Elementary Education Commons^™

Protective Play: The Impact Of A Before-School Play Program On Sixth-Grade Students’ Social-Emotional Well-Being, Luleta Dardovski

Dissertations

This mixed-methods study explored the impact of a daily thirty-minute before-school play program on sixth-grade students' social and emotional well-being, using the five CASEL core competencies and S.A.F.E. (Sequenced, Active, Focused, Explicit) framework as guiding principles. The study addressed the central research question: How does unstructured play before school influence students’ social-emotional learning (SEL) skills and well-being? Data was collected through student surveys, interviews with teachers, and observations to explore how play fosters SEL skill development. Play was found to offer an authentic environment for sixth grade students to actively practice SEL skills, fostering benefits in self-esteem, social connectedness, emotional …

Aviateok: A Stem App To Increase K-12 Student Engagement In The Aviation And Aerospace Industry, Irene Miller, Amy Rutledge, Timm Bliss

Journal of Extension

STEM industries are driving technological and economic growth across the globe. To remain competitive, the U.S. needs to focus on the advancement of STEM education and develop a sustainable pipeline to provide a well-qualified workforce to STEM-related industries. The Department of Aviation and Space Education (AVED) at Oklahoma State University (OSU) has developed aviateOK, which is a STEM application, to provide aviation/aerospace content to students, parents, and extension educators. The aviateOK STEM application promotes extension education by providing access to free activities and resources for grades K-12. AviateOK equips 4-H youth programs with the resources needed for extension educators to …

Human Capital At Home: Evidence From A Randomized Evaluation In The Philippines, Noam Angrist, Sarah Kabay, Dean S. Karlan, Lincoln Lau, Kevin M. Wong

Education Division Scholarship

Children spend most of their time at home in their early years, yet efforts to promote human capital at home in many low- and middle-income settings remain limited. We conduct a randomized controlled trial to evaluate an intervention which encourages parents and caregivers to foster human capital accumulation among their children between ages 3 and 5, with a focus on math and phonics skills. Children gain 0.52 and 0.51 standard deviations relative to the control group on math and phonics tests, respectively (p<0.001). A year later effects persist, but math gains dissipate to 0.15 (p=0.06) and phonics to 0.13 (p=0.12). Effects appear to be mediated largely through instructional support by parents and not other parent investment mechanisms, such as more positive parent-child interactions or additional time spent on education at home beyond the intervention. Our results show that parents can be effective conduits of educational instruction even in low-resource settings.

Policy, Practice, And Perceptions Of K-12 Social-Emotional Learning, Janice Filer, Ebony C. Cain, Della Thompson-Bell

Education Division Scholarship

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of K-12 school staff who participate in social-emotional learning (SEL). Since the global pandemic, several school districts have included SEL as part of the school curriculum. Teachers, counselors, social workers, school psychologists, and school administrators participate in SEL instruction and/or practices. Classroom teachers instruct students in SEL instruction and other school staff practice the SEL components of self-awareness, self-management, decision-making, social awareness, and relationship skills through their daily interactions with students. This study was conducted in various schools throughout the Los Angeles area using open-ended interview questions that utilized focus …

Makengineering Kits: Design Principles For Family Engineering Experiences, Amber Simpson, Jing Yang, Adam Maltese

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Research has consistently highlighted the importance of promoting child-parent interactions. In this essay, we describe the development of MAKEngineering kits that provide collaborative learning experiences for children in Grades 2–6 to engage in engineering design tasks with members of their families in their home environment. First, we present five design principles that emerged through a design-based research approach. Second, we used data from our research project to examine the impact of the MAKEngineering kits, guided by each design principle, on children’s and parents’ experiences as engineering learners and/or educators. In attending to both of these purposes, we argue for the …

Shattering The Mask: Unveiling The Destructive Force Of Misogynoir, Ledominique Hubbard

Dissertations

As a Black woman, my professional journey has been consistently marred by encounters with racism and gender bias. In this research, I employed autoethnography to shed light on my experiences and meticulously examine the challenges of misogynoir I faced while holding pivotal positions, including that of a detested team leader, an ingenious instructional teacher, and an anti-racist assistant principal across three distinct school campuses in two states. My narrative unfolds in various contexts, notably as the sole Black female teacher and team leader within nine elementary schools in a predominantly white, female-staffed rural district. Furthermore, I underscore my role as …

Examining The Impact Of One-To-One Digital Technology Integration On Student Engagement And Academic Achievement In Elementary Education, Mark Loeffler

Education | Master's Theses

Advances in computer technology have rapidly changed the face of elementary education as we know it. These changes were exacerbated in 2020, when elementary education was forced into Emergency Remote Teaching due to the Covid 19 pandemic, and students across the globe were attending and participating in school using only computers. These developments in computers and learning technology have provided countless benefits for educators, however these changes have continued to progress at such a rapid pace, that parents, educators, and school administrators have struggled to keep up (van de Werfhorst, Kessenich, Geven, 2022).

