Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

The Learning Experiences Of Practicing School Leadership Coaches: A Multiple Case Study, Dustin Anderson

Dissertations

In 2017, the US Department of Education awarded Western Michigan University (WMU) a Supporting Educator Effectiveness Development (SEED) grant to fund the High-Impact Leadership for School Renewal (HIL) Project. The purpose of the HIL Project is to recruit and prepare school leaders with the skills associated with instructional leadership for improving school conditions that support student achievement. Through the use of school leadership coaches (called Implementation Facilitators in the HIL Project) trained on an adaptive school leadership coaching model, the HIL Project seeks to address one of the most challenging aspects of school leadership: developing and sustaining the HIL Model …

A Case Study On The Differences In Scores Of Undergraduate Students In Traditional, Online, And Hybrid Classes, Patricia Ruth Kuhn

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The primary purpose of this research was to ascertain whether there are variances in academic performance between students taking an educational technology course in traditional, online, and hybrid learning environments. As a secondary goal, the study assessed the differences in academic performance of male and female students in these classes.

All students in this study held an undergraduate status of junior or above. They had earned a minimum of 45 hours and had a minimum 2.75 overall GPA. These students also passed the certification test for state educators and had been accepted as teacher candidates of the College of Education …

The Relationship Between Elementary School Administrators' And Teachers' Perceptions Of The Influence Of Male Teachers And Schools' Male Student Achievement Growth In English Language Arts, Kathleen Elizabeth Kaump Truitt

Theses and Dissertations

There is a national achievement gap between male and female students in the United States. A common recommendation to reduce this achievement gap has been to hire more male teachers. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions that elementary administrators and teachers have of male teachers’ influence on male student growth in English Language Arts. In order to measure perceptions, a five-point Likert scale survey was adapted from an existing qualitative questionnaire. A pilot study was conducted, an Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses were performed, and the survey was found valid and reliable to measure four constructs …

Measures For Comparing An Augmentative And Alternative Communication Application For Use Within A Kindergarten Curriculum, Anna Camille Johnson Mckelphin

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to measure the influence of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) with symbol-supported communication applications (apps) on stimulating kindergarten students to increase expressive language in the general education setting in an elementary school located in Washington, DC. The study sample size was 31 students. The research aimed to identify these tools as an effective strategy to assist kindergarten students in using more verbal language, thereby lowering the risk of communication frustration and increasing the expression of learned knowledge. Language data usage was collected by viewing speech acts as operators in a planning system, then integrating …

The Implementation Of Online Classroom Management Professional Development For Beginning Teachers, Kaytlynn Milliken

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Effective classroom management practices are well known, yet the most efficient ways to teach them to beginning teachers is not. Online professional development is growing in popularity—though there are few examples of online classroom management training in the literature. The purpose of this qualitative study was to evaluate the experiences and implementation practices of beginning teachers that participated in online classroom management training as part of their new teacher induction program. The results suggest that online classroom management professional development as part of new teacher induction is a practical option. The beginning teachers were observed utilizing the classroom management strategies …

Perceptions And Experiences Of Online Learning And Synchronous Communication, Michelle Fry

Dissertations

Abstract

High-quality and effective online education is essential to the continuous growth of higher education. As online higher education grows in professional programs, it is especially pertinent to investigate learning designs for their effectiveness in supporting the acquisition of professional skills. Drawing upon the Community of Inquiry (CoI) and the Practice-Based Teaching (PBT) frameworks, this research investigated the effectiveness of one online graduate program designed for practicing teachers to learn new skills (i.e., diagnostic assessment and differentiated instruction) in teaching reading to elementary students. The learning design introduced a new component of virtual presence (i.e., synchronous communication) at strategic points …

Impacts Of Growing Technology On Students' Reading And Writing Skills, Jacquelyn Ogborn Corpuz

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Technology has radically changed the ways in which students and teachers function within the classroom. The use of mobile technologies, specifically laptop computers and internet use, has transformed teacher instruction along with student expectations. Given that students have a high exposure to technology in the classroom, especially at the middle school level, this senior capstone examines the impact of growing technology on their reading and writing skills through the use of literature review, teacher interviews and survey, interviews with principals and superintendents, and online teacher survey. The result findings reveal that there are several positive impacts of technology integration on …

No Habla Espanol: Are Monolingual Teachers Getting The Support They Need?, Rosa I. Castillo-Rocha

