Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

A Study Of The Effect Of Desktop Publishing In Writing Instruction Versus Traditional Pencil And Paper On The Length And Detail Of Students' Compositions, Christine Sonsini

Theses and Dissertations

This study was based on the following question: Could it be that first grade students who receive primary writing instruction using The Children's Writing and Publishing Center computer software program compose longer and more detailed texts than those first grade students who receive traditional primary writing instruction using pencil and paper?

One group of students received primary writing instruction using a desktop publishing software program, while the other group received primary writing instruction using pencil and paper. After receiving an equal amount of instructional and individual writing time, both groups were given the same writing assignment. The students' compositions were …

A Study Of The Effect Of A Computer Writing Program On The Writing Ability Of Elementary School Students, Barbara A. Autuore

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if significant differences in the creative writing of students would arise between a group of second grade students using a computer writing program and a group of second grade students using the traditional pencil and paper method of writing. The students were also given an attitude survey to determine whether or not the computer had an effect on their attitudes toward writing.

Students In both the control and experimental groups were holistically rated on a pre-test writing sample. Both groups were also given an attitude pre-test. One group of students wrote stories …

Gender Differences In Computing: Attitudes, Use, And Stereotypes, Mary S. O'Sullivan

Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to determine the grade level at which students' attitudes towards computers begin to change. Application and gender bias towards computers were also examined. To achieve this, a survey was developed and administered to selected students in the third through eighth grades in the Egg Harbor City School District. in addition to the survey, students were asked to draw a "computer expert." Comparisons were made between males and females and the elementary and junior high grade levels.

Independent "t" tests were performed to identify significant differences at the .05 level. Significant differences in attitudes towards computers were …

Practice Exercises-For The Georgia Teacher Certification Test In Mathematics, Beverly M. Davis

Theses and Dissertations

Since the Georgia Teacher Testing Program began in 1978, thousands of Georgia teachers and teacher candidates have taken the Georgia Teacher Certification Test (TCT) in mathematics. Although the mathematics test has been found to be valid, reliable, unbiased, and job-related, many test takers fail the test the first time the test is taken and consequently retake the test until a passing score is made or choose not to retake the test.

Multiple choice practice exercises were developed to assist those who are preparing to take this test. These practice exercises are based on objectives, assessment characteristics, and content components outlined …

Academic Achievement Of Administratively Placed Students, Donna D. Goodson

Theses and Dissertations

In an attempt to curb the dropout rate, Troup County School System has developed several programs that focus on students identified as at-risk. A characteristic associated closely with many at-risk youth is having been retained in grade. A policy in the middle schools in Troup County is designed to identify students who have been retained in grade two years and assign them to a higher grade in an attempt to place them with others closer to their own age. This study is an attempt to follow-up on the progress of seventeen students who participated in the program in 1989.

This …

Adolescents' Idea Of Fiction In Their Own Writing, Nancy L. Chippendale

Theses and Dissertations

Twelve seventh-grade students in a selected county in Georgia served as subjects for interviews to determine why students choose realistic topics when writing fiction stories. The interviews revealed that the students wrote stories that reflected a part of their personal lives. The stories involved the authors in three distinct ways. Some stories were experiential and represented something that had happened to the author; others were experiential, but the writer had witnessed the event happening to an acquaintance; finally, media had influenced the writer to follow a story line. For some of the authors, this was a form of therapy, and …

Calculators In Special Education Mathematics Classes In A Junior High School, Celia M. Hurley

Theses and Dissertations

Very little has been written about the use of calculators by children with exceptional needs, although calculators are already being used by most adults who seldom do any but the simplest calculations by hand (Thorpe, 1988). They use calculators for everything from balancing checkbooks to computing sales tax.

Yet there are teachers and many parents who believe, says Wheatley (1984), that using calculators will lessen the opportunity for students to master basics. They believe that calculators should not be used until children become proficient with paper-and-pencil calculations. Some say that students should become facile in the use of calculators. Still …

Sciençe Denartment Evaluation With Focus On Quality Basic Education And National Science Teachers Association Criteria, David Wayne Donalson

Theses and Dissertations

This study is a descriptive investigation of science instructional programs in three senior high schools, reviewed from four different standpoints. Criteria set forth by the Quality Basic Education Act of Georgia (QBE) and recommendations given by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) were used for the establishment of i Likert-style questionnaire which was distributed among a group of twenty-eight science teachers. Three of the seven high schools located in a southeastern city of approximately 200,000 population were selected at random to participate in this study. These schools ranged in enrollment from 1100 to 1250 students.

Lack of computer training was …

Effects Of Cooperative Games On The Prosocial Behavior Interactions Of Young Children With And Without Impairments, Steven Grineski

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which cooperative games promote prosocial behavior interactions of young children with and without impairments and can be used for successful integration. Specific outcomes include: (a) a cooperative games model which can be used as a framework for selecting, modifying, or creating games that promote prosocial behavior; (b) a games curriculum designed to promote affective, psychomotor, and cognitive behaviors; and (c) a proposal of ways a cooperative games curriculum can facilitate social integration of children with and without impairments.

Sixteen children from the Moorhead State University Preschool between the ages …

Encouraging A Positive Self-Image, Lois W. Atkins

Theses and Dissertations

This project was designed as a workshop to teach a method of encouraging better self-images in students. A series of self-improvement imagery exercises are outlined. Steps include choosing goals; writing them in behavioral terms and specific measurable outcomes; and using self-recording, self-reward and self-punishment. By aiding students early in their school career to develop positive self-concepts, good work habits, and high motivation, ultimately a lower dropout rate and higher percentages of self-actualized persons is visualized.

