europe. Despite its popularity, Scratch lacks a formative feedback tool to inform students and teachers of a student's progress in coding ability. Dr. Scratch was built to fill this need. This study seeks to answer if using Dr. Scratch as a formative feedback tool accelerates the students' progress in coding ability and Computational Thinking (CT). Forty-one 4th-6th grade students participated in a 1-hour/week Scratch workshop for nine weeks. We measured pre- and posttest results of the Computational Thinking Test (CTt) …

Slipping Through The Cracks: A Look Into Special Education Referrals, Courtney Musselman

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Special Education is offered in many schools today and more and more students are being referred to this type of education. For this capstone project three local special education teachers were interviewed about the referral process and what could be done to improve it. This is an important issue because many students are slipping through the cracks when it comes to be identified and others are being overly identified. The referral process is important because it provides students with an equal opportunity for education. Findings from the interviews and information from a relevant literature review were used to develop an …

Examining The Perceived Influence Of A Comprehensive Youth Development Program For Promoting Black Male High School Persistence, Richard Gray Walker

Dissertations

Black male youth in the United States drop out of high school at a rate consistently higher than their White counterparts. A lack of academic persistence contributes to lower workforce participation rates among Black Americans, which leads to lower national productivity and unrealized personal prosperity. Youth development research has developed an extensive body of knowledge regarding possible causes and contributing factors of minority high school dropout. Literature shows youth experience higher dropout rates when they grow up in adversity. Adversity risks such as dysfunctional families, cultural discontinuity between home and school, dysfunctional neighborhoods, or low-expectations from teachers contribute to graduation …

What Makes That Autistic Student Tick? Strategies For Classroom Behaviors, Amanda Puleo

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Inclusion of autistic students in mainstream classrooms may make it difficult for teachers to identify and proactively address disruptive behaviors. That is, mainstream teachers may not know how to respond to these specific behaviors and their standard classroom management techniques may not work with autistic students. It will take commitment and hard work to identify strategies to regulate the disruptive behaviors of students with autism. To address this issue, the perspectives of directors and teachers who specialize in autism, as well as mainstream public or private school teachers were obtained through interviews. Three options for action emerged from an analysis …

Elements Of Moral Functioning In Sport And School, Christopher Funk

Dissertations

Moral functioning is complex and implicates numerous cognitive and affective processes. Drawing upon Rest’s four-component model of moral functioning and more recent dual-process accounts of cognition, the current study examined a model of moral functioning in both sport and school contexts. Specifically, drawing upon the empirical record, a model of moral functioning was proposed and tested wherein moral identity influenced the adoption of specific contesting orientations, which, in turn, influenced prosocial and antisocial behaviors, both directly and indirectly via moral foundations and moral disengagement. Fit of the model was moderately strong in both contexts, though significant contextual differences emerged, both …

Influence Of Leadership, Peer Status, And Social Goals On Overt And Relational Aggression During Early Adolescence, Casey Schick

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Peer relationships are highly salient during early adolescence, especially during the first year of middle school. As a result, coolness (a facet of peer status) is prioritized and increasingly associated with aggression. Recent research indicates the relationship between peer status (coolness) and aggression is moderated by social goals (popularity, dominance, intimacy) and gender. Leadership among peers is also salient during early adolescence, although it is understudied in comparison to peer status (coolness). Leadership is worth additional investigation, as youth leaders are considered interpersonally competent and possess the social skills necessary to influence peer behavior. Research is needed to examine the …

Relationships Between Self-Concept, Teacher Expectation, And Academic Achievement: An Analysis Of Social-Emotional Well Being And Its Relation To Classroom Performance, Katherine E. Stearns

EDL Sixth Year Theses

As a current teacher at McAlister Intermediate School in Suffield, Connecticut, I am interested in analyzing the relationship between a student’s self-concept, their academic achievement, and the expectations that their teacher holds for them within the classroom. My personal interests lead to a literature review and subsequent study examining existing research surrounding self-concept, teacher expectation, and their relationships to academic achievement.

