The Effect of School Building Renovation/Construction on School Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lesisko, Lee J.; Wright, Robert J.; O'Hern, Brenda

2010-01-01

School construction or renovation projects can have a profound affect on students, faculty and administration. The literature revealed that continuous communication is essential for a smooth process. This research identified bureaucratic issues and school climate to be leading factors of concern during construction projects. Analysis of this study…

Increasing Constructive Behavior of Intermediate Grade Students through the Use of The Response Cost Strategy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bauer, Heather; Burno, Carolyn; Millstone, Teresa

2009-01-01

The purpose of this research project was to increase constructive behavior of intermediate grade students through the use of the response cost strategy. Approximately 70 students participated in this study. Three teacher researchers conducted the research in an elementary school and two middle schools in different counties near a major mid-western…

Implementing the "Teaching Students To Be Peacemakers Program"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, David W.; Johnson, Roger T.

2004-01-01

The Teaching Students To Be Peacemakers Program trains every student in a school in the competencies they need to (a) resolve conflicts constructively and (b) make their schools safe places in which to learn. The program is directly based on the theory and research on constructive conflict resolution. More than 16 studies in 2 different countries…

Testing the Connection: Student Achievement, Student Behavior, and New Construction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cox, Edward P.; Landis, Lynn Patrick

2013-01-01

This article asks the following questions: (1) Is there a link between new construction and student achievement? (2) What role does socioeconomics play in the answer? Data were collected for seven academic indicators and two behavioral indicators. The high schools ranked in the lowest wealth quartile were then divided into two groups: schools with…

Predicting Middle School Students' Use of Web 2.0 Technologies out of School Using Home and School Technological Variables

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hughes, Joan E.; Read, Michelle F.; Jones, Sara; Mahometa, Michael

2015-01-01

This study used multiple regression to identify predictors of middle school students' Web 2.0 activities out of school, a construct composed of 15 technology activities. Three middle schools participated, where sixth- and seventh-grade students completed a questionnaire. Independent predictor variables included three demographic and five computer…

Integrating Multimodal Arguments into High School Writing Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Howell, Emily; Butler, Tracy; Reinking, David

2017-01-01

We conducted a formative experiment investigating how an intervention that engaged students in constructing multimodal arguments could be integrated into high school English instruction to improve students' argumentative writing. The intervention entailed three essential components: (a) construction of arguments defined as claims, evidence, and…

Handling the Difficulties of Technical School Students in the Construction and Interpretation of Graphic Representations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marinos, Andreas

2010-01-01

In this work, an attempt is made to evaluate the errors that have to do with the interpretation and construction of graphic representations. Although the students are studying in the second year of technical high school (secondary education), i.e. in schools with an emphasis in technical subjects (post junior secondary), it is observed that they…

Motivation and Engagement across the Academic Life Span: A Developmental Construct Validity Study of Elementary School, High School, and University/College Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Andrew J.

2009-01-01

From a developmental construct validity perspective, this study examines motivation and engagement across elementary school, high school, and university/college, with particular focus on the Motivation and Engagement Scale (comprising adaptive, impeding/maladaptive, and maladaptive factors). Findings demonstrated developmental construct validity…

Targeting School Factors that Contribute to Youth Alienation: Focused School Counseling Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schulz, Lisa L.

2011-01-01

This article explores students at risk of academic non-completion. Schools and school counselors need to target the factors which put students at risk of academic non-completion to reduce the number of adolescents feeling a sense of alienation from school, from educators, and from learning. The construct of student alienation is examined based on…

Arizona Takes on School Construction and Renovation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Geiger, Philip E.

2001-01-01

Spurred by a state superior court deadline for developing a constitutional school capital finance system, Arizona Governor Jane Hull signed legislation (Students FIRST) that dramatically reformed school construction. This legislation created a School Facilities Board and established three funds for improving school conditions and meeting building…

Cognitive Determinants of Academic Performance in Nigerian Pharmacy Schools.

PubMed

Ubaka, Chukwuemeka M; Sansgiry, Sujit S; Ukwe, Chinwe V

2015-09-25

Objective. To evaluate cognitive factors that might influence academic performance of students in Nigerian pharmacy schools. Methods. A cross-sectional, multi-center survey of Nigerian pharmacy students from 7 schools of pharmacy was conducted using 2 validated questionnaires measuring cognitive constructs such as test anxiety, academic competence, test competence, time management, and strategic study habits. Results. Female students and older students scored significantly better on time management skills and study habits, respectively. Test anxiety was negatively associated with academic performance while test competence, academic competence, and time management were positively associated with academic performance. These 4 constructs significantly discriminated between the lower and higher performing students, with the first 2 contributing to the most differences. Conclusion. Test and academic competence, test anxiety, and time management were significant factors associated with low and high academic performance among Nigerian pharmacy students. The study also demonstrated the significant effects of age, gender, and marital status on these constructs.

Cognitive Determinants of Academic Performance in Nigerian Pharmacy Schools

PubMed Central

Sansgiry, Sujit S.; Ukwe, Chinwe V.

2015-01-01

Objective. To evaluate cognitive factors that might influence academic performance of students in Nigerian pharmacy schools. Methods. A cross-sectional, multi-center survey of Nigerian pharmacy students from 7 schools of pharmacy was conducted using 2 validated questionnaires measuring cognitive constructs such as test anxiety, academic competence, test competence, time management, and strategic study habits. Results. Female students and older students scored significantly better on time management skills and study habits, respectively. Test anxiety was negatively associated with academic performance while test competence, academic competence, and time management were positively associated with academic performance. These 4 constructs significantly discriminated between the lower and higher performing students, with the first 2 contributing to the most differences. Conclusion. Test and academic competence, test anxiety, and time management were significant factors associated with low and high academic performance among Nigerian pharmacy students. The study also demonstrated the significant effects of age, gender, and marital status on these constructs. PMID:27168614

A pedagogical example of second-order arithmetic sequences applied to the construction of computer passwords by upper elementary grade students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coggins, Porter E.

2015-04-01

The purpose of this paper is (1) to present how general education elementary school age students constructed computer passwords using digital root sums and second-order arithmetic sequences, (2) argue that computer password construction can be used as an engaging introduction to generate interest in elementary school students to study mathematics related to computer science, and (3) share additional mathematical ideas accessible to elementary school students that can be used to create computer passwords. This paper serves to fill a current gap in the literature regarding the integration of mathematical content accessible to upper elementary school students and aspects of computer science in general, and computer password construction in particular. In addition, the protocols presented here can serve as a hook to generate further interest in mathematics and computer science. Students learned to create a random-looking computer password by using biometric measurements of their shoe size, height, and age in months and to create a second-order arithmetic sequence, then converted the resulting numbers into characters that become their computer passwords. This password protocol can be used to introduce students to good computer password habits that can serve a foundation for a life-long awareness of data security. A refinement of the password protocol is also presented.

The Multilayered Character of Newcomers' Academic Identities: Somali Female High-School Students in a US School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oikonomidoy, Eleni

2009-01-01

Drawing from the findings of a qualitative study with female refugee high school students from Somalia in the US, this paper attempts to provide a window to understanding the multilayered character of newcomer students' academic identity construction. The students' micro-level processes of creating spaces for belonging at school are linked to…

Developing Resiliency in Students with Behavioural Problems in Hong Kong Secondary Schools: Teachers' Narratives from a School Guidance Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hue, Ming-Tak

2011-01-01

Hong Kong schools are concerned about how students with behavioural problems could be supported. This article reports the findings of a study investigating teachers' constructs of students' resilience. Specifically it examines how it could be promoted through school guidance and factors affecting the development of students' resilient capability.…

Evaluating the Co-Construction of the Family, School, and Community Partnership Program in a Low-Income Urban High School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

LaPoint, Velma; Jackson, Henry L.

2004-01-01

There have been resounding national calls in the past several years to improve the academic achievement and social competence of students in public schools, especially students in low-performing K-12 schools that include low-income students of color in the nation's urban communities. Many educational stakeholders--students, teachers,…

Work Begins at School.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Casto, James E.

2001-01-01

Students at Clay County High School (West Virginia) get real-world work experience through the school's comprehensive School-to-Work program, now in its third year. Given the limited job availability in this poor rural area, the school supplements work-site experiences with school-based business enterprises, student construction projects, and…

Middle-School Students' Map Construction: Understanding Complex Spatial Displays.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bausmith, Jennifer Merriman; Leinhardt, Gaea

1998-01-01

Examines the map-making process of middle-school students to determine which actions influence their accuracy, how prior knowledge helps their map construction, and what lessons can be learned from map making. Indicates that instruction that focuses on recognition of interconnections between map elements can promote map reasoning skills. (DSK)

Constructing Scientific Arguments Using Evidence from Dynamic Computational Climate Models

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pallant, Amy; Lee, Hee-Sun

2015-01-01

Modeling and argumentation are two important scientific practices students need to develop throughout school years. In this paper, we investigated how middle and high school students (N = 512) construct a scientific argument based on evidence from computational models with which they simulated climate change. We designed scientific argumentation…

Comparing Students' Individual Written and Collaborative Oral Socioscientific Arguments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knight, Amanda M.; McNeill, Katherine L.

2015-01-01

Constructing and critiquing scientific arguments has become an increasingly important goal for science education. Yet, the differences in the ways students construct collaborative oral and individual written socioscientific arguments are not well established. Our research with one middle school class in an urban New England school district…

Development of School Students' Constructions of Biology and Physics. Research Report

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spall, Katie; Stanisstreet, Martin; Dickson, Dominic; Boyes, Edward

2004-01-01

Studies exploring school students' views about science have not always distinguished between different branches of science. Here, the views of 1395 secondary school students aged 11-16 about physics and, as a science comparator, biology were determined using a closed-form questionnaire. Over the period of secondary schooling a decreasing…

Teacher Behavioral Practices: Relations to Student Risk Behaviors, Learning Barriers, and School Climate

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martinez, Andrew; Mcmahon, Susan D.; Coker, Crystal; Keys, Christopher B.