The Impact Of Recent Research Trends On The Teaching Of Writing In The Middle Grades, Marilu D. Goolsby

Theses and Dissertations

This was a descriptive study which measured the attitudes and practices of teachers in the middle grades concerning the teaching of writing. Subjects were 42 teachers of writing in grades five through eight in four small rural school systems. The data gathering instrument was a questionnaire devised by the researcher which employed a Likert scale format. One open-ended item was included as well as several background questions. Results indicated that the majority of these teachers do not teach writing as a process with extensive editing and revising with the teacher participating in the process. Rather, the teaching of grammar and …

Stress In Teaching: An Exploration Of Possible Sources, William D. Beasley

Theses and Dissertations

For many educators the teaching profession has become a job filled with growing amounts of tension and stress which, when unattended, can lead to occupational burn-out. Through the multiple regression analysis of the responses of 95 west central Georgia classroom teachers to the Clark Teacher Occupational Stress Factor Questionnaire, this study sought to determine the current levels of teacher stress within the group and to determine whether there were correlations between the characteristics of the group and the perceived levels of stress.

The findings indicated that classroom teachers find professional inadequacies and job overload to be the major stress producers …

Writing Apprehension: Can An Individualized Approach Help?, Elizabeth B. Loftin

Theses and Dissertations

This study was a descriptive investigation of the effects of the Individualized Language Arts (ILA) program חס writing apprehension. Subjects were 152 eighth graders enrolled in a middle school. The subjects were from five language arts classes and were taught writing during the 1986-87 school year by the Individualized Language Art's (ILA) program. The data gathering instrument for this study was the Daly-Miller Test of Writing Apprehension (WAT), administered in August, 1986 as a pretest and again in the spring of 1987 as a posttest. Between the pre and posttests, students were instructed by the ILA, a method of teaching …

Recruitment And Retention Of Special Educators For Rural School Systems, Margie Oliver-Hay

Theses and Dissertations

There is nothing new about teachers leaving their profession. Teacher turnover has always occurred. But when education loses its most experienced and mature teachers, there is cause for concern. When smaller rural districts lose their best teachers both in regular and special education teacher turnover may be a crises!

Recruitment and retention of special and regular educators is becoming an extremely serious problem for rural areas. Enrollments in college and in education departments are decreasing. Women, who once were the dominant force in the teaching ranks, are being attracted to other fields such as medicine, engineering, computer science, and law. …

English Department Evaluation With Focus On National Council Of Teachers Of English And Georgia Council Of Teachers Of English Criteria, Connie H. Clark

Theses and Dissertations

This study was a descriptive investigation of English department evaluation. It emphasized characteristics of departments at the national and state level which the National Council of Teachers of English and the Georgia Council of Teachers of English have recognized. The purpose of the investigation was to determine which of these characteristics the English department of a local high school met and to establish priorities for improving that department. The subjects were an intact group of 11 secondary English teachers who constituted 14.1 percent of a population of 78 teachers. The school at which they taught had an enrollment of 1400 …

The Teacher Training Program Administered By The Sunday School Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Steven A. Hedquist

Theses and Dissertations

Teaching is an art based upon the carefully considered scientific principles of pedagogy; therefore, teacher training has been an established policy of the Sunday School in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A fundamental educational responsibility in the Church is the preparation of members to teach well by providing them with methods for successful instruction. To accomplish this objective, the Sunday School developed a teacher training program whereby members became more proficient teachers.

The purpose of this study was to reconstruct the historical development and present a concise history of the teacher training program administered by the Sunday …

A Study Of The Subject-Matter Preparation Of Full-Time Teachers In The Seminaries Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Dee Lufkin Risenmay

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine as far as possible the extent of the subject-matter preparation of full-time seminary teachers in the areas of Book of Mormon, Old Testament, New Testament, and Church history and doctrine.
Answers to the following questions were sought:
1. How many semester hours of college credit have the teachers received in the areas of Book of Mormon, Old Testament, New Testament, and Church history and doctrine?
2. To what extent have the Standard Works been studied by the teachers?
3. How many books which were considered to be basic sources have been read …

The Relationship Of Empathy And Seminary Teachers' Effectiveness, Chet W. Harris

Theses and Dissertations

This study was conducted for the primary purpose of discovering the relationship of two personal variables to effective seminary teaching.

It was hypothesized that:
(1) There is no significant difference between seminary teachers whom the department considers as very effective (high-rated) and seminary teachers whose teaching effectiveness is questioned by the department (low-rated) in their ability to empathize with the self concept of their students.
(2) there is no significant difference between seminary teachers who are high-rated and seminary teachers who are low-rated in their ability to sociempathise (perceive student's social status among peers).

A Study Of General And Religious Personal Problems Of Tenth, Eleventh And Twelfth Grade Seminary Students, Wilson K. Andersen

Theses and Dissertations

Because it seemed likely that teachers of adolescent Latter-day Saint boys and girls might benefit from an up-to-date view about what their students are personally concered, a need was felt for this particular kind of survey. A review of the related literature indicated a dearth of material in this area, particularly in connection with Latter-day Saint youth.

A Study Of The Teachers In Senior Seminaries Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Wendell M. Rigby

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine those qualifications possessed by those certain men and women who were teaching senior seminaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1936-37, and to determine the qualifications which seem to have made those persons eligible for selection as teachers in those seminaries.