Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

Predictors Of Academic Success For Optometry Students, Robert S. Buckingham

Dissertations

Optometry school admissions are very competitive. With more applicants than available slots, admission committees must choose those students whom they feel will be successful graduates. Previous studies in the health profession schools have demonstrated that the predictors of academic achievement are preadmission science grade point average (GPA), preadmission cumulative GPA, and standardized entrance tests. However, with the advent of the Optometry Centralized Applications Service (OptomCAS), no research could be found on the predictors of success as it relates to those variables. This study, therefore, evaluates the ability of these variables to predict the GPA and graduation of students in the …

Preparing Students For Careers That Do Not Yet Exist, Glenn W. "Max" Mcgee

Publications & Research

The Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA), as a self-described "teaching and learning laboratory for imagination and inquiry," has a history of pursuing innovations closely aligned with the vision and framework of the National Science Education Standards. Innovations include both methods and materials for inquiry-based student instruction as well as for delivering professional development for pre-service and practicing teachers. Instructional innovations described include yearlong student inquiry and research projects (SIR), self-paced physics instruction, student-driven energy and engineering projects, instruction in innovation and entrepreneurialism, and a host of student-led outreach activities to "ignite and nurture creative, ethical, scientific minds of students …

Understanding Early Faculty Experience: On Becoming Teachers, Scholars, And Community Members, Michele M. Welkener, Michelle Flaum Hall, Mary I. Grilliot

Counselor Education and Human Services Faculty Publications

This article focuses on findings from a qualitative study of the experiences of pretenured faculty within their first two years in the academy. The authors share narratives from faculty participants who are diverse in their disciplinary backgrounds and prior experiences, focusing on the expectations they had upon entering the profession, the challenges they encountered, and what they found helpful for meeting the many demands of faculty life. Their stories provide evidence of the enduring need for faculty learning communities. Implications of this work can inform the efforts of faculty developers, college and university administrators, and anyone with an interest in …

The Effect Of Pre-Collaborative Activity Instruction On Self-Efficacy, Robert Ray Mattson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Collaborative learning is increasing in popularity in education. This collaborative pedagogy is based on a significant body of research that shows positive learning gains. Additionally, given the nature of much of the information-age work, it is thought that such collaborative activity in school helps develop knowledge, skills and attitudes that will be beneficial to students in their post-college lives.

In spite of collaborative learning's increasing use and popularity, there is only limited research on how students feel about such methods and their level of confidence in their collaborative knowledge, skills and attitudes. Based on the current theories about self-efficacy, delineated …

Creative Learning For Challenging Times: The Promise And Peril Of Risk, Michele M. Welkener

Counselor Education and Human Services Faculty Publications

We are in an unprecedented time when it comes to the world’s complexity—never has the need been greater for students to be prepared to think for themselves and act creatively to solve perplexing problems. As an artist, faculty member and administrator in higher education, faculty developer, and researcher of creativity in college students, I am passionate about creating environments where students can exercise such skills. In the art culture, risk, experimentation, exploration, and even failure are expected routes that lead to finding one’s own style, voice, and signature statement. My awareness of these expectations first began to intensify as I …

The Status Of Students With Special Needs In The Instrumental Musical Ensemble And The Effect Of Selected Educator And Institutional Variables On Rates Of Inclusion, Edward C. Hoffman Iii

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

The purpose of this study was to describe the current status of students with special needs in the instrumental musical ensemble and to examine the effect of selected educator and institutional variables on rates of inclusion. An online survey was designed by the researcher and distributed electronically to 600 practicing K-12 instrumental music educators in the states of Idaho, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, and Rhode Island. While 13.6% of the total school-aged population nationwide received special education services, demographic data provided by respondents revealed that students with special needs accounted for 6.8% of all students participating in bands, orchestras, …

Teacher Self-Efficacy And Student Achievement As Measured By North Carolina Reading And Math End-Of-Grade Tests., Wayne M. Eberle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teachers continue to experience an increased sense of responsibility as it relates to job performance while still being required to produce at the same level with relation to student performance. This can cause an increase in personal stress and result in lowered feelings of self- worth, having a negative impact on service delivery to children and overall job performance.

