Educational Technology Commons^™

Game-Based Learning In Science: Can Video Games Simplify Organic Chemistry?, Rachel Israel

Senior Honors Theses

Organic chemistry has been taught in the same way for decades, and students still have difficulty understanding and comprehending the subject material. Perhaps it is time to change the methods by which this subject is taught. Video games have been successfully used in education to create learning environments that increase student motivation and engagement as well as challenge students and promote collaboration. It is difficult for students to maintain a growth mindset in organic chemistry within the classroom. However across different genres, video games create a unique environment where an individual is encouraged to try again when they fail. This …

Higher Education Business And Technology Leaders’ Behaviors That Drive Outcome Alignment, Katherine Lynch-Holmes

Dissertations

Higher education institutions (HEIs) face unprecedented challenges, including capacity alignment, financial sustainability, and even public confidence (Grajeck & Brooks, 2020; Grawe, 2019; Oblinger, 2019; Simone, 2020, Wheeler, 2020, Witt & Coyne, 2019). Financial challenges force HEIs to reduce costs by making decisions like cutting programs, laying off staff or merging institutions to reduce operating costs (Chen et al., 2019; Sellingo, 2017; Witt & Coyne, 2019). Higher education leaders (HELs) must act as trusted partners and broker technology to align processes, support, and outcomes (Luftman 2000; Petkovics, 2018; Reinitz, 2019). Unfortunately, higher education’s business-technology (BITA) alignment remains lower than other national …

An Investigation Of The Effects Of Self-Efficacy On Stem Implementation, Caroline Buechel

Curriculum and Instruction Undergraduate Honors Theses

In order to equip students with the 21^st Century skills necessary for today’s society, STEM education must be properly implemented in school curricula (Lamb, Akmal, & Petrie, 2015). To do so, it is important for teachers to possess both proficient knowledge of the subject matter and confidence towards the implementation of STEM. A person’s beliefs about their ability is known as their self-efficacy (Bandura 1997). Related to education, Bandura notes that this self-efficacy affects a teacher’s views on their ability to handle tasks, obligations, and challenges related to a challenge (1997). Additionally, numerous studies indicate that this self-efficacy in …

Variety In Second Language Instruction: Student Engagement In Sla, Emily Borgstrom Woodruff

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a collection of works completed by the author during her time as a student in the Master of Second Language Teaching program at Utah State University. It highlights important aspects and experiences of foreign language education that represent the author’s personal journey of learning and teaching.

The first section is comprised of the author’s teaching perspectives which are represented through the author’s desired professional environment, her teaching philosophy statement, and the author’s professional development through teaching observations. The second section presents the author’s pedagogical research pertaining to foreign language pragmatics and music integration in the classroom. The …

The Health Benefits Of Video Games, Zachary Shanks

Emerging Writers

This paper seeks to evaluate if video games are useful as more than just entertainment.  The research shows that they can be utilized in the educational, medical, and business fields. Video Games have been shown to benefit the physical, emotional, and mental health of players, as well as create more efficient learning and working environments. The article argues that video games are no longer just a source of entertainment, as they are now becoming useful tools in society.

Implementation Of Project-Based Learning To Entrepreneurship At International Preparatory In Buffalo: Its Effect On Learners’ Desire To Become Entrepreneurs And Impact On The Practice Of 21st Century Skills, Susana M. Bernhardt

Career & Technical Education Theses

To extract the evidence of the effect of project-based learning in the teaching of entrepreneurship at International Preparatory in the City of Buffalo, the researcher will work with two groups of students. One group of students hereinafter called Group A will be exposed to the course of entrepreneurship using the project-based learning golden standards and teaching practices recommended by the Buck Institute of Education and the second group, hereinafter called Group B will not include project-based learning as a teaching strategy. Of special interest is the notable effect on the students’ desire to want to open and operate a business …

Using Scrum To Teach Standards-Based K-12 Computer Science: A Prosepectus For A Master’S Level Methods Class At Buffalo State, Noah M. Pierce

Career & Technical Education Theses

Computer Science has been increasingly prevalent in K-12 education in recent decades. Most Americans believe that Computer Science is as important as other skills taught in school; further, parents are putting pressure on districts to offer Computer Science programs (1.1). To meet this demand, many teacher preparation programs are adding Computer Science Education to their offering of degrees. This thesis investigates Agile and Scrum product development as a potential method of Computer Science instruction, explores the standards relevant to a Computer Science teacher, and offers a prospectus for a new Graduate Level Methods class to prepare Computer Science teachers to …