The purpose of this thesis was to …

Mongolian Pastoralist Parents’ Experiences In Managing Their Primary School Children’S Living Arrangements, Batdulam Sukhbaatar Dr, Klára Tarkó Dr, Batkhand Sukhbaatar Mr

The Qualitative Report

Sending children, especially six-year-old ones, to school put pressure on pastoralist or herder households to balance their livestock herding needs and their children’s schooling needs at the same time. Due to remote campsites located in isolated rural areas far from any schools, pastoralists need to arrange a place for their children to stay during the school year. In this interpretive phenomenological study, we explored pastoralist parents’ experiences in managing different living arrangements for their primary school children during the school year. We conducted semi-structured interviews with five pastoralist parents from a remote county (an administrative division under a province) in …

Classroom-Based Simulation & Clinical Education Innovations Improve Graduate Education, Brenda L. Beverly, Emma A. Townsend

CoTL 2024 Research Talks

Although classroom-based coursework and clinical education activities in speech-language pathology graduate programs strive to link education to relevant practice, gaps persist. Parent-implemented intervention is an evidence-based practice mandated by federal law in early intervention; however, speech-language pathology graduate programs do not provide students with ample opportunities to gain relevant experience. Outcomes from two research studies supported revising classroom and clinical education, increasing educational relevance and professional preparation for students. A qualitative study with focus groups identified key implementation needs that led to the addition of role play simulation in the classroom. A follow-up study supported developing an innovative clinical model …

Parental Child Rearing Beliefs And Children's Behavioral Problems: The Mediating Role Of Parental Involvement In Elementary School, Catalina Correa Ramirez

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The contributions that parents make to child development have been heavily investigated but the potential links between parents’ child rearing beliefs and school involvement levels have been overlooked. In this study, a model was proposed where parental involvement was examined as a potential mediator in the relationship between parents’ child-rearing beliefs and internalizing and externalizing outcomes in children. Using data from the NICHD SECCYD study, these constructs were examined in first, third, and fifth grade (N = 1128). SEM analyses supported our hypothesis regarding the mediating effect of parental involvement and it appeared to act as a potential mediator …

The Standards And Expectations Of The Speech-Language Pathology Field, Abbie Summers

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The goal of this project was to provide individuals interested in the field of speech-language pathology with relevant information from professionals in various positions in the field. These sources were to include speech-language pathologists in education, research, academia, and medicine. Interviews were conducted with these professionals covering various questions about their experiences, salary, education, professional development, interprofessional work, and on-the-job skills. From these interviews, data collection occurred based on responses to find commonalities to include in the write-up. The article provides information on personal experiences in the field, professional certification, professional growth and development, salary expectations according to work settings, …

College And Career Readiness Effects On Minority Male College Retention, Naquiyah Hodges

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

The continuously low college retention and low degree attainment of African American and Hispanic men is a generational and decades-long hindrance to the elevation of these marginalized communities in the United States and the state of Texas. In Texas, the last 3 years’ worth of data has proven college-readiness rates of African American and Hispanic college students were significantly lower by large margins than White students in English language arts, math, and both subjects by large margins. Consistent low college retention rates of minority men produce a need to conduct further research of how this phenomenon affects minority men …

Shifting Girls' Coding Attitudes Through A Coding Camp Experience, Kari Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

This study examined whether exposure to coding through a 12-week coding camp would change females’ attitudes as coders and ultimately create more interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). The participants for my study included fourth- and fifth-grade girls in a public school in a lower Midwest metropolitan area. The study was conducted in a classroom within their school during the fall of the 2023–2024 school year. The participants attended a 12-week (September through November) coding camp that took one hour each week. During the coding camp, the participants learned computer coding using a course from code.org. There were …

Narrative Research: You Did What With Technology? Exploring Student Narratives Of Technology At A Research-Based University In The Southwest, Alma M. Sanchez

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

This qualitative study examined the impact of high school instructional technology on college students' academic strategies. It examined the historical and modern advancements of technology in education, uncovering significant milestones in technology integration within classrooms in the United States. Using a narrative inquiry approach grounded in John Dewey's philosophy of experience, it centered on the narratives of students in their second and third semesters of college. The study highlighted the gap in understanding students’ personal experiences with technology and emphasized the role their narratives play in shaping future technology integration strategies.

The methodology involved utilizing digital surveys and online semi-structured …

Interprofessional Community Schools, Shauna Curran, Morgan Bassett, Belle Betit, Kelly Couch, Allie Hegarty, Katelynn Leblanc

CAIEP Spring Showcase 2024

This presentation details the key components of community schools and their importance to community members and students alike. Comprised of four primary pillars, these schools focus on expanding learning opportunities, bringing in a variety of student supports, serving families collectively, while emphasizing the collaborative element of leadership. Community schools serve as an integration point of various elements of a community to come together in order to produce maximum benefits for all.