2016-01-01

Student behavioral problems pose a myriad of challenges for schools. In this study, we examine the relations among teacher and school-level constructs (i.e., teacher collaboration, supervision/discipline, instructional management), and student-related outcomes (i.e., high-risk behaviors, barriers to learning, student social-behavioral climate).…

School Alienation: A Construct Validation Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morinaj, Julia; Scharf, Jan; Grecu, Alyssa; Hadjar, Andreas; Hascher, Tina; Marcin, Kaja

2017-01-01

Early identification of school alienation is of great importance for students' educational outcomes and successful participation in society. This study examined the psychometric characteristics of a newly developed assessment instrument, the School Alienation Scale (SALS), to measure school alienation among primary and secondary school students.…

Body talk: students' identity construction while discussing a socioscientific issue

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ideland, Malin; Malmberg, Claes

2012-06-01

Vision II school science is often stated to be a democratic and inclusive form of science education. But what characterizes the subject who fits into the Vision II school science? Who is the desirable student and who is constructed as ill-fitting? This article explores discourses that structure the Vision II science classroom, and how different students construct their identities inside these discourses. In the article we consider school science as an order of discourses which restricts and enables what is possible to think and say and what subject-positions those are available and non-available. The results show that students' talk about a SSI about body and health is constituted by several discourses. We have analyzed how school science discourse, body discourse and general school discourse are structuring the discussions. But these discourses are used in different ways depending on how the students construct their identities in relation to available subject positions, which are dependent on how students at the same time are "doing" gender and social class. As an example, middle class girls show resistance against SSI-work since the practice is threatening their identity as "successful students". This article uses a sociopolitical perspective in its discussions on inclusion and exclusion in the practice of Vision II. It raises critical issues about the inherited complexity of SSI with meetings and/or collisions between discourses. Even if the empirical results from this qualitative study are situated in specific cultural contexts, they contribute with new questions to ask concerning SSI and Vision II school science.

The Construction of an Online Competitive Game-Based Learning System for Junior High School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cheng, Yuh-Ming; Kuo, Sheng-Huang; Lou, Shi-Jer; Shih, Ru-Chu

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study aimed to construct an online competitive game-based learning system by using freeware for junior high school students and to assess its effectiveness. From the learning standpoints, game mechanisms including learning points, competition mechanism, training room mechanism, questioning & answering mechanism, tips, and…

Students' Perceptions of School Climate in the U.S. and China

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yang, Chunyan; Bear, George G.; Chen, Fang Fang; Zhang, Wei; Blank, Jessica C.; Huang, Xishan

2013-01-01

Although the construct of student climate has been studied extensively in the United States, we know little about how school climate is perceived in other countries. With large class sizes yet higher academic achievement and less disruptive and aggressive student behaviors, schools in China present a contrast to many schools in the United States.…

Modelling in Primary School: Constructing Conceptual Models and Making Sense of Fractions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shahbari, Juhaina Awawdeh; Peled, Irit

2017-01-01

This article describes sixth-grade students' engagement in two model-eliciting activities offering students the opportunity to construct mathematical models. The findings show that students utilized their knowledge of fractions including conceptual and procedural knowledge in constructing mathematical models for the given situations. Some students…

School Construction Defies Fiscal Doldrums

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sack, Joetta L.

2004-01-01

This paper constitutes the first of a three part series examining the boom in the construction and renovation of K-12 schools and the continuing challenges that communities face in getting the facilities their students and educators need. Part 1 reports on the increase of school construction and renovation that began in 2002, despite a sagging…

Students for Sustainable Energy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Toolin, Regina; Watson, Anne

2010-01-01

At Montpelier High School (MHS) in Vermont, students are accustomed to making changes in their school and community. Over the last six years, MHS students have participated in the Annual Winooski River Cleanup Project, the construction of a solar-powered greenhouse that provides produce for the school's cafeteria, and a thriving composting program…

Integrating Mentoring with Curriculum: Mentor Leadership Programs for Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Townsend, Wayne

2015-01-01

Student "Mentor" and "Leadership" Programs impact the climate and culture of schools. Students are capable of outstanding leadership when given the opportunities and constructs to be successful. The evidence is clear that those schools that embrace student leadership and mentor programs have more positive events, activities,…

34 CFR 76.662 - Construction.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... 34 Education 1 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Construction. 76.662 Section 76.662 Education Office of... State and Its Subgrantees? Participation of Students Enrolled in Private Schools § 76.662 Construction. A subgrantee shall insure that program funds are not used for the construction of private school...

34 CFR 76.662 - Construction.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... 34 Education 1 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Construction. 76.662 Section 76.662 Education Office of... State and Its Subgrantees? Participation of Students Enrolled in Private Schools § 76.662 Construction. A subgrantee shall insure that program funds are not used for the construction of private school...

34 CFR 76.662 - Construction.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... 34 Education 1 2012-07-01 2012-07-01 false Construction. 76.662 Section 76.662 Education Office of... State and Its Subgrantees? Participation of Students Enrolled in Private Schools § 76.662 Construction. A subgrantee shall insure that program funds are not used for the construction of private school...

34 CFR 76.662 - Construction.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... 34 Education 1 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Construction. 76.662 Section 76.662 Education Office of... State and Its Subgrantees? Participation of Students Enrolled in Private Schools § 76.662 Construction. A subgrantee shall insure that program funds are not used for the construction of private school...

34 CFR 76.662 - Construction.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... 34 Education 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Construction. 76.662 Section 76.662 Education Office of... State and Its Subgrantees? Participation of Students Enrolled in Private Schools § 76.662 Construction. A subgrantee shall insure that program funds are not used for the construction of private school...

Maintaining High-Performance Schools after Construction or Renovation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Luepke, Gary; Ronsivalli, Louis J., Jr.

2009-01-01

With taxpayers' considerable investment in schools, it is critical for school districts to preserve their community's assets with new construction or renovation and effective facility maintenance programs. "High-performance" school buildings are designed to link the physical environment to positive student achievement while providing such benefits…

A science methods course in a professional development school context: A case study of student teachers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sopko, Linda Diane

The purpose of this case study was to explore how six student teachers constructed their personal understanding about teaching science to elementary students in the context of a professional development school (PDS). The science methods course was one of five university courses that they attended at the PDS site. The participants spent the remainder of the school day in an assigned classroom where they assisted the classroom teacher in a paraprofessional role. This study was an attempt to determine the knowledge that the participants constructed of science instruction and the school during the preservice semester of their PDS experience and what knowledge was transferred into their student teaching practices. The methodology selected was qualitative. A case study was conducted to determine the constructs of the participants. Data collection included documents concerning the PDS school and personal artifacts of the student teachers. Student teachers, cooperating teachers, and administrators were interviewed. The student teachers were also observed teaching. Triangulation was achieved with the use of multiple data sources, a reflexive journal, and peer debriefers. A cross case comparison was used to identify issues salient to the research questions. The PDS context immediately challenged the participants' prior conceptions about how children learn and should be instructed. Participants believed that the situational knowledge constructed during the PDS semester contributed to their self-confidence during student teaching. The instructional emphasis on standardized tests in the PDS and the limited emphasis on science curriculum and instruction constructed an image of science as a minor component in the elementary curriculum. The student teachers were able to transfer knowledge of inquiry-based instructional strategies, as modeled and practiced in their science methods course, into their science lesson during student teaching. One student teacher used inquiry-based strategies in other content areas. The cooperating teachers with an interest in science instruction provided materials and encouragement to include science in their lessons. The student teachers in grades four and five believed they were unable to teach science to the degree that they desired because they had to prepare students for standardized tests in language arts and math.

Covitality Constructs as Predictors of Psychological Well-Being and Depression for Secondary School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pennell, Claire; Boman, Peter; Mergler, Amanda

2015-01-01

This study was an examination of the strength of relations among covitality, and its underlying constructs of belief in self, emotional competence, belief in others, and engaged living, and two outcome variables: subjective well-being and depression. Participants included 361 Australian secondary school students (75 males and 286 females) who…

Construction of High School Students' Abstraction Levels in Understanding the Concept of Quadrilaterals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Budiarto, Mega Teguh; Khabibah, Siti; Setianingsih, Rini

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the abstraction thinking or the vertical reorganization activity of mathematical concepts of high school students while taking account of the abstraction that was constructed earlier, and the socio-cultural background. This study was qualitative in nature with task-based interviews as the method of…

Examination of the Predictors of Latent Class Typologies of Bullying Involvement among Middle School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lovegrove, Peter J.; Henry, Kimberly L.; Slater, Michael D.

2012-01-01

This study employs latent class analysis to construct bullying involvement typologies among 3,114 students (48% male, 58% White) in 40 middle schools across the United States. Four classes were constructed: victims (15%); bullies (13%); bully/victims (13%); and noninvolved (59%). Respondents who were male and participated in fewer conventional…

Ohio School Design Manual.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ohio School Facilities Commission, Columbus.

This manual presents guidance to facility designers, school administrators, staff, and students for the development of school facilities being constructed under Ohio's Classroom Facilities Assistance Program. It provides critical analysis of individual spaces and material/system components necessary for the construction of elementary and secondary…

White School Counselors Becoming Racial Justice Allies to Students of Color: A Call to the Field of School Counseling

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moss, Lauren J.; Singh, Anneliese A.

2015-01-01

White school counselors must consider how racial identity, and whiteness as a construct, influences their work with students of color. This article addresses opportunities for White school counselors regarding how they may become allies to students of color and suggests way in which counselor educators can support the ally identity development in…

Pitfalls Lurk for School-Project Chiefs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sack, Joetta L.

2004-01-01

This paper, Part 3 of a three-part series examining the boom in the construction and renovation of K-12 schools and the continuing challenges that communities face in getting the facilities their students and educators need, describes the demanding career aspects of school administrators who oversee construction projects. Building schools requires…

Youth Apprenticeship in Construction Trades. Student Handbook. Program Requirements.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Manatee County Schools, Bradenton, FL.