Perceived Obstacles By Esl Instructors And Required Support For The Integration Of Educational Technology, Xiaotian Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

Nowadays, the use of technology has become a significant part of the language learning process inside and outside of the classroom. Many previous studies and surveys, most language educators hold a relatively positive attitude to the usage of technology in language teaching and learning. But many other studies also found that language teachers were not really using technology in their classrooms, or only for very low-level learning and teaching. The integration of technology in second language learning and teaching is still a problem that has not been fully researched.This descriptive study was designed to explore the obstacles that prevent ESL …

Understanding Learners' Experiences Of Using Eportfolio In A High School Physics Course, Daniel P. Carroll

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

There has been a move toward personalized learning and alternative types of authentic assessment in K-12 education. This shift toward personalized learning and authentic assessment has been partly driven by increases in the available technology that can support those types of changes. This dissertation is a basic qualitative study aimed at understanding the experience of learners in a first-year physics class working with an ePortfolio as the primary method of assessment for that class. The school in which this research took place fully implemented a 1:1 program and has been piloting personalized learning strategies for the past five years. The …

The Impact Of Virtual Radiographic Positioning Simulation On 1St Year Radiography Students’ Clinical Preparedness Through The Lens Of Activity Theory: A Mixed Method Approach, Christopher Ira Wertz

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Radiography education programs are designed to prepare students to perform radiographic examinations and acquire diagnostic medical images of real patients in the clinical setting. Radiographic Science (RS) education, like all healthcare education, is uniquely different from education in other professional fields. Students must not only acquire the technical, cognitive learning required, but they must also master the psychomotor skills necessary to apply didactic knowledge to patients in a clinical setting. In medical imaging, when students are hesitant or lack knowledge and skills they are prone to produce images with decreased quality or expose patients to unnecessarily high amounts of radiation. …

Middle School Students' Reported Self-Regulation Strategies In Completing Online Mathematics Homework, Pepper Erlinger

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive case study is to benefit our understanding of the potential of online homework as it relates to developing and supporting students’ self-regulated learning (SRL). This descriptive case study explores the use of self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies reported by students in the context of completing online mathematics homework (OHW). Eighth-grade students (10 total) from a traditional middle school were interviewed using a validated data collection instrument, the Self-Regulated Learning Interview Schedule or SRLIS (Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1986, 1988). Students’ open-ended responses were interpreted using a framework of self-regulation theory and coded using 14 self-regulation strategies …

Medical Simulation As A Competency-Based Assessment Within Physician Assistant Education, Michele Toussaint

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Simulation-based practices are widely utilized in medical education and are known to be a safe and effective way to train and assess learners, improve provider confidence and competency, and improve patient safety. Competency-based initiatives are being more broadly utilized to assess learner proficiency in health professions education. Recent publication of competencies expected of new graduate physician assistants, and updated accreditation requirements which include assessment of learner competencies in non-knowledge based domains, have led to the creation of this simulation-based summative assessment of learner competency in communication and patient care skills for Physician Assistant students.

The purpose of this quantitative study …

Effects Of Robotics Instructional Methods On Computational Thinking Skills Of Middle School Students, Andrew Patrick Cook

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

As a tangible and motivating medium for students to engage in computational thinking, robotics has drawn interest from educators and researchers as K-12 schools continue to integrate STEM into curriculum. Through this mixed methods study, the researcher sought to explore the effects of robotics instructional methods (task-based and project-based) on the computational thinking skills of middle school students, including the problem-solving strategies used and the role of peer collaboration. The quantitative results of this study indicated no significant difference in the computational thinking skills of students participating in task-based or project-based robotics instruction. Interviews consisted of open-ended questions in which …

The Influence Of Course Community And Personal Community Support On Learner Engagement In Online Courses, Kristin Kipp

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Borup, Graham, West, Archambault, and Spring (2020) theorized that a student’s level of engagement in an online course is influenced by course community support and personal community support, with both factors helping a student to achieve a level of engagement that is not possible independently. In other words, an individual student’s ability to engage in an online course can be explained by the kinds of community a student finds within a course and their social support from friends, family, and community as they take the class. The purpose of this study is to understand to what extent course community support …

Faculty Views Of Online Competency-Based Education, Self-Efficacy, And Institutional Support: An Exploratory Mixed Methods Study, Christopher Russell Prokes