Bandura (1997) defined self-efficacy as a judgment of one's ability to organize and execute given types of performances. Furthermore, he suggests that the outcomes people anticipate depend largely upon their judgments of how well they will be able to perform in …

The Relationship Between Participation In Extracurricular Activities And Utah's Proficiency Assessments Of Students In A Suburban School District, Everett N. Kelepolo

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to discover whether a relationship exists between participation in extracurricular activities and meeting Utah proficiency assessment standards. This study took place in a suburban school district in the state of Utah.

Throughout the history of public education, economic hardships have wreaked havoc on school systems that depend on public sources of income. Schools today are managing these budget restraints by reducing or eliminating extracurricular programs.

The relationship between academic success and participating in extracurricular activities is found concretely in the research data. However, schools must make budget decisions which place activities and academics in …

Collaborative Strategic Board Games As A Site For Distributed Computational Thinking, Matthew Berland, Victor R. Lee

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper examines the idea that contemporary strategic board games represent an informal, interactional context in which complex computational thinking takes place. When games are collaborative – that is, a game requires that players work in joint pursuit of a shared goal – the computational thinking is easily observed as distributed across several participants. This raises the possibility that a focus on such board games are profitable for those who wish to understand computational thinking and learning in situ. This paper introduces a coding scheme, applies it to the recorded discourse of three groups of game players, and provides qualitative …

Loving The World And Our Children Enough--Nurturing Decidedly Different Scientifc Minds, By Design, Stephanie Pace Marshall

Publications & Research

Wise world-shaping and problem-solving requires that we and our children think in decidedly different, integral and wise ways. This transformation requires a fundamental shift in consciousness and the emergence of global minds that can creatively live into a new worldview of an interconnected planet and a sustainable and interdependent human family. "The fullness of our humanity and the sustainability of our planet rest with the nurturing of decidedly different minds."

Mental Health And Wellbeing: Educational Perspectives, Rosalyn H. Shute Ed.

Shannon Research Press

Mental Health and Wellbeing: Educational Perspectives provides a significant overview of the matter of mental health and wellbeing with particular relevance to educational contexts. Comprising peer-reviewed chapter contributions from prominent Australian and international researchers and practitioners, this book presents an authoritative and diverse account of:

• links between wellbeing and learning

• interventions and initiatives in the field

• evidence based practice guidelines

• policy and practice examples

Divided Timed And Continuous Timed Assessment Protocols And Academic Performance, David Perucca

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Children from a low socioeconomic status (SES) are exposed to numerous stress factors that are negatively associated with sustained attention and academic performance. This association suggests that the timed component of lengthy assessments may be unfair for students from such backgrounds, as they may have an inability to sustain attention during lengthy tests. Research has also found academic disparities between gender. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to investigate the relationship between continuous and divided timed tests in terms of student test scores, with additional assessments incorporating gender. Two charter schools from a suburban Idaho school district were the …

Teaching Interactively Using Web-Conferencing: The Student Perspective, Pilar Pazos, Holly Handley, Shannon Bowling, Charles B. Daniels, Kim Sibson, Patrick Hester

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Department (EMSE) of Old Dominion University (ODU) Batten College of Engineering and Technology (BCET) has employed distance-learning technologies for well over three decades. Although the current technologies provide a valuable service for many geographically dispersed students, the faculty continues to explore additional distance learning tools, technologies and methods to promote more student participation and active learning. The goal of this paper is to describe and evaluate an innovative instructional approach using interactive web conferencing in hybrid courses. This paper will explore the use of web conferencing to teach graduate-level courses and explore the impact …

A Phenomenological Study Of Social Science Instructors' Assessment Practices For Online Learning, Cynthia S. Dietrich

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Online learning has revolutionized higher education in the United States. In 2007, there were 3.9 million students taking at least 1 online course. Assessment in online instruction is a new experience for teachers because of the recent advent of online course delivery. Current research on online learning does not address instructor experiences with learning assessments. This gap may contribute to online instructors being inadequately prepared to teach online. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore online instructors' experiences with assessments in their undergraduate social science courses. The study was guided by constructivism as well as theories associated with …

Educators' Attitudes Toward Outdoor Classrooms And The Cognitive Benefits In Children, Carlie Speedlin