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

For this Capstone Project, the researchers investigated how monolingual teachers view the support and resources they received to teach English Language Learners (ELL) and what they thought could be done to improve their teaching effectiveness. An evidence-based argument is offered that monolingual teachers were not being provided with effective support and resources. More specifically, three themes emerged from an analysis of the data obtained from interviews of monolingual teachers and administrators. Based on the emergent themes, an action was undertaken to help monolingual teachers better address the needs of ELLs. This is an important issue for monolingual teachers because the …

The State Of State History: Teacher Perceptions Regarding The Place And Purpose Of State History In K–12 Social Studies, Shay Hopper

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Social studies, history, and state history courses, in general, have long been broadly considered the least significant of the four core content courses in K – 12 education. State history is required and/or taught inconsistently throughout the 50 states, and in some cases, not at all. Teacher preparation and on-going support to teach state history in K – 12 education are also inconsistent and often disregarded. The purpose of this exploratory qualitative survey and interview study was to investigate teacher perceptions regarding place and purpose of state history in K – 12 social studies, and to identify teacher dispositions toward …

Do My Students Understand? Automated Identification Of Doubts From Informal Reflections, Siaw Ling Lo, Kar Way Tan, Eng Lieh Ouh

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Traditionally teaching is usually one directional where the instructor imparts knowledge and there is minimal interaction between learners and instructor. With the focus on learner-centred pedagogy, it can be a challenge to provide timely and relevant guidance to individual learners according to their levels of understanding. One of the options available is to collect reflections from learners after each lesson to extract relevant and high-value feedback so that doubts or questions can be addressed in a timely manner. In this paper, we derived an approach to automate the identification of doubts from the informal reflections through features analysis and machine …

The Effects Of Grade Configuration On Sixth, Seventh, And Eighth Grade Students’ Tnready English Language Arts And Math Achievement, Carmen Cristy Pendergrass

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if a significant difference exists in the TNReady scores of Tennessee students who attend a kindergarten through eighth grade school (K-8) as compared to students who attend a middle school (6-8 grades). The results of the 2018-2019 TNReady, the state adopted standardized achievement test for Tennessee, were used as the data for the study. The relationship between grade configuration and the percent of students who scored on track or mastered in English language arts and math was analyzed using an independent samples t-test. Further disaggregating by specific grade levels, grade configuration and …

Reverse Mentoring In The Classroom: A Qualitative Study, Shandon Miles Gubler

Theses and Dissertations

The intent of this paper is to understand the lived experiences of higher education students engaging in reverse mentoring. A literature review aims to discover how reverse mentoring is being implemented. Reverse mentoring, framed by social exchange theory and leader-member exchange theory, is a method focused on younger generations teaching technology to older generations, such as current-day Millennials with Baby Boomers. This review examines reverse mentoring practices, analyzes what has worked, and seeks to determine if this learning method has a place in the classroom. Due to the segmented, yet evolving application of reverse mentoring, there is a lack of …

Educators’ Practices Involving Deaf Multilingual Learners: A Single Case Study, Mary Christine Thomas

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this single case study was to identify instructional strategies, that takes into account language and culture, used by professionals and educators involved in the instructional process of DMLs at an elementary school in the southeast. The central research question for this study was: What educational assessments and instructional strategies, that takes language and culture into consideration, are used in the education of DMLs? The theory that guided this study was Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978, 2012) as it incorporates students’ culture and social interactions with peers and teachers into the learning process. This was a qualitative single …

Women In Stem: Strategies And Recommendations For Academic Women And Institutional Leaders, Sarah Jensen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Women still comprise a small number of full professors in STEM disciplines in research universities, which have historically been male dominated. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has recognized the challenge of getting more women to enter the professoriate, earn tenure, and advance to full professor. These women can then encourage more women to enter into STEM as educators and researchers. The purpose of this study was to recognize, explore, and depict strategies used by women full professors to overcome obstacles they faced while advancing in academic STEM fields. The study participants also offered recommendations for women faculty desiring to become …

The Intersection Of Influential Reading With Writing In Multimodal Contexts, Grace Rusk Kerr

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Numerous studies have touted the importance of teacher self-efficacy on the motivation and achievement of their students (Ashton & Webb, 1986; Bandura, 1994 & 2002; Mojavezi & Tamiz, 2012). When teachers have high levels of self-efficacy (the level at which teachers believe they can affect student outcomes), their students achieve at higher levels and develop increased levels of motivation. By extension, we posit that if teachers have increased self-efficacy regarding their own writing abilities, it will translate into increased motivation and achievement levels for their students in the area of writing. The purpose of this three-article dissertation is to support …