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Competency-based education (CBE) is essentially an online approach to teaching and learning featuring flexible pacing, robust competencies, and an emphasis on student completion. CBE’s differs from traditional education that focuses on seat time, credit hours, and academic objectives. Though CBE has existed on college campuses in many forms, faculty are often inexperienced in teaching CBE. Facing growing demands for CBE (notably from non-traditional students), institutions must find ways to prepare faculty to take part in CBE. This mixed methods study explored faculty views of CBE, their self-efficacy, and beliefs about support mechanisms needed for those teaching and delivering CBE. Findings …

Exploring The Relationship Between Different Smartphone Reading Annotation Strategies And Students’ Comprehension, Brandon J. Comstock

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the relationship between different smartphone reading annotation strategies and students’ comprehension. Subjects in the study are 139 teenage students enrolled in a religion class in the Southwestern United States. Each of the participants utilized a digital reading app on their personal smartphone to read an 842-word religious text. Subjects were encouraged to look for, highlight, or tag passages in the text that they felt were important to understanding the meaning of the text. After completing the reading, participants completed a multiple-choice quiz with both factual and inferential questions and wrote a short essay on how they felt …

Review Of: Estrellado, R. A., Freer, E. A., Motsipak, J., Rosenberg, J. M., & Velásquez, I. C. (2021). Data Science In Education Using R. London, England: Routledge, Esther Michela, Robert L. Moore

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Data use in education is continually expanding in scope (Romero and Ventura 2020), and though programming resources are plentiful, those that truly scaffold the learning process are scarce. Data Science in Education Using R by Estrellado, Freer, Motsipak, Rosenberg, and Velásquez is a combination primer and workbook. This format allows the volume to serve as both an introductory R resource aimed to help readers overcome the daunting initial roadblocks to proficiency and familiarize them with educational data uses. We reviewed this book from the perspective of a beginning R user with little other programming background for whom this book is …

¿Cómo Le Va A Mi Estudiante En Clase?: Increasing Parent Involvement For Latinx Elementary Students, Lisset Ochoa

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Parental involvement in the education of Latinx elementary students is truly essential. If a student does not receive the guidance or commitment from their parents while they are young, they may struggle in their education. Early parental involvement, it is claimed, will increase children's motivation to learn while also encouraging cognitive and emotional competencies. It is necessary to incorporate resources that increase parental involvement so that Latinx parents are aware of the help their students need. Two teachers, the vice principal, and two parents were interviewed in order to learn more about the resources that would be useful to both …

Remote Learning And Third-Grade Reading Performance In A 1:1 District, Amanda Milhorn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore a possible relationship between remote learning with 1:1 devices and reading performance for third graders in a school district in Tennessee by comparing differences between universal screener reading data from fall 2020 and universal screener reading data from both fall 2018 and fall 2019. Star Reading universal screener Normal Curve Equivalent (NCE) data from fall 2018, fall 2019, and fall 2020 from three elementary schools were used for the study.

Results indicated that the third-grade students’ fall 2020 Star Reading universal screener NCEs were significantly lower than their fall 2018 first …

Influence Of Student Characteristics, Class Size, And Instructor Characteristics In Online Student Success, Melody K. Edmonds

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative case study was to compare the academic success of community college students over three academic years (2016-17 through 2018-19) before the onset of COVID-19 based on final grades and the influence of student factors, class size, and faculty characteristics using archival data from selected online and on-ground classes at a Middle Tennessee community college. Student factors reviewed include gender, full-time or part-time status, and age (traditional or non-traditional status). Instructor characteristics reviewed included full-time or part-time (adjunct) teaching status and tenure or non-tenure status of faculty. Institutional data for this study consisted of 44,568 …

Quality Of Academic Improvement In Indonesia : A Bibliometric Analysis (2015-2020), Merlin Apriliyanti

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This research collects and processes related journals with the title of improving academic quality by using publish or perish and vosviewer as a medium of analysis. By using these 2 applications, the author can analyze and conclude the data obtained. The method used in this research is the bibliometric technique, which analyzes the data using keywords as the start of the search and then concludes it into an output that can be used to determine the journal related to the title. The results of this discussion are, during 2015 to 2020 there were many countries, types of scientific works, and …

A Bibliometric Analysis Of School Based Management Research In Indonesia From 2010 To 2020, Nabila Sani

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study aims to map scientific publications in the field of school based management visually at the global level indexed by Scopus using Bibliometric analysis. This study focused on articles of School Based Management at the international level. Research data were obtained from the Scopus database in December 2020 through the publish or perish software. All the discussions and analysis in this paper is based on 52 papers consisting of 40 papers, 7 conference papers and 3 reviews. Then the paper will be analyzed using the VOSviewer application for viewing and creating the desired Bibliometric maps. In total, 52 papers …