The Predictability Of New Mexico’S Summative Reading Assessment By Two Commonly Used Early Literacy Assessments, The Dynamic Indicators Of Basic Early Literacy Skills Next (Dibels Next) And The Developmental Reading Assessment – Second Edition (Dra2), Michelle I. Osowski

Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

This study will determine the degree to which first grade literacy tests predict third grade reading performance in order to judge their value as "early warning systems" for reading skills. Reading skills are fundamental to many academic outcomes, so having an early sense of how students are reading is critical for schools. The first grade reading tests being compared are the Developmental Reading Assessment-Second Edition (DRA2) and the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills – Next (DIBELS Next). This study will employ two datasets, one with DIBELS Next scores (N=5,456) and one with DRA2 …

Understanding Student And Faculty Perceptions Of The Accommodation And Support Procedures For Students With Ld In Ontario Universities: A Mixed Methods Approach, Sarah Copfer Terreberry

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

With recent advances in disability policies, practices, and inclusive education mandates, students with learning disabilities (LD) are choosing to attend higher education at a rate that is greater than ever before. Despite these positive advances, however, the transition from secondary to higher education and the adjustment to post-secondary environments for students with LD continues to present a number of unique academic, social, and emotional challenges for this population, especially as this relates to obtaining access to accommodation and support for their learning needs. This study investigated how the needs of students with learning disabilities (LD) are currently being met at …

A Correlational Study: Personality Types And Foreign Language Acquisition In Undergraduate Students, Frank Capellan

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between personality types and second language acquisition. The study addressed a problem that is inadequately investigated in foreign language acquisition research; specifically, personality traits as predictors of language learning in college students studying Spanish as a foreign language. The researcher conducted one sample t-tests to assess statistically significant differences between mean personality type score and the test value, as well as, a multiple linear regression analysis. A convenient sample of college students (n=52) completed the Neris Personality Type Indicator at the beginning of the course, and took several examinations throughout …

An Exploration Of Career Decision-Making Among Domestic And International Instructional Design Students, Erin L. Mills

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Graduate students encounter specific career difficulties in making career decisions, and turn to various sources of assistance, help-seeking resources and guidance (Gati, Gadasi & Shemesh, 2005). Previous research into graduate student career needs have not sought to better understand the specific differences between international and domestic graduate students in instructional design. As a result, the factors that influence and impact graduate students in the context of their career decision making within an instructional design graduate program remain unexplored.

This mixed methods study captured actual career related difficulties of graduate instructional design students through a conceptual framework based on Bandura (1986) …

A For Academics Or Athletics: A Critical Look At African American Male Student Athletes In Search Of Identity, Tamekia Bush

Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how African American male student athletes developed their athletic and racial identity and how this impacted their academic identity. I conducted two in depth interviews with 6 African American male current or former student athletes who played basketball or football in high school but were not eligible to be a NCAA qualifier for an athletic scholarship. I sought to investigate the point when the student athletes began their career in athletics and when athletics began to impact their academic performance and why it impacted academic performance. I also investigated how the …

A Playful Context Enhances Bilingual And Monolingual Preschoolers’ Mastery Motivation And Private Speech, Jeremy Sawyer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Children’s private speech (audible self-talk) has been studied primarily as a cognitive tool for thinking, planning and self-regulation. This study investigated whether private speech may also function as a tool for motivation. Vygotskian and self-determination theory suggest that children can develop to become agentic and inspired, or conversely disengaged and alienated, based largely on their social conditions of development. Thus, it is important to investigate children’s motivational processes in social and educational contexts that are central to child development. U.S. preschool enrollment is expanding, accompanied by a decline in play-based pedagogy and growth of didactic, teacher-centered approaches. To illuminate the …

Past Peer Victimization Experiences And Current Psychological Well-Being And Ethnic Identity Among South Asian College Students, Rejitha Nair

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Very little is known about the peer victimization experiences of South Asian immigrant students and the factors involved in these experiences. The present study retrospectively investigated the peer victimization experiences of South Asian immigrant students in high school, the perceived reasons for victimization, and how these experiences relate to their psychological well-being and ethnic identity as college students. Two hundred and twenty college students, who were first or second generation immigrants from South Asia (e.g., India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal) and attended high school in the United States, participated in the study.