Teachers Engaging In Action Research To Increase Learner Agency, Dawn M. Childress

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is designed to explore the perceptions of teachers in a Northwest Arkansas urban elementary school context as they engage in design-based action research to increase learner agency. It is based on the Carnegie Project on Education Doctorate (CPED) framework that includes identifying a problem of practice and engaging in research to address the problem. A problem of practice was identified in this school setting by an incoming school principal following a principal that had been in the school for many years. The new principal, also the researcher in this study, recognized that there was a low level of …

Interpreting Average Effect Sizes: Never A Center Without A Spread, Thomas R. Guskey

Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology Faculty Publications

School leaders today are making important decisions regarding education innovations based on published average effect sizes, even though few understand exactly how effect sizes are calculated or what they mean. This article explains how average effect sizes are determined in meta-analyses and the importance of including measures of variability with any average effect size. By considering the variation in effect sizes among studies of the same innovation, education leaders can make better decisions about innovations and greatly increase the likelihood of achieving optimal results from implementation.

The Four-Day School Week: Teacher Retention And Recruitment, Perceptions, And Achievement, Peter Damian Fay

Dissertations

In order to explore various issues with the four-day school week in rural, Missouri school districts, the researcher conducted a mixed-methods study which utilized both quantitative and qualitative research techniques. The researcher was primarily interested in the ability of the four-day model to attract and retain teaching staff, although he was also interested in the impact on student achievement. The purpose of this study was to investigate the possible effects of the four-day school week model on teacher attraction and retention in a rural school district in Missouri. The researcher conducted interviews with seven principals of schools that had adopted …

Using An Lms In Teaching English: A Qualitative Content Analysis Of Medical Sciences Students’ Evaluations And Suggestions, Iman Alizadeh

The Qualitative Report

In this study, I aimed to discover Iranian medical sciences students’ evaluation of using a Learning Management System (LMS) in teaching English and to collect their suggestions for using the system more efficiently. To collect data, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 38 students. The themes emerging from the qualitative content analysis of the students’ responses were (1) technical advantages (accessibility, and online homework bank), (2) educational gains (learning gains, benefits for professors, and professor-student interaction), (3) logistical benefits (optimizing class time, task management, and logistical support), (4) educational shortcomings (limited instruction, correction and feedback, and academic misconduct), (5) technical limitations …

Tipping The Balance Towards 21st Century Skills Through Peer-To-Peer Learning: A Cross-Disciplinary Pilot Of Peer Review Software, John Mccormick, Lisa Spitz, Liv Cummins

Staff Scholarship

There is growing recognition that many college students enter the workplace lacking “21st Century Skills” such as critical thinking, collaboration and communication. Peer-to-peer feedback provides a large number of benefits, including these “lifelong learning” skills valued by industry. Peer review, however, poses many challenges: for instructors; these include management of the process and poor quality of peer feedback; and for students, socioemotional barriers. Key socioemotional challenges are learners’ lack of trust in the process, in their peers, and in themselves as reviewers. This paper describes a pilot of a web-based peer review software called “Peergrade”, which was found highly effective …

Physical Therapists' Perspectives Of School Functioning For Children With Cerebral Palsy (Cp), Vevian Grace A. Lee

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this study was to use a qualitative participatory action research method – Photovoice – to identify perceived barriers and facilitators to school functioning among school-based physical therapists of children with cerebral palsy (CP). Seven physical therapists made up the participants in this study. The researchers followed the nine-step methodology recommended for Photovoice. During the training session, participants were educated on the background of Photovoice and the purpose of the study. They were given 14 days to take photographs after which researchers used a focus group interview structured by the SHOWeD method. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability …

Communicating Student Learning Progress: A Review Of Student Reporting In Australia. Findings In Brief, Hilary Hollingsworth, Jonathan Heard, Paul R. Weldon

Assessment and Reporting

The Communicating Student Learning Progress project was initiated to investigate questions relating to the effectiveness of current methods of communicating student progress, the extent to which they are valued by stakeholders, whether they are considered to provide quality information about student learning, and whether there are alternative designs for these activities that might be more effective. The project took place over a three-year period from July 2016 to June 2019.

Communicating Student Learning Progress: A Review Of Student Reporting In Australia, Hilary Hollingsworth, Jonathan Heard, Paul R. Weldon

Assessment and Reporting

The Communicating Student Learning Progress project was initiated to investigate questions relating to the effectiveness of current methods of communicating student progress, the extent to which they are valued by stakeholders, whether they are considered to provide quality information about student learning, and whether there are alternative designs for these activities that might be more effective. The project took place over a three-year period from July 2016 to June 2019.