Program Evaluation Of Restorative Practices At One Elementary School, Nicholas X. Samuels

Dissertations

The rationale for this study was to evaluate the use of restorative practices at One Elementary School. During this evaluation process, I sought to discover the pros and cons of the Restorative Practices program being implemented at this school. Additionally, I sought out responses to my secondary/sub-questions to discover ways that the program’s effectiveness could be enhanced. Furthermore, my desire was to discern the effects that the program’s implementation had on the school's African American/At-Risk population. The data embedded within this study reflects the results of the Restorative Practices program implementation. My findings support the efficacy of Restorative Practices at …

The Impact Of Digital Portfolios On The Economics End Of Course Assessment, Marcus E.R. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Digital Portfolios, also known as electronic portfolios, became more visible in the educational landscape. This study employs a causal comparative design to assess the impact of web-based digital portfolios on seniors’ standardized economics assessment scores at a Metro Atlanta high school. The purpose of this study is to determine if students’ use of digital portfolios caused differences in economics end-of-course (EOC) assessment scores (dependent variable) between different groups of high school students (independent variables) across two years of implementation. Using the first-generation activity theory as the theoretical framework, the researcher frames the study as an activity system where the groups …

A Podcast Designed To Discuss The Lives Of Students, Faculty, And Alumni In The San Luis Obispo Community, Sienna Addison

Journalism

This project was developed to describe the process of creating and launching a podcast for students, faculty and staff of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo to educate and inspire endeavors in entrepreneurship. The research began with the growing use of podcasting in higher education, as well as the increase in popularity and accessibility of podcasts in the last 20 years. The project was first developed by David Kozuch, a student at California Polytechnic State University in the fall of the 2019 school year and has continued to grow in the years since. Polycast is the published resulting …

The Ceibalitas In Uruguay: How Digital Educational Technology Affects Social Cohesion, William Bradford

Honors Theses

Digital Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have become a focal point in improving worldwide education. There have been many studies on the effects of ICT in schools on grades and careers after graduation, but not many have studied the social impact. This study focuses on the Plan Ceibal in Uruguay to see the impact of ICT in schools on social cohesion. The Plan Ceibal was the first Nation-wide one-laptop-per-child (OLPC) program in the world. For this reason, Uruguay can provide a look into the future for other nations as they implement OLPC programs of their own. This study uses data …

Predicting Student Success In Coursework Within A Regional Online School: An Analysis Of Student-Level And School-Level Predictors, Cary J. Stamas

Dissertations

Online education options in the K-12 environment have steadily increased from the infancy of online education at the turn of the millennia. Educators have utilized this format to meet the many different needs that exist for all students. Early research into the academic success of students in these environments prior to 2000 indicated there was no significant difference in student achievement for distance learning as compared to face-to-face learning. Since 2000, there has been increased focus on student performance in higher education online environments, but research is limited for K-12 schools. For the research that does exist, school-level variables and …

New Normal: How School Operation And Learning Changes In A Pandemic, Margaretha Audrey Stefani Cahya

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

According to past and present studies, pandemics impacted many aspects of society, including education. The current COVID-19 pandemic, which lasted for more than a year during the study, has brought notable educational changes at every level of education. This research was conducted to explore the extent of educational changes during a pandemic and the deviation between the education plan and its implementation in Northwest Arkansas public school districts. The study's data was collected from school district public documents and teacher interviews from school districts classified as low to high SES in suburban and rural areas. Both sources were analyzed and …

2019 Learning Contract Experiment Data For Entrepreneurship Training Program In Lima, Peru, Matt Karlsven

ScholarsArchive Data

The data set includes survey measures of entrepreneurs in Lima, Peru before (April 2019) and after (October 2019) going through a training program. The measures are from the categories of:

Demographics

Business Information

Business Knowledge

Business Practices

Business Outcomes

Exploring Student Engagement With A Nanotechnology Module For Middle School Developed Using The Model Of Educational Reconstruction, Martyna Laszcz

Graduate Masters Theses

Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (NST) is a booming multi-disciplinary field, with significant implications towards scientific and technological innovation. The growing reach of NST has created a demand for a skilled and scientifically literate workforce. However, NST is typically inaccessible outside of specialized contexts. Therefore, there is a need for bringing NST into the K-12 classroom.

In this study, we explored the use of technology-based NST modules to introduce middle and high school students to the field, wherein students unpacked an NST tool, the atomic force microscope (AFM), to learn about basic NST-related science concepts. The module created for this study was …