This student handbook contains information about participating in the construction trades program in the Manatee County (Florida) Public Schools. The first part of the handbook consists of general information about the program: program goals and objectives, intended outcomes, benefits to students, student responsibilities, contractor…

The Construction of Collective Identity in Malaysian ESL Secondary Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Idrus, Faizah; Nazri, Nas Idayu Mohd

2016-01-01

This study seeks to identify the construction of collective identity in ESL classroom among students in a secondary school in Selangor, Malaysia. Identity construction can be helpful in supporting students academically and socially, especially in the English language classrooms. Being non-native speakers, students may have the tendency to feel…

Muslim Learners in English Schools: A Challenge for School Leaders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shah, Saeeda

2009-01-01

Faith identity is emerging as significant for Muslim students in the post 9/11 scenario, with implications for their education and wider social cohesion. This poses challenges to school leaders, raising issues not only linked to student achievement and performance, but also with regard to students' identity constructions and their educational…

An Analysis of Metaphors Used by High School Students to Describe Physics, Physics Lesson and Physics Teacher

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Çetin, Ali

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to describe high school students' "physics", physics lesson" and "physics teacher" conceptions by using metaphors. 313 students participated in the study from different high school types in Siirt, Turkey. A metaphorical perception form constructed by researcher was individually conducted,…

Self-Regulatory Climate: A Positive Attribute of Public Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adams, Curt M.; Ware, Jordan K.; Miskell, Ryan C.; Forsyth, Patrick B.

2016-01-01

This study contributes to the development of a positive framework for effective public schools in 2 ways. First, it advances the construct self-regulatory climate as consisting of 3 generative school norms--collective faculty trust in students, collective student trust in teachers, and student-perceived academic emphasis. The authors argue these…

School Organizational Contexts, Teacher Turnover, and Student Achievement: Evidence from Panel Data. Working Paper

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kraft, Matthew A.; Marinell, William H.; Yee, Darrick

2016-01-01

We study the relationship between school organizational contexts, teacher turnover, and student achievement in New York City (NYC) middle schools. Using factor analysis, we construct measures of four distinct dimensions of school contexts captured on the annual NYC School Survey. We identify credible estimates by isolating variation in…

School Organizational Contexts, Teacher Turnover, and Student Achievement: Evidence From Panel Data

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kraft, Matthew A.; Marinell, William H.; Shen-Wei Yee, Darrick

2016-01-01

We study the relationship between school organizational contexts, teacher turnover, and student achievement in New York City (NYC) middle schools. Using factor analysis, we construct measures of four distinct dimensions of school climate captured on the annual NYC School Survey. We identify credible estimates by isolating variation in…

Providence-St. Mel School: How a School That Works for African American Students Works

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pressley, Michael; Raphael, Lisa; Gallagher, J. David; DiBella, Jeanette

2004-01-01

A portrait, using grounded theory qualitative methodologies, was constructed of a K-12 school serving urban, African American students, one producing high achievement. The primary data were observations complemented by questionnaire responses and document analyses. Consistent with conclusions in the effective schooling literature, this school has…

SciJourn is magic: construction of a science journalism community of practice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nicholas, Celeste R.

2017-06-01

This article is the first to describe the discoursal construction of an adolescent community of practice (CoP) in a non-school setting. CoPs can provide optimal learning environments. The adolescent community centered around science journalism and positioned itself dichotomously in relationship to school literacy practices. The analysis focuses on recordings from a panel-style research interview from an early implementation of the Science Literacy Through Science Journalism (SciJourn) project. Researchers trained high school students participating in a youth development program to write science news articles. Students engaged in the authentic practices of professional science journalists, received feedback from a professional editor, and submitted articles for publication. I used a fine-grained critical discourse analysis of genre, discourse, and style to analyze student responses about differences between writing in SciJourn and in school. Students described themselves as agentic in SciJourn and passive in school, using an academic writing discourse of deficit to describe schooling experiences. They affiliated with and defined a SciJourn CoP, constructing positive journalistic identities therein. Educators are encouraged to develop similar CoPs. The discursive features presented may be used to monitor the development of communities of practice in a variety of settings.

Pupils, Power and the Organization of the School.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Angus, Lawrence

1986-01-01

Recent arguments for democratization of schools ignore students' contribution to school organization. This ethnographic study of an Australian Catholic high school for boys advances a case for more democratic classroom relationships and for recognizing and encouraging the active role that students can play in constructing such relationships.…

Student Disengagement as/and Unfairness: Re-Reading Schools through Photos

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ruglis, Jessica; Vallée, Daniel

2016-01-01

Four diverse English-speaking Montreal public school students who self-identify as being disengaged with their schooling experience constructed photo essays telling the story of their disengagement in school. Analyzed in conjunction with photo-elicitation interviews and fieldnotes, we find that youth are involved in a struggle against systemic…

The networked student: A design-based research case study of student constructed personal learning environments in a middle school science course

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Drexler, Wendy

This design-based research case study applied a networked learning approach to a seventh grade science class at a public school in the southeastern United States. Students adapted emerging Web applications to construct personal learning environments for in-depth scientific inquiry of poisonous and venomous life forms. The personal learning environments constructed used Application Programming Interface (API) widgets to access, organize, and synthesize content from a number of educational Internet resources and social network connections. This study examined the nature of personal learning environments; the processes students go through during construction, and patterns that emerged. The project was documented from both an instructional and student-design perspective. Findings revealed that students applied the processes of: practicing digital responsibility; practicing digital literacy; organizing content; collaborating and socializing; and synthesizing and creating. These processes informed a model of the networked student that will serve as a framework for future instructional designs. A networked learning approach that incorporates these processes into future designs has implications for student learning, teacher roles, professional development, administrative policies, and delivery. This work is significant in that it shifts the focus from technology innovations based on tools to student empowerment based on the processes required to support learning. It affirms the need for greater attention to digital literacy and responsibility in K12 schools as well as consideration for those skills students will need to achieve success in the 21st century. The design-based research case study provides a set of design principles for teachers to follow when facilitating student construction of personal learning environments.

Basic Metal Plate Jewelry Construction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Petersen, Hugh

2003-01-01

Describes how to do an art project with middle school students in which they learn about jewelry making. Explains that the students did not use soldering stations. Discusses the tools used in the project and how the students learned about jewelry construction. (CMK)

Seeking Stability in Chicago: School Actions, (C)overt Forms of Racial Injustice, and the Slow Violence of Neoliberal Rationality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aviles, Ann M.; Heybach, Jessica A.

2017-01-01

During the 2012-13 school year, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) reported 18,669 students were enrolled in the Students in Temporary Living Situations (STLS) program. In this paper, we seek to discuss school closings in relationship to their impact on poor, unstably housed, black students in Chicago. Critical race theory (CRT) constructs of (1)…

Inviting Confidence in School: Invitations as a Critical Source of the Academic Self-Efficacy Beliefs of Entering Middle School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Usher, Ellen L.; Pajares, Frank

2006-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine whether constructs drawn from invitational theory serve as additional sources of self-efficacy beliefs of students in Grade 6 (N = 468). The hypothesized sources and the invitational constructs each correlated with academic self-efficacy. Invitations, mastery experience, and physiological state predicted…

Measurement of Spatial Ability: Construction and Validation of the Spatial Reasoning Instrument for Middle School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ramful, Ajay; Lowrie, Thomas; Logan, Tracy

2017-01-01

This article describes the development and validation of a newly designed instrument for measuring the spatial ability of middle school students (11-13 years old). The design of the Spatial Reasoning Instrument (SRI) is based on three constructs (mental rotation, spatial orientation, and spatial visualization) and is aligned to the type of spatial…

Social-Emotional Needs: A School-Based Approach to Preventing Suicide among Students with Gifts and Talents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cross, Tracy L.

2012-01-01

This article provides a succinct primer on some of the basic constructs that adults need to know to help keep students with gifts and talents from completing suicide. It focuses on the school as the primary context to look out for potentially suicidal gifted students. This makes sense, as students spend a considerable amount of time in school,…

Development and Validity Testing of Belief Measurement Model in Buddhism for Junior High School Students at Chiang Rai Buddhist Scripture School: An Application for Multitrait-Multimethod Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chaidi, Thirachai; Damrongpanich, Sunthorapot

2016-01-01

The purposes of this study were to develop a model to measure the belief in Buddhism of junior high school students at Chiang Rai Buddhist Scripture School, and to determine construct validity of the model for measuring the belief in Buddhism by using Multitrait-Multimethod analysis. The samples were 590 junior high school students at Buddhist…

Value Orientations and the Effects of Professional Schools on Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Forsyth, Patrick B.; Danisiewicz, Thomas J.

The extent to which value orientations of professional students differ by occupational groups and by the socializing effects of professional schools on students was assessed. Approximately 1,150 students in nine major doctoral-granting universities participated. Based on work by Bengtson (1975), a humanism/materialism score was constructed for…

Building Homes, Building Careers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cohn, Meredith

1987-01-01

The Construction Trades Foundation, a nonprofit corporation of business, industry, and school leaders, provides high school students in Montgomery County, Maryland, with unique hands-on experiences in construction, home design, marketing, public relations, and other fields. (SK)

Policy Considerations in Conversion to Year-Round Schools. Policy Briefs of the Education Policy Studies Laboratory, No. 92-01.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Glass, Gene V.

Increasing enrollments and budget problems have prompted many school districts nationwide to experiment with year-round school schedules. Year-round school schedules allow districts to serve more students without constructing more buildings. As in traditional 9-month schools, students in year-round schools attend classes about 180 days a year. The…

Race and Belonging in School: How Anticipated and Experienced Belonging Affect Choice, Persistence, and Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murphy, Mary; Zirkel, Sabrina

2015-01-01

Background/Context: A sense of belonging in school is a complex construct that relies heavily on students' perceptions of the educational environment, especially their relationships with other students. Some research suggests that a sense of belonging in school is important to all students. However, we argue that the nature and meaning of…

The Construct Validity of the Self Description Questionnaire on High School Students in Kenya

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mucherah, Winnie; Finch, Holmes

2010-01-01

This study investigated the structural equivalence of the Self Description Questionnaire (SDQ) in relation to Kenyan high school students. A total of 1,990 students from two same-sex boarding schools participated. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed the overall model fit the data well. However, an examination of the individual factors revealed…

Positive Psychology and Career Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aulthouse, Michelle; Kolbert, Jered B.; Bundick, Matthew J.; Crothers, Laura M.