Understanding The Role Of Out Of School Time (Ost) Providers In Urban School Systems In A Post-Covid Context, David Naff, Rachel Hale, Jamelle Simmons, Alicia Gaston, Latonja Y. Wright, Kiana Bradford, Crystal R. Bell, Jill Flynn, Chuck Creasy, Yadira Guerrero, Rory Dunn, Pamela Weaver

MERC Publications

This research and policy brief by the Institute for Collaborative Research and Evaluation and the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium in partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Richmond focuses on the role of out-of-school time (OST) providers in urban school settings in a post COVID-19 context. It is structured to explore the following questions: 1) What are out-of-school time providers and what role do they play in urban school contexts? 2) What policies guide out-of-school time programming at the federal, state, and division level? 3) How have trends and outcomes related to out-of-school time programming changed relative to …

Student Achievement Growth Before And During Covid-19: Comparing In-Person And Remote Learning In Catholic And Public Schools, Stephen Ponisciak, Julie W. Dallavis

Journal of Catholic Education

In response to COVID-19, U.S. students learned remotely from mid-March to June 2020. At the start of academic year 2020-21, many schools remained remote but others—primarily Catholic and other private schools—reopened. We consider Catholic schooling as a proxy for in-person instruction and use national data from Renaissance Star and MAP Growth assessments to compare the achievement of similar students pre-pandemic, during the height of mitigation strategies, and after most schools reopened. In a departure from pre-pandemic growth patterns, students in Catholic schools showed more growth than those in public schools during the height of mitigation strategies, suggesting the importance of …

From Elementary School To Doctoral Education: An Autoethnographic Journey, Gwendolyn D. Dailey

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Every child has a right to education, and their skin color should not determine their education quality. However, since the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), it has been proven that race continues to matter in the success and failure of education (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). The persistent achievement gaps between students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, as well as the disparities in access to high-quality educational opportunities, demonstrate how race and ethnicity shape the educational experiences of students of color (Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis, 2012). Unfortunately, stories such as Ruby Bridges of New …

How Do Staff And Families Perceive The Effects Of After School Programs On The Overall School Experience?, Selena Alonzo

Masters Theses (Archived)

No abstract provided.

How Will Having A W.I.N Room For Our Emotional And Behavioral Disorder Students To Access When They Are Needing A Break Affects The Number Of Room-Clearing Behaviors In A Week?, Samantha Streed

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

Having the power to create the behavior program from the ground up, starting a “What I Need” (W.I.N) room at the elementary school where the researcher works. This is a sensory type of room with different tools and strategies that the students can use to calm their bodies or as we say have a safe and calm body. This room will be run by the researcher along with a paraprofessional that will be in the room all day to help support the students. This paraprofessional will also supervise the W.I.N Room if the researcher needs to leave to handle a …

Challenging The Notion Of Role Models In Engineering Outreach Programs For Youth, Kelli M. Paul, Karen Miel, Merredith D. Portsmore, Adam Maltese

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Engineering outreach programs often portray outreach educators as role models for youth. It is widely believed that introducing youth, especially girls, to potential engineering role models will broaden participation in engineering majors and careers. Based on interviews with and surveys of fourth- and fifth-grade girls participating in an engineering outreach program, we question whether youth are looking for career role models, and we challenge the assumption that youth will take up an adult as a role model simply because the adult is presented as such. We question what role these ‘‘models’’ play in the minds and lives of youth and …

A Framework For Teaching Computational Thinking In Primary Schools: A Namibian Case Study, Maria M. Ausiku, Machdel C. Matthee

The African Journal of Information Systems

Several professional development programs have been designed to train in-service teachers on a computational thinking (CT) curriculum, but few researchers have examined how these affect primary school teachers' self-efficacy and knowledge of CT in emerging economies. This study's objective was to create a framework for the professional development of primary school in-service teachers for the teaching of CT (referred to as professional development for primary computational thinking - PD4PCT) to be integrated into teachers' professional development programs. An initial framework was refined after implementing it at a Namibian school with a group of 14 teachers from five different disciplines (social …

Imagination To Innovation: Design Thinking For Young Learners, Lindsey Herlehy, Cassandra Armstrong

Publications & Research

Design thinking is the intersection of engineering design and social-emotional learning. Today’s learners must be empathetic problem solvers capable of defining problems and designing appropriate solutions to meet the needs of the user. In this session, participants will experience design thinking through literature-based scenarios appropriate for early learners. They will analyze and compare their own models to those of others and compose a lesson that will engage students in the design thinking process.