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

A case study was organized at a K-5 elementary school in Lincoln, Nebraksa. This school is Saratoga Elementary School and is a United States Title I Distinguished School1 under No Child Left Behind. It has a population of 266 students, with 47% being minority, 1% gifted, and 28% special education (LPS School Profile Brochure). 80% of the student population is eligible for free/reduced meals, implying that it’s a school with a lower socioeconomic status. At this school a garden space was constructed and an after school garden club was implemented for this case study. The club had been running since …

The Multiple-Choice Concept Map (Mccm): An Interactive Computer-Based Assessment Method, Ioan C. Sas

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This research attempted to bridge the gap between cognitive psychology and educational measurement (Mislevy, 2008; Leighton & Gierl, 2007; Nichols, 1994; Messick, 1989; Snow & Lohman, 1989) by using cognitive theories from working memory (Baddeley, 1986; Miyake & Shah, 1999; Grimley & Banner, 2008), multimedia learning (Mayer, 2001), and cognitive load (Chandler and Sweller, 1991, 1992; Cerpa, Chandler, & Sweller., 1996) to identify potential design weaknesses of traditional select-and-fill-in (SAFI) concept map assessment and then to guide the design of the new and improved multiple-choice concept map (MCCM) assessment method. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the …

The Relationship Of Personality Traits To Satisfaction With The Team: A Study Of Interdisciplinary Teacher Teams In Rhode Island Middle Schools, Michele D. Humbyrd, Robert K. Gable

Teacher Education

Shared practice in schools has emerged; teachers are moving from isolation to team collaboration where personality traits could be related to quality interactions. Team personality traits and team satisfaction were examined. A survey and interview approach was used for N = 244 full-time teachers from N = 49 interdisciplinary teams at N = 7 middle schools. Descriptive, correlational, multiple regression analyses and coded themes about team members’ personalities and interactions were employed. No significant relationships were found between the BFI traits and Satisfaction with the Team. Team-level analysis indicated a significant negative correlation between Satisfaction with theTeam and Extraversion and …

Academic Dishonesty In Online Education, Wren Allen Mills

Dissertations

This dissertation examined cheating attitudes and behaviors of undergraduates, especially those enrolled in online courses. While cheating is an established problem within the academy, it is also an issue on the job and has been in the spotlight in recent years, with ethics scandals in corporate America and plagiarism in the media. With this in mind, and the foundational philosophy of the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education (Bureau of Education, 1928) and the American Council on Education’s (1937) Student Personnel Point of View, this study sought insight into students’ attitudes about cheating behaviors and practices of them in online courses …

Wku Scholar, Pamela Napier, Editor-In-Chief

WKU Scholar

No abstract provided.

Misconstruals Or More? The Interactions Of Orbit Diagrams And Explanations Of The Seasons, Victor R. Lee

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper examines a “misconstrual hypothesis” regarding diagrams of the Earth’s orbit around the sun and how middle school students explain the cause of the seasons. Drawing from 24 semi-structured interviews, I present qualitative analyses of students’ explanations of why temperatures vary in summer and winter and how those are influenced by the elliptical shape of perspective drawings of the Earth’s orbit, common to many science textbooks. The results of the analysis suggest that diagram interpretation does not necessarily follow what has been often predicted in the literature and that conceptualizations can shift quite rapidly as different diagram features are …

Software Internationalization: A Framework Validated Against Industry Requirements For Computer Science And Software Engineering Programs, John Huân Vũ

Master's Theses

View John Huân Vũ's thesis presentation at http://youtu.be/y3bzNmkTr-c.

In 2001, the ACM and IEEE Computing Curriculum stated that it was necessary to address "the need to develop implementation models that are international in scope and could be practiced in universities around the world." With increasing connectivity through the internet, the move towards a global economy and growing use of technology places software internationalization as a more important concern for developers. However, there has been a "clear shortage in terms of numbers of trained persons applying for entry-level positions" in this area. Eric Brechner, Director of Microsoft Development Training, suggested …

An Evaluation Of The Right Choices Program To Determine Effectiveness In Delivering Constructive Interventions And Providing An Early Support Program In Order To Modify Behavior Of First-Time Student Offenders Who Commit Drug And Violent Acts, Lisa B. Barnes

Education Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of the study was to perform a program evaluation of the Right Choices Program to determine the program's effectiveness in delivering constructive interventions that modify student behavior once students have left the program and have returned to their regular learning environment. This mixed-method evaluation consisted of an experimental-comparison design approach that included interviews with program participants, completing focus groups, and comparison of the number of out-of-school suspensions that participants received after completing the Right Choices Program.