2017-01-01

The article details how school counselors can use principles of positive psychology to promote students' career development by facilitating students' pursuit of purpose and meaning. Specifically, the publication identifies how school counselors can actively employ with their students five constructs of positive psychology--namely strengths,…

Zero Energy Use School.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nelson, Brian, Ed.; And Others

The economic and physical realities of an energy shortage have caused many educators to consider alternative sources of energy when constructing their schools. This book contains studies and designs by fifth-year architecture students concerning the proposed construction of a zero energy-use elementary school in Albany, Oregon. "Zero energy…

Investing in Schools: Capital Spending, Facility Conditions, and Student Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martorell, Paco; Stange, Kevin; McFarlin, Isaac, Jr.

2016-01-01

Public investments in repairs, modernization, and construction of schools cost billions. However, little is known about the nature of school facility investments, whether it actually changes the physical condition of public schools, and the subsequent causal impacts on student achievement. We study the achievement effects of nearly 1,400 capital…

Are Perceived School Climate Dimensions Predictive of Students' Engagement?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fatou, Nicolas; Kubiszewski, Violaine

2018-01-01

Students' engagement is known to be associated with academic success and to prevent school dropouts. While many studies have considered this variable when examining school trajectories, more research is needed to investigate the factors that may sustain and promote engagement in school, regarded as a multidimensional construct (affective vs.…

Scientific and Cultural Knowledge in Intercultural Science Education: Student Perceptions of Common Ground

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gondwe, Mzamose; Longnecker, Nancy

2015-02-01

There is no consensus in the science education research community on the meanings and representations of western science and indigenous knowledge or the relationships between them. How students interpret these relationships and their perceptions of any connections has rarely been studied. This study reports student perceptions of the meaning and relationship between scientific and cultural knowledge. Personal meaning maps adapted for small groups were conducted in seven culturally diverse schools, school years 7-9 (with students aged 12-15 years) ( n = 190), with six schools in Western Australia and one school in Malawi, Africa. Of the six Australian school groups, two comprised Australian Aboriginal students in an after-school homework programme and the other four schools had a multicultural mix of students. Students in this study identified connections between scientific and cultural knowledge and constructed connections from particular thematic areas—mainly factual content knowledge as opposed to ideas related to values, attitudes, beliefs and identity. Australian Aboriginal students made fewer connections between the two knowledge domains than Malawian students whose previous science teacher had made explicit connections in her science class. Examples from Aboriginal culture were the most dominant illustrations of cultural knowledge in Australian schools, even in school groups with students from other cultures. In light of our findings, we discuss the construction of common ground between scientific knowledge and cultural knowledge and the role of teachers as cultural brokers and travel agents. We conclude with recommendations on creating learning environments that embrace different cultural knowledges and that promote explicit and enquiring discussions of values, attitudes, beliefs and identity associated with both knowledge domains.

Student engagement and its relationship with early high school dropout.

PubMed

Archambault, Isabelle; Janosz, Michel; Fallu, Jean-Sébastien; Pagani, Linda S

2009-06-01

Although the concept of school engagement figures prominently in most school dropout theories, there has been little empirical research conducted on its nature and course and, more importantly, the association with dropout. Information on the natural development of school engagement would greatly benefit those interested in preventing student alienation during adolescence. Using a longitudinal sample of 11,827 French-Canadian high school students, we tested behavioral, affective, cognitive indices of engagement both separately and as a global construct. We then assessed their contribution as prospective predictors of school dropout using factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Global engagement reliably predicted school dropout. Among its three specific dimensions, only behavioral engagement made a significant contribution in the prediction equation. Our findings confirm the robustness of the overall multidimensional construct of school engagement, which reflects both cognitive and psychosocial characteristics, and underscore the importance attributed to basic participation and compliance issues in reliably estimating risk of not completing basic schooling during adolescence.

A Social Constructivist Approach to Preparing School Counselors to Work Effectively in Urban Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martinez, Robert R.; Dye, Lacretia; Gonzalez, Laura M.

2017-01-01

In this article a social construction framework is used to improve the capacity of school counselors and trainees to work effectively with African American and Latina/o students in urban schools. Three key theoretical tenets of the social construction worldview are presented as a new lens for thinking about the "meaning-making" process…

Interdisciplinary Approach to Building Construction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Armstrong, Harry

The paper discusses the interdisciplinary approach used by the Amity High School House Construction Project to develop a construction cluster in a small high school, to give students on-the-job training, and to teach them the relevancy of academic education. The project's monthly plan of action is briefly described. Suggested activities,…

Storytelling as Action: Constructing Masculinities in a School Context.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moita-Lopes, Luiz Paulo

2003-01-01

Examines how masculinities were constructed in a Brazilian mother tongue fifth grade classroom, highlighting stories students told one another in this context. An ethnographic approach allowed naturally occurring stories to be audiotaped. Stories told in schools helped construct hegemonic masculinity by drawing on coherent systems available in…

The Co-Construction of Opposition in a Low-Track Mathematics Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hand, Victoria M.

2010-01-01

Student opposition in school is traditionally cast in terms of individual dispositions, whereby particular students or groups of students are said to "resist" or "oppose" school structures and identities aligned with the dominant cultural group. The author examined instead how the teacher and students in a low-track mathematics…

Teacher Support and Life Satisfaction: An Investigation with Urban, Middle School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guess, Pamela E.; McCane-Bowling, Sara J.

2016-01-01

This study examined the relationship between perceived teacher support and overall life satisfaction (LS) in a sample of urban middle school students. Based on correlations between measures of student perceptions related to these constructs, results indicated that student perceptions of teacher support correlated significantly with LS, with the…

Constructive Conflict Resolution for Students with Behavioral Disorders.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bullock, Cathy; Foegen, Anne

2002-01-01

This article describes the application of constructive conflict resolution techniques in a middle-school program for students with behavior disorders, discussing the use of mediation, negotiation, constructive controversy, and classroom meetings. Initial efforts to explore the impact of the program are recounted, and implications for implementing…

"Have They Learned to Swim around in the Big Puddle?": Cultural Awareness and Engagement of Christian High School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Brummelen, Harro; Koole, Robert

2012-01-01

This article assesses to what extent and how 18 Protestant and Catholic religiously based high schools in Alberta, British Columbia, and Washington state prepare students for cultural awareness and engagement. All schools claimed to educate students to make constructive and significant differences in culture and society. While this was evident in…

Blind Optimism: A Cross-Cultural Study of Students' Temporal Constructs and Their Schooling Engagements

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rossatto, Cesar Augusto

2004-01-01

This article examines students' perceptions and usage of time, their sense of optimism or lack of it, especially related to schooling. Positionality, or perceptions about life and projections of the future, has great impact on students' success in school. How they interpret the past, live in the present and foresee the future is significantly…

Secondary School Students' Preferences for Popular Music and Perceptions of Popular Music Learned in School Music Education in Mainland China

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ho, Wai-Chung

2017-01-01

This study examined popular music and school music education as cultural constructs of teenage students amid the shifting cultural and social dynamics of contemporary China. Data were drawn from questionnaires completed by 6,780 secondary students (mainly ages 12 through 17) from three cities--Beijing, Changsha, and Shanghai. The survey results…

Should Schools Be Optimistic? An Investigation of the Association between Academic Optimism of Schools and Student Achievement in Primary Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boonen, Tinneke; Pinxten, Maarten; Van Damme, Jan; Onghena, Patrick

2014-01-01

Academic emphasis, collective efficacy, and faculty trust in students and parents (3 school characteristics positively associated with student achievement) are assumed to form a higher order latent construct, "academic optimism" (Hoy, Tarter, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2006a, 2006b). The aim of the present study is to corroborate the latent…

Going Green: Eco-Friendly Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Whelan, Debra Lau

2007-01-01

A growing number of studies show that a school's physical condition--especially its lighting and indoor air quality--directly affect student performance. A 2005 Turner Construction survey of green buildings found that 70 percent of districts with sustainable schools reported improved student performance. It also makes perfect sense that…

Identification of high school students' ability level of constructing free body diagrams to solve restricted and structured response items in force matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rahmaniar, Andinisa; Rusnayati, Heni; Sutiadi, Asep

2017-05-01

While solving physics problem particularly in force matter, it is needed to have the ability of constructing free body diagrams which can help students to analyse every force which acts on an object, the length of its vector and the naming of its force. Mix method was used to explain the result without any special treatment to participants. The participants were high school students in first grade totals 35 students. The purpose of this study is to identify students' ability level of constructing free body diagrams in solving restricted and structured response items. Considering of two types of test, every student would be classified into four levels ability of constructing free body diagrams which is every level has different characteristic and some students were interviewed while solving test in order to know how students solve the problem. The result showed students' ability of constructing free body diagrams on restricted response items about 34.86% included in no evidence of level, 24.11% inadequate level, 29.14% needs improvement level and 4.0% adequate level. On structured response items is about 16.59% included no evidence of level, 23.99% inadequate level, 36% needs improvement level, and 13.71% adequate level. Researcher found that students who constructed free body diagrams first and constructed free body diagrams correctly were more successful in solving restricted and structured response items.

Development of Students' Personal Professional Theories in Senior Secondary Vocational Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schaap, H.; Van der Schaaf, M. F.; de Bruijn, E.

2011-01-01

Students in competence-based senior secondary vocational education are expected to actively construct personal knowledge during school-based learning and workplace learning. This study introduces the construct "personal professional theory" (PPT) to monitor and analyse students' personal knowledge development. It aims to investigate the…

This Straightforward Program Can Improve Student Writing Skills.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Terrill, Robert E.

1983-01-01

Working with teachers, parents, and the school board, the East Hampton (Connecticut) Public Schools developed a program that improved students' paragraph writing within one year. The program involved setting objectives on paragraph construction and use of supporting information, giving teachers inservice training, specifying students' problems,…

Engaging Karen refugee students in science learning through a cross-cultural learning community

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harper, Susan G.