Revisiting The Master Food Volunteer Program: Examining How To Enhance Nutrition Education In The United States, Stacey Viera, Lindsey Haynes-Maslow

Journal of Extension

America’s diet-related illness crisis intersects with a lack of nutrition literacy, nutrition security, and systemic inequities. The Cooperative Extension Service’s (CES) national infrastructure could potentially provide equitable access to quality nutrition education in the US utilizing a Master Food Volunteer (MFV) model. This research brief examined preliminary evidence for the MFV model as a support for CES agents and paraprofessionals, and results show a paucity of evidence. Further research and a pilot program with pre-established measures for health-related knowledge and behaviors could elucidate the model’s potential to increase equitable access to evidence-based programming, nutrition, and implementation guidance.

Children’S Imagining And Understanding Of Time: A Montessori Perspective

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

The scientific understanding of natural processes is underscored by ideas of relative temporality, timing, abstracted time, and inferred time. Gruber’s, Block’s, and Montemayor’s (2022 and in this issue) distinction, explication, and final synthesis between the veridical and an illusory nature of time is pertinent to philosophical and cognitive distinctions between objective and subjective time. These distinctions, when understood and applied to curriculum development, make the difference between effective and extemporaneous, off-the-cuff approaches where in the latter little thought is given to the importance of children’s understanding of time—how it develops. Verily, nervous systems exhibit intrinsic temporality. Irrevocably, time engulfs us, …

Preparing For Pandemics: Lesson Plan Design For Children In Elementary School, Daniella Rivera, Enkhtsogt (Steve) Sainbayar, Saleem Choudry, Brittany Vaughn Pierce, Roxana Nouri-Nikbakht, Joy H. Lewis D.O., Phd

Intellectus

Context: The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated distance learning to attenuate the spread of the virus, and school-aged children were particularly affected by this change. Because of their age and education level, children generally lacked understanding about the pandemic and the preventive measures necessary to prevent the spread of this and other infectious diseases. It is unknown how many schools nationwide incorporated disease-prevention education in their curriculums during the pandemic. Therefore, developing distance learning interventions that convey these topics at their level of understanding is important to improve health literacy and raise their awareness of factors that positively influence health.

Objective: To …

Exploring Academic Opportunities For Military-Connected Students: A Systems Theory Approach, Georgia Mckown

All Dissertations

Military-connected children experience frequent disruptions to their daily lives as a result of military lifestyle demands like frequent relocations and service-related separations from their service member parent. These disruptions impact all areas of their lives including their homes and schools. While the body of research concerning military-connected children’s experiences at school has grown over recent decades, little is known about specific individual and contextual factors that may serve as assets or constraints. Knowing more about specific factors that influence school experiences for military-connected youth is a critical step in promoting and scaling home- and school-based interventions.

This three-paper dissertation begins …

Staffing Remote Schools: Perennial Failure, Sally Knipe, Christine Bottrell

Journal of Global Education and Research

Educational and socioeconomic disadvantage in remote communities, and the inadequacies of government action to bring about significant change needs to be addressed. This article presents a descriptive study examining the complexities of staffing remote and very remote schools in Australia with appropriately-qualified teachers. The findings of analysis of data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on behalf of the Australian Government through the National Schools Statistics Collection (NSSC) indicate that the majority of students in remote schools in Australia live, and are educated in, Indigenous communities in three jurisdictions. This raises concerns of unacknowledged and unacceptable discrimination. Complexity within …

The Moderating Role Of Socioeconomic Status For The Link Between Parent-Teacher Communication And Children's Academic Achievement, Haley Withuhn

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Parent-teacher communication plays a vital role in children’s educational success and has been positively linked to academic achievement. Family socioeconomic status has been shown to play a significant role in how we understand parent-teacher communication. The purpose of the current study is to explore the role of socioeconomic status for the link between parent-teacher communication and children’s academic achievement. A socioeconomically diverse sample of approximately 174 early elementary school students was used to explore links between parent- teacher communication, academic achievement, and household socioeconomic status (SES). Teachers report on students’ reading and mathematics achievement according to the Nebraska State Standards. …

How Doctoral Students In A Formal Leadership Program Conceptualize Followership: A Mixed-Methods Study, Katy J. Johnson

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

The purpose of this exploratory mixed-methods study was to determine how doctoral students in a formal leadership program conceptualize followership. The methods used to conduct this analysis included distributing a Qualtrics (released in August 2022) survey and conducting one-on-one interviews with a sample of degree-seeking doctoral students within a formal leadership program. The researcher collected quantitative and qualitative data addressing students’ followership style, leadership attitudes and beliefs, and perceptions of followership. These data were analyzed concurrently using a triangulation design. A total of 67 students completed the survey, and seven students were interviewed. The findings revealed that the participants employ …