Overall, the results revealed that …

Uncovering What Readers Know: Understanding Readers’ Online And Offline Processes For Identifying Story Elements, Esther Hellmann

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

School-age children are frequently asked to read and summarize narrative texts. However, despite the frequency that summarizing tasks are assigned, teachers infrequently provide instruction on summarizing narratives. In addition, researchers have failed to empirically investigate a summarizing technique specifically designed for narratives. In Study 1, thirty typically developing fourth grade students read passages at lower and upper levels of difficulty and produced summaries of the passages. The treatment participants received four, thirty-minute intervention sessions on using story grammar to summarize the narratives. Results found that story grammar is an effective method for summarizing narratives, and that text difficulty impacts summarizing …

Discovering The Leader Within: An Autoethnophenomenographic Study Of Mindfulness In Educational Leadership, Alyssa Fraser

Educational Studies Dissertations

This qualitative study combined autoethnographic and phenomenological methods to examine a researcher-leader’s attempt to cultivate cognitive, relational, and emotional capacities through regular mindfulness practice, and how the cultivation of such capacities aligns with the enactment of leadership. The interrogation of lived experience and self-analysis was entered with the intention to better understand the promise of mindfulness as a resource for the development of educational leaders. This study explored the perceived connections between mindfulness practice and the enactment of educational leadership by examining internal and external perspectives of an individual leader’s practice. Methods of self-observation, including both interval and occurrence recording …

The Moderating Effects Of Positive Religious/Spiritual Coping On Teachers’ Pain And Stress, Dawn Green

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this internet-based survey was to investigate the effects of positive religious or spiritual coping strategies on teachers’ chronic pain reports. Teachers in the United States may represent a vulnerable group due to a high prevalence of risk factors for chronic pain conditions. Teachers have been identified to experience high stress (Johnson, et al., 2005; Kyriacou, 2001) and report poor job satisfaction (Wang, Hall, & Rahimi, 2015), which are associated with development of chronic pain conditions (Kopec & Sayre, 2004). Religious coping strategies have been associated with beneficial associations with stress and health (Reutter & Bigatti, 2014). The …

Online Formative Assessments As Valid Correlates Of Foreign Language Proficiency Levels As Measured By Ilr/Dlpt5 Summative Tests, Alma Castro-Peet

Dissertations

Purpose: This study explored a technological contribution to education made by the

Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in the formative assessment field. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to identify the relationship between online formative (Online Diagnostic Assessment; ODA) and summative (Defense Language Proficiency Test 5; DLPT5) assessments in foreign language instruction in Spanish, Korean, Chinese Mandarin, and Standard Arabic to determine their relationship to student success in a basic course program for adult students at the DLIFLC.

Methodology: This nonexperimental correlational study included a standard regression model to determine correlations between ODA scores and DLPT5 …

Success Of Twice-Exceptional College Students Screened By Act Versus Sat Scores And Major Declaration In Line With Academic Strength, Kelly Harrington Smyth

Doctoral Dissertations

Educational outcomes of college students (e.g., GPA, retention, graduation, and years to graduation) of undergraduate students screened and selected for 2e status (2e; giftedness with a learning disability) did not differ significantly (p > .05) based on two operationalizations (of 2e status): ACT or SAT scores. However, significantly more 2e students were screened from ACT scores relative to the number screened from SAT scores (p < .05). Further investigation into academic outcomes revealed that students screened as 2e by the ACT were significantly more likely to be retained after their first year of college when they declared a major in line with their academic strength (p < .05), relative to the number retained by the SAT. Finally, 2e students screened by the ACT were less likely to graduate within six years of initial enrollment at UT when they did not declare a major in line with their academic strength, though the difference was not statistically significant (p > .05). Implications are discussed, and particularly suggestions regarding how these data may improve advising practices.

Targeting Difficult Multiplication Problems: Increasing Multiplication Fact Fluency Through A Learning Trials Intervention, Kelly Mccullough Thompson

Doctoral Dissertations

The acquisition of basic math facts is a necessity for elementary school students as it fosters skill development as math concepts increase in difficulty. Specifically, by the end of the fifth grade, students are expected to have mastered all basic one-digit by one-digit multiplication problems. Many students, however, do not become fluent with multiplication facts, particularly the most difficult basic facts (i.e., digits 6-9). The current study was designed to determine if a computer-based learning trials program could enhance automaticity with difficult multiplication facts. Further, we investigated whether the computer program targeting difficult facts could enhance fluency across all basic …