2017-02-01

This research explored how Karen (first-generation refugees from Burma) elementary students engaged with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) practice of constructing scientific explanations based on evidence within the context of a cross-cultural learning community. In this action research, the researcher and a Karen parent served as co-teachers for fourth- and fifth-grade Karen and non-Karen students in a science and culture after-school programme in a public elementary school in the rural southeastern United States. Photovoice provided a critical platform for students to create their own cultural discourses for the learning community. The theoretical framework of critical pedagogy of place provided a way for the learning community to decolonise and re-inhabit the learning spaces with knowledge they co-constructed. Narrative analysis of video transcripts of the after-school programme, ethnographic interviews, and focus group discussions from Photovoice revealed a pattern of emerging agency by Karen students in the scientific practice of constructing scientific explanations based on evidence and in Karen language lessons. This evidence suggests that science learning embedded within a cross-cultural learning community can empower refugee students to construct their own hybrid cultural knowledge and leverage that knowledge to engage in a meaningful way with the epistemology of science.

Contrasting Stories of Inclusion/Exclusion in the Chemistry Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gomes, Maria de Fatima Cardoso; Mortimer, Eduardo F.; Kelly, Gregory J.

2011-01-01

This article reports on the construction process of inclusion/exclusion for high school chemistry students in two schools in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais State, Brazil. We examined the interactional accomplishment of inclusion/exclusion of four students, two from a private school and two from a public school. The aim of this article…

Schooling Sexualities and Gendered Bodies. Experiences of LGBT Students in Icelandic Upper Secondary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kjaran, Jón Ingvar; Kristinsdóttir, Guðrún

2015-01-01

In this paper, we study how Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people (LGBT) students in Icelandic upper secondary schools interpret their experience of heteronormative environment and how they respond to it. The aim is to explore how sexualities and gendered bodies are constructed through "schooling". The article draws on interview…

Other People's Racism: Race, Rednecks, and Riots in a Southern High School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hardie, Jessica Halliday; Tyson, Karolyn

2013-01-01

This article uses data drawn from nine months of fieldwork and student, teacher, and administrator interviews at a southern high school to analyze school racial conflict and the construction of racism. We find that institutional inequalities that stratify students by race and class are routinely ignored by school actors who, we argue, use the…

Using Psychological Constructs from the Music Model of Motivation to Predict Students' Science Identification and Career Goals: Results from the U.S. and Iceland

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Brett D.; Sahbaz, Sumeyra; Schram, Asta B.; Chittum, Jessica R.

2017-01-01

We investigated students' perceptions related to psychological constructs in their science classes and the influence of these perceptions on their science identification and science career goals. Participants included 575 middle school students from two countries (334 students in the U.S. and 241 students in Iceland). Students completed a…

Multilingualism as Legitimate Shared Repertoires in School Communities of Practice: Students' and Teachers' Discursive Constructions of Languages in Two Schools in England

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Yongcan; Evans, Michael

2016-01-01

This paper reports on the findings of a 12-month project within a broader research programme that looks at a group of East European students with English as an Additional Language (EAL) in England. The data are derived from interviews with the students and teachers in two schools. The findings show that EAL students had a keen interest in English.…

Connectedness and Self-Regulation as Constructs of the Student Success Skills Program in Inner-City African American Elementary School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lemberger, Matthew E.; Clemens, Elysia V.

2012-01-01

The authors evaluated a small-group counseling intervention, Student Success Skills, provided to 53 inner-city, 4th- and 5th-grade African American students. Compared with the control group, students who received the treatment reported significant changes in metacognitive skill and feelings of connectedness to school. Furthermore, treatment-group…

Daylighting in Schools: Improving Student Performance and Health at a Price Schools Can Afford.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Plympton, Patricia; Conway, Susan; Epstein, Kyra

This document discusses evidence regarding daylighting and student performance and development, and presents four case studies of schools that have cost effectively implemented daylighting into their buildings. Case studies reveal that design and construction strategies that incorporate daylighting do not significantly increase costs over…

School Climate and Restructuring for Low-Achieving Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smey-Richman, Barbara

Although analogous and vague definitions of school climate may help in determining whether low-achieving students are experiencing a more positive or negative school climate, more clarity is needed to render the climate construct more observable, measurable, and malleable. Tagiuri conceptualizes climate as the total environmental quality within an…

Exploring Urban Students' Constructions about School, Work, Race, and Ethnicity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blustein, David L.; Murphy, Kerri A.; Kenny, Maureen E.; Jernigan, Maryam; Perez-Gualdron, Leyla; Castaneda, Tani; Koepke, Margaret; Land, Marie; Urbano, Alessandra; Davis, Ophera

2010-01-01

This qualitative study is an exploration of 32 urban high school students' narratives about the connection between school, work, and societal expectations of their future success related to their racial and ethnic background. The sample varied along 2 contextual dimensions: participation in a psychoeducational intervention (Tools for Tomorrow) and…

"PAY ATTENTION!": How Teachers and Students Construct Attentiveness in First Grade Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Milman, Noriko Sabene

2009-01-01

Research indicates that early school success influences eventual life chances and that attentiveness in the classroom contributes to early school success. Using ethnographic fieldnotes, interviews, short surveys, and video footage collected over three school years, I investigate how teachers and young students experience "attentiveness" during…

School and the Co-Construction of Dropout

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Tara M.; Rodriguez, Louie F.

2009-01-01

Only about half of Latino, Black and Native American students graduate from high school. Much of the research explains school dropout using statistical relationships between dropout rates and a variety of "risk factors" attributed to students, like income, race/ethnicity, academic achievement and behaviors and attitudes. In contrast, this study…

Private Power and Privileged Education: De/constructing Institutionalized Racism.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herr, Kathryn

1999-01-01

Based on the author's teaching/counseling experience, describes the micropolitics of race and privilege manifest in one elite independent school that threatened academically gifted African-American high school students' success. Privileged education must be reexamined before advocating it for students currently ill-served by public schools.…

Principals' Engagement of Low Ability Students in Singapore Secondary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ong, Chye Hin; Dimmock, Clive

2013-01-01

This article describes a grounded theory constructed from a study of Singapore neighbourhood secondary school principals' engagement of their lowest stream, the Normal Technical students, in their schools. This substantive theory is labelled the "theory of selective engagement". It implies that how principals engage their lowest streamed…

Island Formation: Constructing a Coral Island

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Austin, Heather; Edd, Amelia

2009-01-01

The process of coral island formation is often difficult for middle school students to comprehend. Coral island formation is a dynamic process, and students should have the opportunity to experience this process in a synergistic context. The authors provide instructional guidelines for constructing a coral island. Students play an interactive role…

EFL Young Learners: Their Imagined Communities and Language Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yim, Su Yon

2016-01-01

This study explored how South Korean primary school students approach learning English, using the notion of an "imagined community". Twenty students from two primary schools were selected for semi-structured interviews. The data analysis shows that the construction of South Korean students' imagined communities seems to be influenced…

School Working Conditions and Changes in Student Teachers' Planned Persistence in Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shirrell, Matthew; Reininger, Michelle

2017-01-01

This study examines the relationship between the working conditions of student teaching schools and changes in student teachers' planned persistence in teaching. Planned persistence (and a related construct, initial commitment) is an important predictor of initial entry (Rots, Aelterman, Vlerick, & Vermeulen, 2007) and actual persistence in…

Anytime, Anywhere: Student-Centered Learning for Schools and Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wolfe, Rebecca E., Ed.; Steinberg, Adria, Ed.; Hoffman, Nancy, Ed.

2013-01-01

"Anytime, Anywhere" synthesizes existing research and practices in the emerging field of student-centered learning, and includes profiles of schools that have embraced this approach. Educators have argued that students should be at the center of learning, constructing new knowledge based on what is interesting to them, and receiving…

Cooperative Education in the Associated Schools of Construction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chapin, L.; Roudebush, Wilfred H.; Krone, Stephen J.

2003-01-01

A survey of Associated Schools of Construction construction management programs (54 of 88 responded) indicated that 91% have some type of cooperative education program; 58% require it. Most programs have two work terms (either quarters or semesters) of coop earning 3-4 credit hours per term. The level of satisfaction among students, faculty and…

How High School Students Construct Decision-Making Strategies for Choosing Colleges

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Govan, George V.; Patrick, Sondra; Yen, Cherng-Jyn

2006-01-01

This study examined how high school seniors construct decision-making strategies for choosing a college to attend. To comprehend their decision-making strategies, we chose to examine this process through the theoretical lens of bounded rationality, which brings to light the complexity in constructing a college choice decision-making strategy…

The Social Construction of "Struggle": Influences of School Literacy Contexts, Curriculum, and Relationships

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Triplett, Cheri F.

2007-01-01

In this study, social constructionism provided a theoretical framework for investigating how students' struggles with reading are socially constructed in school literacy contexts, curriculum, and relationships. The study also sought to discover how "struggling reader" is a socially constructed subjectivity or identity that begins in the early…

Cross-Cultural Experiences of Immigrant Students from Mainland China in Hong Kong Secondary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hue, Ming-Tak

2008-01-01

Many schools in Hong Kong are concerned with the growing number of enrolments of students from Mainland China. This article examines the immigrant students' constructs of their cross-cultural identities. It reveals how these students experience a journey of transformation in language, culture and identity. Qualitative data were collected from…

Constructing Confidence and Identities of Belonging in Mathematics at the Transition to Secondary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Darragh, Lisa

2013-01-01

This case study investigates students' perspectives on their mathematics learning experiences and identity constructions, in the context of transition to secondary school. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six girls, halfway through their first year at their new school. Thematic analysis and discourse analysis were used to…

An Interpretation of Juvenile Parolees' Gender Constructions at School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Brain J.

2002-01-01

This paper focuses on inner-city juvenile parolees' gendered interactions at a community school in a large southwestern city. The analysis seeks to interpret the students' gender constructions within the contexts of cultural ideologies and social-structural locations. Drawing from a year of field research at the school and interviews with youths…

Technology in Support of Argument Construction in School Science

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Evagorou, Maria; Avraamidou, Lucy

2008-01-01

In this theoretical article the authors discuss the role of technology tools in supporting students' argument construction within the context of middle and high school science. In the first part of the article they focus on the theoretical underpinnings for studying argumentation in school science and report on the difficulties associated with…

School Construction Summer Slam

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jensen, Richard F.

