Education Policy Commons^™

The Effects Of Grading Practices On Motivations For Learning At The Middle School Level, Justin D. Stebbins Ms

Muskie School Dissertations

The objective of this quantitative survey study was to measure the effect grading traditionally (using averaging) versus non-traditionally (best, most recent evidence) on four types of student motivation. These types of motivation were mastery orientation (learning for learning sake), performance orientation (going for the grade or external recognition), performance avoidance (not wanting to appear incompetent), and mastery avoidance (not wanting to lose what you have). This set of orientations is derived from the goal orientation theory.

In this study, 1,652 students and 93 educators between four schools took an anonymous 20-minute online survey. Due to lack of teacher participation, two …

An Examination Of How Middle School Principals Make Sense Of Their Role In Leading Standards Based Educational Reform, Barbara J. Maling Cas, Ma

Muskie School Dissertations

A dominant feature of the educational policy landscape has been the adoption and use of learning standards to design classroom instruction. As these efforts move forward, often without clear definition of the classroom practices that should be adopted, the role of the school principal is critical in interpreting the changes, and charting a course for the teachers in the building. This qualitative study, examines the sensemaking of four active middle school principals as they interpreted and led standards-based reform efforts in their buildings, using a novel theoretical framework based on prior research (Benford & Snow, 2000; Spillane, Reiser, & Reimer, …