The researcher and trained interviewers administered a survey to the 16 certified staff members working in the Right Choices Program including the …

The Future Of Natural Selection Knowledge Measurement: A Reply To Anderson Et Al. (2010), Ross Nehm, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

The development of rich, reliable, and robust measures of the composition, structure, and stability of student thinking about core scientific ideas (such as natural selection) remains a complex challenge facing science educators. In their recent article (Nehm & Schonfeld 2008), the authors explored the strengths, weaknesses, and insights provided by a detailed exploration of three commonly used measures of student thinking about natural selection in a large sample of underrepresented minority students. One of their core findings was that all of the tools they studied--including the CINS--have strengths and weaknesses that must be carefully taken into consideration by those …

Sustained Employment Of Teachers In High Poverty Schools, Karen Jean Davis

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Author's abstract: The researcher's purpose of this study was to understand from the lived experiences of teachers in high poverty schools the reasons they remained in these schools. A qualitative method was used to conduct the study, which involved interviews with eight teachers (4 elementary, 2 middle and 2 high), one principal and the Superintendent who responded to open-ended interview questions. The interview questions were designed to elicit responses to the research questions and interview questions. The researcher coded transcripts from the interviews for recurring themes and patterns. Field notes from before and after each interview, as well as district …

Traumatic Brain Injury: Transition And Intervention, Susan C. Davies

Counselor Education and Human Services Faculty Publications

The Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act defines traumatic brain injury as an acquired in· jury to the brain caused by an external physical force. The injury results in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or both, that adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas, such as cognition; langnage; memory; attention; reasoning; abstract thinking; judgment; problem-solving; sensory, perceptual, and motor abilities; psychosocial behavior; physical functions; information processing; and speech. The term does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, …

An Examination Of The Effectiveness Of A Professional Development Program On Teacher Knowledge And Practice To Address Adolescent Health Issues, Narima Aliya Shahabudeen

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Predicting Systemic Confidence, Stephanie Inez Falke

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Using a mixed method approach, this study explored which educational factors predicted systemic confidence in master’s level marital and family therapy (MFT) students, and whether or not the impact of these factors was influenced by student beliefs and their perception of their supervisor’s beliefs about the value of systemic practice. One hundred and twenty graduate students in Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education-accredited (COAMFT) programs completed an online survey that assessed their training experiences, beliefs about systemic practice and perceptions of confidence. Quantitative findings revealed that students who reported greater research expectations in their program, obtained more …

Manipulatives In Mathematics Instruction, Jessica Strom

Mathematics Graduate Theses

This paper is a review of research pertaining to the use of manipulatives in middle and secondary school mathematics instruction. It covers the research on the rationale for using manipulatives, the psychology behind learning with manipulatives, the common mistakes when teaching with manipulatives, and the suggested process to follow when using manipulatives in the classroom. There is a large amount of research and information on manipulatives in the classroom. One of the most prevalent topics addresses that the concrete characteristics of manipulatives allow students to progress through a natural learning process on their way to an abstract understanding of mathematical …

Matching Time Of Day And Preference For Adolescent Achievement, Leisha Moree Parker

Dissertations

Research shows that adolescents enter a circadian-phase delay as they approach and enter high school. On or about age 14, teens become less of a morning learner due to biological factors. Researchers have determined consequences to the adolescent's circadian shift as related to learning; therefore, morning time may have a negative influence on the cognitive functioning of teens resulting in lower test scores. This study was an attempt to determine if time of day, gender, and learning preference using the Morningness/Eveningness Scale for Children (MESC) as proposed by Carskadon, Vieira, and Acebo (1993) would result in a statistical difference in …

The Development And Application Of A Checklist For Evaluating E-Learning In Organizations, Anne-Marie Guidy-Oulai

Dissertations

In the last two decades, organizations have increasingly used computer-based instruction as a method to deliver training to employees and instruction to students. The e-learning market reached $50 billion in 2005 and is expected to double by 2010. A number of different evaluation models can and have been used to measure effectiveness and worth of programs. However, the literature indicates the evaluation of e-learning may need to develop new models for evaluation.

The purpose of this study is to develop a framework to enhance the process of elearning evaluation in organizations. The E-Learning Evaluation Checklist (ELEC)— which was developed and …