2012-01-01

Every school has a list of renovations, upgrades and repairs that need attention, but many are too distracting and disruptive to carry out during the school year. Often, the best time to address these nagging construction projects is during the summer when students are on break and the campus is quieter. Although these "summer slammers" often are…

Implementation of project based learning on the Prakerin subject of vocational high school students of the building engineering to enhance employment skill readiness of graduates in the construction services field

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sugandi, Machmud

2017-09-01

Implementation of the Prakerin subject in the field of Building Engineering study program in vocational high school (VHS) are facing many issues associated to non-compliance unit of work in the industry and the expected competencies in learning at school. Project Based Learning (PBL) is an appropriate model learning used for Prakerin subject to increase student competence as the extension of the Prakerin implementation in the construction industry services. Assignments based on the selected project during their practical industry work were given to be completed by student. VHS students in particular field of Building Engineering study program who has been completed Prakerin subject will have a better job readiness, and therefore they will have an understanding on the knowledge, skills, and attitudes and good vision on the construction project in accordance with their experience during Prakerin work in the industry.

The Construction of Mathematical Literacy Problems for Geometry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Malasari, P. N.; Herman, T.; Jupri, A.

2017-09-01

The students of junior high school should have mathematical literacy ability to formulate, apply, and interpret mathematics in problem solving of daily life. Teaching these students are not enough by giving them ordinary mathematics problems. Teaching activities for these students brings consequence for teacher to construct mathematical literacy problems. Therefore, the aim of this study is to construct mathematical literacy problems to assess mathematical literacy ability. The steps of this study that consists of analysing, designing, theoretical validation, revising, limited testing to students, and evaluating. The data was collected with written test to 38 students of grade IX at one of state junior high school. Mathematical literacy problems consist of three essays with three indicators and three levels at polyhedron subject. The Indicators are formulating and employing mathematics. The results show that: (1) mathematical literacy problems which are constructed have been valid and practical, (2) mathematical literacy problems have good distinguishing characteristics and adequate distinguishing characteristics, (3) difficulty levels of problems are easy and moderate. The final conclusion is mathematical literacy problems which are constructed can be used to assess mathematical literacy ability.

Developing a Measure of Traffic Calming Associated with Elementary School Students' Active Transport.

PubMed

Nicholson, Lisa M; Turner, Lindsey; Slater, Sandy J; Abuzayd, Haytham; Chriqui, Jamie F; Chaloupka, Frank

2014-12-01

The objective of this study is to develop a measure of traffic calming with nationally available GIS data from NAVTEQ and to validate the traffic calming index with the percentage of children reported by school administrators as walking or biking to school, using data from a nationally representative sample of elementary schools in 2006-2010. Specific models, with and without correlated errors, examined associations of objective GIS measures of the built environment, nationally available from NAVTEQ, with the latent construct of traffic calming. The best fit model for the latent traffic calming construct was determined to be a five factor model including objective measures of intersection density, count of medians/dividers, count of low mobility streets, count of roundabouts, and count of on-street parking availability, with no correlated errors among items. This construct also proved to be a good fit for the full measurement model when the outcome measure of percentage of students walking or biking to school was added to the model. The traffic calming measure was strongly, significantly, and positively correlated with the percentage of students reported as walking or biking to school. Applicability of results to public health and transportation policies and practices are discussed.

Creating Culturally Responsive Environments: Ethnic Minority Teachers' Constructs of Cultural Diversity in Hong Kong Secondary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hue, Ming-tak; Kennedy, Kerry John

2014-01-01

One of the challenges facing Hong Kong schools is the growing cultural diversity of the student population that is a result of the growing number of ethnic minority students in the schools. This study uses semi-structured interviews with 12 American, Canadian, Indian, Nepalese and Pakistani teachers working in three secondary schools in the public…

The Geometric Construction Abilities of Gifted Students in Solving Real-World Problems: A Case from Turkey

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yildiz, Avni

2016-01-01

Geometric constructions have already been of interest to mathematicians. However, studies on geometric construction are not adequate in the relevant literature. Moreover, these studies generally focus on how secondary school gifted students solve non-routine mathematical problems. The present study aims to examine the geometric construction…

Class Construction: White Working-Class Student Identity in the New Millennium

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Freie, Carrie

2007-01-01

"Class Construction" explores class, racial, and gender identity construction among white, working-class students. Delving into River City High School, Freie asks what happens to the adolescent children of working-class families when economic changes such as globalization and technological advancements have altered the face of working-class jobs.…

Construction of the Examination Stress Scale for Adolescent Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sung, Yao-Ting; Chao, Tzu-Yang

2015-01-01

The tools used for measuring examination stress have three main limitations: sample selected, sample sizes, and measurement contents. In this study, we constructed the Examination Stress Scale (ExamSS), and 4,717 high school students participated in this research. The results indicate that ExamSS has satisfactory reliability, construct validity,…

Inconsistencies in Everyday Patterns of School Rules

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thornberg, Robert

2007-01-01

The aim of this study is to investigate and explain inconsistencies within the social constructions of school rules as they take shape in everyday interactions between teachers and students, and to explore how students interpret these inconsistencies. An ethnographic study is conducted in two primary schools in Sweden. According to the findings,…

Middle School Choreography Class: Two Parallel but Different Worlds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Minton, Sandra

2007-01-01

This research explored how middle school students construct meaning from their dance-making experiences in comparison to the meaning attached to these experiences by an outside observer, the researcher. An interpretive methodology was used to study two nine-week-long dance classes taught at a private K-12 school. Eleven students enrolled in the…

Construct and Predictive Validity of Social Acceptability: Scores From High School Teacher Ratings on the School Intervention Rating Form

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harrison, Judith R.; State, Talida M.; Evans, Steven W.; Schamberg, Terah

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the construct and predictive validity of scores on a measure of social acceptability of class-wide and individual student intervention, the School Intervention Rating Form (SIRF), with high school teachers. Utilizing scores from 158 teachers, exploratory factor analysis revealed a three-factor (i.e.,…

Effects of Constructing versus Playing an Educational Game on Student Motivation and Deep Learning Strategy Use

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vos, Nienke; van der Meijden, Henny; Denessen, Eddie

2011-01-01

In this study the effects of two different interactive learning tasks, in which simple games were included were described with respect to student motivation and deep strategy use. The research involved 235 students from four elementary schools in The Netherlands. One group of students (N = 128) constructed their own memory "drag and…

Exploring the Contribution of Teaching and Learning Processes in the Construction of Students' Gender Identity in Early Year Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baig, Amina

2014-01-01

The present study explores how gender identity construction takes place in a single gender classroom in early years. Qualitative research guided the study design which was conducted in two public sector single gender schools. The data were collected through observations of the teacher-student interaction, student-student interaction, focused group…

Stages in Constructing and Coordinating Units Additively and Multiplicatively (Part 2)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ulrich, Catherine

2016-01-01

This is the second of a two-part article that presents a theory of unit construction and coordination that underlies radical constructivist empirical studies of student learning ranging from young students' counting strategies to high school students' algebraic reasoning. In Part I, I discussed the formation of arithmetical units and composite…

Stages in Constructing and Coordinating Units Additively and Multiplicatively (Part 1)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ulrich, Catherine

2015-01-01

This is the first of a two-part article that presents a theory of unit construction and coordination that underlies radical constructivist empirical studies of student learning ranging from young students' counting strategies to high school students' algebraic reasoning. My explanation starts with the formation of arithmetical units, which presage…

Making It Visual: Creating a Model of the Atom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pringle, Rose M.

2004-01-01

This article describes a lesson in which students construct Bohr's planetary model of the atom. Niels Bohr's atomic model provides a framework for discussing with middle and high school students the historical development of our understanding of the structure of the atom. The model constructed in this activity will enable students to visualize the…

Engaging Students in Constructive Youth-Adult Relationships: A Case Study of Urban School-Based Agriculture Students and Positive Adult Mentors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bird, William A.; Martin, Michael J.; Tummons, John D.; Ball, Anna L.

2013-01-01

The purpose of this bounded single case study was to explore the day-to-day functioning of a successful urban school-based agriculture veterinary program. Findings indicated student success was a product of multiple youth-adult relationships created through communal environments. Adults served as mentors with whom students felt constant, caring…

An Investigation into the Representation of Geological Maps by 15-16 Year-Old Turkish Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dal, Burckin

2010-01-01

This paper explores secondary school students' representations of a geological map. Ninety-two high school students (ninth graders--15- to 16-years-old) participated in the survey in Turkey. The findings indicate that students have only a vague idea of how a geological map is constructed, and how the map is affected by the topography. The…

Factors Influencing Enrollment in Public High School German Courses: Results of a National Survey.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Minert, Roger P.

1992-01-01

Questions regarding reasons students select or decline to study German are examined, based on the results of a survey conducted among students of German in 127 U.S. high schools. Student responses are discussed in the light of academic, demographic, social, and familial considerations, and a profile of the 1990s student of German is constructed.…

Elementary Students' Construct of PE Teacher Credibility

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ramos, Nilo O.; McCullick, Bryan A.

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary students' perceptions of PE teacher credibility. Eight high- and low-skilled students from grades 3 and 5 were selected from a school employing a PE teacher holding a National Board Certification. Data were collected in the school setting utilizing observations, field notes, an open-ended…

Exploring Student, Family, and School Predictors of Self-Determination Using NLTS2 Data

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shogren, Karrie A.; Garnier Villarreal, Mauricio; Dowsett, Chantelle; Little, Todd D.

2016-01-01

This study conducted secondary analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) to examine the degree to which student, family, and school constructs predicted self-determination outcomes. Multi-group structural equation modeling was used to examine predictive relationships between 5 students, 4 family, and 7 school…

Exploring Student, Family, and School Predictors of Self-Determination Using NLTS2 Data

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shogren, Karrie A.; Garnier Villarreal, Mauricio; Dowsett, Chantelle; Little, Todd D.