Understanding Second Grader’S Computational Thinking Skills In Robotics Through Their Individual Traits, Youngkyun Baek, Dazhi Yang, Yibo Fan

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study investigated the relationship between the personal traits and computational thinking skills of second graders within the context of robotics activities. The hypothesized model showed that learning preference, intrinsic motivation, and self-efficacy were the main predictors of coding achievement and computational thinking skills, while no direct relationship was found between learning preference, intrinsic, or extrinsic motivation. The final path analysis revealed that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation predict self-efficacy, self-efficacy predicts coding achievement, and coding achievement predicts computational thinking skills. Another important finding was the strong impact of self-efficacy on coding achievement as well as computational thinking skills. Results are …

Educators’ Perceptions Concerning The Leading Factors Of Mathematics Achievement In Top-Ranking Nations Around The World, Kendra Snow

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of post-secondary mathematics educators from countries considered to be highly successful in the area of mathematics based upon results of international assessments. Four instructors were randomly selected from a homogenous sample within the nations of Canada, China, Japan, and Singapore to contribute information about the phenomenon of mathematical achievement. Frameworks from SRI International (2009), Matthews (2013), and Schoenfeld (2014) were integrated to design this study focused on curriculum, pedagogy and instructional approach, teacher knowledge and expectations, and organizational and social climate as possible factors that support student mathematical proficiency. Interviews …

Identifying Faculty And Peer Interaction Patterns Of First-Year Biology Doctoral Students: A Latent Class Analysis, Soojeong Jeong, Jennifer M. Blaney, David F. Feldon

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Faculty and peer interactions play a key role in shaping graduate student socialization. Yet, within the literature on graduate student socialization, researchers have primarily focused on understanding the nature and impact of faculty alone, and much less is known about how peer interactions also contribute to graduate student outcomes. Using a national sample of first-year biology doctoral students, this study reveals distinct categories that classify patterns of faculty and peer interaction. Further, we document inequities such that certain groups (e.g., underrepresented minority students) report constrained types of interactions with faculty and peers. Finally, we connect faculty and peer interaction patterns …

The Assessment Of Faith And Learning, Beth Green, Albert Cheng, David Smith

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The Practicing Faith Survey (PFS) is a new assessment tool designed to measure the extent to which schoolchildren connect their faith to learning. This paper reviews the landscape of educational assessment and argues that assessment remains a critical element in the design of Christian teaching and learning. It suggests that unease around the concept of educational measurement leads to limited attempts to assess faith formation in the context of learning. The paper discusses PFS as a way to reframe the design process consistent with distinctively Christian practices of teaching and learning.

Assessing Christian Learning: Vocation, Practices, And Investment, David Smith, Mia Kurkechian, Beth Green, Albert Cheng

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

This paper describes a new initiative co-funded by the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning at Calvin University and Cardus. The initiative builds upon past Cardus work on assessing Christian school outcomes as well as the Kuyers Institute’s work on Christian pedagogical practices. The project has developed a new online assessment tool to help Christian secondary schools assess the Christian formation that they seek to offer their students and review their own educational practices. This tool, the Practicing Faith Survey, will be piloted in an initial cluster of schools in 2020. It asks students to self-report on their investment …

The Development And Validation Of The Practicing Faith Survey, Albert Cheng, Beth Green, David Smith

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The Practicing Faith Survey (PFS) is a new assessment tool designed to measure the extent to which schoolchildren connect their faith to learning. PFS measures student engagement with five domains of Christian practice in connection with learning: intellectual, relational, introspective, benevolence, and formational practices. We describe the item-development process and then present evidence for the validity and reliability of the PFS based on a sample of 1,300 fifth- through twelfth-grade students who participated in a pilot of the instrument.

Retention Relationships: Connecting Higher Education Employees To Students Through Student Organizations, Michelle Sanford

Dissertations

This mixed methods study investigated higher education employee involvement with student organizations to determine if a connection existed between an employee’s engagement with a student organization and the employee’s retention at the university. Research shows that student involvement in campus life and with student organizations increases student retention (Astin, 1984); however, few research studies have focused on the impact this type of involvement has on employee retention. In this study, the researcher explored the following research questions: How does employee engagement with student organizations impact employee retention? Why do employees choose to support student organizations? The researcher examined these questions …