2016-01-01

This study conducted secondary analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) to examine the degree to which student, family, and school constructs predicted self-determination outcomes. Multi-group structural equation modeling was used to examine predictive relationships between 5 student, 4 family, and 7 school…

Learning Context When Studying Financial Planning in High Schools: Nesting of Student, Teacher, and Classroom Characteristics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Danes, Sharon M.; Rodriguez, Michael C.; Brewton, Katherine E.

2013-01-01

Grounded in social construction theory, the current study investigates the learning context when studying financial planning in high school by analyzing the nesting of student, teacher and classroom characteristics. Key findings were that three student characteristics (initial financial knowledge, gender, senior grade level), one teacher variable…

Middle School Students' Conceptual Change in Global Climate Change: Using Argumentation to Foster Knowledge Construction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Golden, Barry W.

2011-01-01

This research examined middle school student conceptions about global climate change (GCC) and the change these conceptions undergo during an argument driven instructional unit. The theoretical framework invoked for this study is the "framework theory" of conceptual change (Vosniadou, 2007a). This theory posits that students do not…

The Case for Holding Students Accountable

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tyner, Adam; Petrilli, Michael J.

2018-01-01

In this article, the authors look at the evidence that external motivation can encourage middle-school and high-school students to work harder and learn more. They then identify a number of state and local policies that could put constructive pressure on students to exert effort in their academics. Such policies include instituting external,…

Investigating Factors in the Retention of Students in High School Physical Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lodewyk, Ken R.; Pybus, Colin M.

2013-01-01

Several studies have reported declining student enrolment rates in optional physical education. This study--incorporating constructs from social cognitive, self-determination, and body image theory--investigated factors that might be influential to this trend. Surveys were administered to 227 tenth-grade students from five schools in one school…

Emotional and Cognitive Effects of Peer Tutoring among Secondary School Mathematics Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alegre Ansuategui, Francisco José; Moliner Miravet, Lidón

2017-01-01

This paper describes an experience of same-age peer tutoring conducted with 19 eighth-grade mathematics students in a secondary school in Castellon de la Plana (Spain). Three constructs were analysed before and after launching the program: academic performance, mathematics self-concept and attitude of solidarity. Students' perceptions of the…

Students as Expert Witnesses of Teaching and Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Busher, Hugh

2012-01-01

Student voice is a key component in constructing discourses of respect, empowerment and citizenship in schools. It can help schools to become learning communities, rather than knowledge factories, that serve the needs of the majority of their members, the students, as successfully as possible and prepare them for future lives in a wide variety of…

Curriculum and National Identity: Exploring the Links between Religion and Nation in Pakistan

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Durrani, Naureen; Dunne, Mairead

2010-01-01

This paper investigates the relationship between schooling and conflict in Pakistan using an identity-construction lens. Drawing on data from curriculum documents, student responses to classroom activities, and single-sex student focus groups, it explores how students in four state primary schools in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP),…

Testing the Relation between Fidelity of Implementation and Student Outcomes in Math

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crawford, Lindy; Carpenter, Dick M., II; Wilson, Mary T.; Schmeister, Megan; McDonald, Marilee

2012-01-01

The relation between fidelity of implementation and student outcomes in a computer-based middle school mathematics curriculum was measured empirically. Participants included 485 students and 23 teachers from 11 public middle schools across seven states. Implementation fidelity was defined using two constructs: fidelity to structure and fidelity to…

The Classroom Flow and Engagement Experiences of Western Australian Rural and Remote Secondary School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cavanagh, Rob

2014-01-01

This paper commences with a brief examination of non-metropolitan student engagement and participation in schooling. It then describes how student engagement in classroom learning was conceptualised utilising Flow Theory. The key elements in this conception were subsequently used to construct an interview schedule. The characteristics of the…

Integers as Transformations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thompson, Patrick W.; Dreyfus, Tommy

1988-01-01

Investigates whether elementary school students can construct operations of thought for integers and integer addition crucial for understanding elementary algebra. Two sixth graders were taught using a computer. Results included both students being able to construct mental operations for negating arbitrary integers and determining sign and…

Building Green: Construction for the 21st Century

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Phillipson, Todd

2012-01-01

At Jefferson County Vocational School (JCVS) in Bloomingdale, Ohio, students get a lesson on building green with the construction of a home in the school's subdivision. The home is being built using Energy Star guidelines so that it may be identified as an Energy Star home. The goal for the Jefferson County Vocational Schools Board of Education…

Carried or Defeated? Examining the Factors Associated with Passing School District Bond Elections in Texas, 1997-2009

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bowers, Alex J.; Lee, Jooyoung

2013-01-01

Purpose: Across the United States, a large percentage of school districts are in need of facility improvements to provide safe and adequate buildings to facilitate student learning. To finance new construction, school districts traditionally have put proposals before local voters to fund construction through issuing long-term bonds to finance…

Construction and psychometric characteristics of the self-concept scale of interaction in the classroom.

PubMed

Lobos Peña, Karla; Díaz Mújica, Alejandro; Bustos Navarrete, Claudio; Pérez Villalobos, María Victoria

2015-01-01

Both construction and psychometric characteristics of a self-concept scale associated with observable behaviors by students and teacher, useful to guide a pedagogic intervention in the classroom are presented. A total of 1,385 primary school students, aged between 8 and 12 years, from 24 high-social vulnerability schools of the Province of Concepción, Chile, participated in the study. The scale was constructed, including a theoretical review of the construct, pilot application with students and interjudge reliability. For the study of psychometric characteristics, exploratory factorial analysis (EFA), confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA), factorial invariance and recurrent validity were performed. A self-report instrument with 22 items shows a three-factor structure, with an explained variance of 44.71% and a high level of fi t for the model. CFA in two different samples showed fi t indicators for configural invariance. It also has concurrent validity. The scale has good psychometric properties to assess the academic self-concept in the dimensions of Capacity, Work Procedure, and Participation in class. This can be useful to guide an educational intervention in the context of the teacher-student interaction in the classroom, in primary schools with high socio-economic vulnerability.

Science Identity in Informal Education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schon, Jennifer A.

The national drive to increase the number of students pursuing Science Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) careers has brought science identity into focus for educators, with the need to determine what encourages students to pursue and persist in STEM careers. Science identity, the degree to which students think someone like them could be a scientist is a potential indicator of students pursuing and persisting in STEM related fields. Science identity, as defined by Carlone and Johnson (2007) consists of three constructs: competence, performance, and recognition. Students need to feel like they are good at science, can perform it well, and that others recognize them for these achievements in order to develop a science identity. These constructs can be bolstered by student visitation to informal education centers. Informal education centers, such as outdoor science schools, museums, and various learning centers can have a positive impact on how students view themselves as scientists by exposing them to novel and unique learning opportunities unavailable in their school. Specifically, the University of Idaho's McCall Outdoor Science School (MOSS) focuses on providing K-12 students with the opportunity to learn about science with a place-based, hands-on, inquiry-based curriculum that hopes to foster science identity development. To understand the constructs that lead to science identity formation and the impact the MOSS program has on science identity development, several questions were explored examining how students define the constructs and if the MOSS program impacted how they rate themselves within each construct. A mixed-method research approach was used consisting of focus group interviews with students and pre, post, one-month posttests for visiting students to look at change in science identity over time. Results from confirmatory factor analysis indicate that the instrument created is a good fit for examining science identity and the associated constructs for students attending the MOSS residential program. Analysis of results from paired-samples t-test indicates that MOSS does contribute to a positive change in science identity and this change does persist one month following the visit to MOSS, although a slight decline is seen. The results from this research and creation of this instrument provide useful tools for educators interested in increasing their students' science identity.

Caught between Cultures: Case Study of an "Out of School" Ethnic Minority Student in Hong Kong

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bhowmik, Miron Kumar; Kennedy, Kerry J.

2017-01-01

This paper reports a case study on Maneesha Rai, a Nepalese girl living in Hong Kong and an "out of school" student. Based on in-depth interviews, a case was constructed of her previous school days and current "out of school" days. These provided a vivid picture of her life and several themes were created using schema analysis…

Using positive youth development constructs to design a money management curriculum for junior secondary school students in Hong Kong.

PubMed

Lau, Patrick S Y; Lam, C M; Law, Ben M F; Poon, Y H

2011-01-01

This paper aims to discuss the relationships between the selected positive youth development constructs and the enhancement of Hong Kong junior secondary school students' money management skills, values, and attitudes. Various issues of money management of adolescents are reviewed. These issues include the need for money management programs for adolescents, the content and coverage of an appropriate money management program, and its relationships with the selected positive youth development constructs. The curriculum units for secondary 3 students are taken as examples to illustrate the design of the program. It is believed that promoting cognitive competence, self-efficacy, and spirituality could be an effective way to enhance students' money management skills, values, and attitudes, thus preparing them better for facing the finance-related issues in life.

Using Positive Youth Development Constructs to Design a Money Management Curriculum for Junior Secondary School Students in Hong Kong

PubMed Central

Lau, Patrick S. Y.; Lam, C. M.; Law, Ben M. F.; Poon, Y. H.

2011-01-01

This paper aims to discuss the relationships between the selected positive youth development constructs and the enhancement of Hong Kong junior secondary school students' money management skills, values, and attitudes. Various issues of money management of adolescents are reviewed. These issues include the need for money management programs for adolescents, the content and coverage of an appropriate money management program, and its relationships with the selected positive youth development constructs. The curriculum units for secondary 3 students are taken as examples to illustrate the design of the program. It is believed that promoting cognitive competence, self-efficacy, and spirituality could be an effective way to enhance students' money management skills, values, and attitudes, thus preparing them better for facing the finance-related issues in life. PMID:22125469

A Cultural-Ecological Model of School Climate

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

La Salle, Tamika P.; Meyers, Joel; Varjas, Kristen; Roach, Andrew

2015-01-01

School climate has been established as an important construct to measure because of its connections to student psychological, social, and academic outcomes (Anderson, 1982; Koth, Bradshaw, & Leaf, 2008; Kuperminc, Leadbeater, Emmons, & Blatt, 1997). Prior research has also established relationships between student perceptions of school…

Constructing Graphical Representations: Middle Schoolers' Intuitions and Developing Knowledge about Slope and Y-Intercept

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hattikudur, Shanta; Prather, Richard W.; Asquith, Pamela; Alibali, Martha W.; Knuth, Eric J.; Nathan, Mitchell

2012-01-01

Middle-school students are expected to understand key components of graphs, such as slope and y-intercept. However, constructing graphs is a skill that has received relatively little research attention. This study examined students' construction of graphs of linear functions, focusing specifically on the relative difficulties of graphing slope and…

Grade differences in reading motivation among Hong Kong primary and secondary students.

PubMed

Lau, Kit-Ling

2009-12-01

Most previous studies in Western societies have demonstrated a general decline in school motivation. However, it is not clear whether motivational decline occurs uniformly for all students. The moderating effects of individual and cultural differences on students' motivational decline need to be further explored. This study aimed to examine the grade differences in students' reading motivation, including self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and social motivation, in a Chinese educational context. Grade by gender and grade by school-average achievement interactions were also checked to explore the role of individual differences in students' motivational changes. A total of 1,794 students (860 boys and 934 girls) volunteered to take part in this study, of whom 648 were Grade 4-6 students from 11 primary schools, 627 were Grade 7-9 students from 12 junior secondary schools, and 519 Grade 10-11 students from 6 senior secondary schools. A Chinese version of the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire (CRMQ) was administered to all participants during regular class periods by their teachers. Reliability analyses and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were first undertaken to assess the psychometric quality of the CRMQ. Then, multisample CFA was conducted to examine whether the factor structure of the CRMQ was equivalent across students at different grade levels. Grade differences in various reading motivation constructs as well as grade x gender and grade x school-average achievement interactions were examined using multiple-indicator-multiple-causes modelling. The findings of this study supported the reliability and the factor structure of the CRMQ in measuring the reading motivation of Chinese students at different grade levels. The factor pattern of the CRMQ was invariant across primary, junior secondary, and senior secondary students in multisample CFA. As far as the scores on the four reading motivation constructs were concerned, students scored most highly on intrinsic motivation, followed by self-efficacy, extrinsic motivation, and social motivation. Significant grade differences were found in all reading motivation constructs whereas only a few grade by gender and grade by school-average interactions were found. Consistent with previous studies in Western countries, the findings suggest that motivational decline is also a common phenomenon among Chinese students in Hong Kong. In addition, the pattern of motivational differences is generally consistent among students with different genders and from schools with different achievement levels. The implications of these findings for understanding Chinese students' reading motivation and for planning effective reading instruction to enhance their motivation are discussed.

The Perceptions of Pennsylvania Principals and Counselors on the Issue of Student Rights.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schwab, James D.

The purpose of this research study was to determine the opinions of school principals and school counselors in Pennsylvania on the issue of student rights. A 30-statement opinion questionnaire was constructed and mailed to 171 counselors and 154 principals in 48 public school districts widely distributed throughout Pennsylvania. The response rate…

The Cultural Context of "Disruptive Behaviour": An Overview of Research Considerations for School Educators

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Monroe, Carla R.

2005-01-01

Despite increased professional attention to the role of culture in school environments, implications of the construct for student behavior remain underexamined. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, I examine factors that contribute to the overrepresentation of black male students in school exclusion rates from a cultural perspective.…

School Belonging, Ethnic Identity, and Psychological Adjustment among Ethnic Minority College Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gummadam, Praveena; Pittman, Laura D.; Ioffe, Micah

2016-01-01

This study considers how the psychological adjustment of ethnic minority college students may be linked to a sense of school belonging and ethnic identity, two constructs related to individuals feeling like they belong to a larger group. Using self-reports from 311 undergraduates from ethnic minority backgrounds, school belonging was found to be…

"If I Wanted to Have More Opportunities and Go to a Better School, I Just Had to Get Used to It": Aboriginal Students' Perceptions of Going to Boarding School in Western Australia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mander, David J.; Cohen, Lynne; Pooley, Julie Ann

2015-01-01

This study explored the experiences of 32 male Aboriginal students from regional and remote towns and communities while they attended a metropolitan boarding school away from home and family in Perth, Western Australia. Using narrative interviews it specifically investigated how these Aboriginal students construct meaning around the transition…

Schools as Radical Sanctuaries: Decolonizing Urban Education through the Eyes of Youth of Color. Issues in the Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice of Urban Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Antrop-Gonzalez, Rene

2011-01-01

Large, comprehensive urban high schools were designed and constructed with the belief that they could meet the needs of all its students, academic and otherwise. By and large, however, these schools have only done a good job of sorting students for specific jobs in a society based on capitalism and White supremacy. Consequently, students schooled…

What Shapes Middle School Teachers' Abilities to Build Productive Parent-Teacher Relationships? The Roles of Self-Efficacy and Teachers' and Principal's Role Constructions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Nancy Thompson

2012-01-01

Students whose parents have productive relationships with their teachers tend to perform better in school than those who do not (Hughes & Kwok, 2007). Low income students and students belonging to certain minority groups tend to perform less well in school than their higher income, Caucasian peers (McKinley, 2009). The parents of low-income…

High School Students' Accuracy in Estimating the Cost of College: A Proposed Methodological Approach and Differences among Racial/Ethnic Groups and College Financial-Related Factors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nienhusser, H. Kenny; Oshio, Toko

2017-01-01

High school students' accuracy in estimating the cost of college (AECC) was examined by utilizing a new methodological approach, the absolute-deviation-continuous construct. This study used the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) data and examined 10,530 11th grade students in order to measure their AECC for 4-year public and private…

Doing the lesson or doing science: Argument in high school genetics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jiménez-Aleixandre, M. Pilar; Bugallo Rodríguez, Anxela; Duschl, Richard A.

2000-11-01

This article focuses on the capacity of students to develop and assess arguments during a high school genetics instructional sequence. The research focused on the locating distinction in argumentation discourse between doing science vs. doing school or doing the lesson (Bloome, Puro, & Theodorou, 1989). Participants in this classroom case study were high school (9th grade) students in Galicia (Spain). Students were observed, videotaped, and audiotaped while working in groups over six class sessions. Toulmin's argument pattern was used as a tool for the analysis of students' conversation and other frames were used for analyzing other dimensions of students' dialogue; (e.g., epistemic operations, use of analogies, appeal to consistency, and causal relations). Instances of doing science and instances of doing the lesson are identified and discussed as moments when the classroom discourse is dominated either by talking science or displaying the roles of students. The different arguments constructed and co-constructed by students, the elements of the arguments, and the sequence are also discussed, showing a dominance of claims and a lesser frequence of justifications or warrants. Implications for developing effective contexts to promote argumentation and science dialogue in the classroom are discussed.

Children of the Drum: Equity Pedagogy, Knowledge Construction, and African American Student Learning through Drama.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hanley, Mary Stone

This paper is an analysis of a project that involved African American middle school students in a drama program that was based on their lives and the stories of their community. Students were trained in performance skills, participated in the development of a script, and then performed the script in local schools. The 10 student participants, 5…

Relationships Among Student, Staff, and Administrative Measures of School Climate and Student Health and Academic Outcomes.

PubMed

Gase, Lauren N; Gomez, Louis M; Kuo, Tony; Glenn, Beth A; Inkelas, Moira; Ponce, Ninez A

2017-05-01

School climate is an integral part of a comprehensive approach to improving the well-being of students; however, little is known about the relationships between its different domains and measures. We examined the relationships between student, staff, and administrative measures of school climate to understand the extent to which they were related to each other and student outcomes. The sample included 33,572 secondary school students from 121 schools in Los Angeles County during the 2014-2015 academic year. A multilevel regression model was constructed to examine the association between the domains and measures of school climate and 5 outcomes of student well-being: depressive symptoms or suicidal ideation, tobacco use, alcohol use, marijuana use, and grades. Student, staff, and administrative measures of school climate were weakly correlated. Strong associations were found between student outcomes and student reports of engagement and safety, while school staff reports and administrative measures of school climate showed limited associations with student outcomes. As schools seek to measure and implement interventions aimed at improving school climate, consideration should be given to grounding these efforts in a multidimensional conceptualization of climate that values student perspectives and includes elements of both engagement and safety. © 2017, American School Health Association.

Dichotomous Identification Keys: A Ladder to Higher Order Knowledge about the Human Body

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sorgo, Andrej

2006-01-01

We tried to enrich teaching human anatomy in high school biology lessons. Students construct dichotomous identification keys to the cells, tissues, organs, or body parts. By doing this, students have achieved higher-order cognitive levels of knowledge because construction of such keys is based on analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Students found…

Construction of Valid and Reliable Test for Assessment of Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Osadebe, P. U.

2015-01-01

The study was carried out to construct a valid and reliable test in Economics for secondary school students. Two research questions were drawn to guide the establishment of validity and reliability for the Economics Achievement Test (EAT). It is a multiple choice objective test of five options with 100 items. A sample of 1000 students was randomly…

Construction of Economics Achievement Test for Assessment of Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Osadebe, P. U.

2014-01-01

The study was carried out to construct a valid and reliable test in Economics for secondary school students. Two research questions were drawn to guide the establishment of validity and reliability for the Economics Achievement Test (EAT). It is a multiple choice objective test of five options with 100 items. A sample of 1000 students was randomly…

Reconceptualizing Science Classroom Discourse towards Doing Science through a Game-Based Learning Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jan, Mingfong; San, Chee Yam; Tan, Ek Ming

2011-01-01

There is a need for schools to engage students in constructing scientific theories like practicing scientists in order to excel in the 21st century knowledge economy. An approach to engage students in constructing scientific theories is to enculturate students in doing science with language, which differs from the mainstream classroom…

Scaffolding Middle School Students' Construction of Scientific Explanations: Comparing a Cognitive versus a Metacognitive Evaluation Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Chia-Yu

2015-01-01

This study investigated the effects of scaffolds as cognitive prompts and as metacognitive evaluation on seventh-grade students' growth of content knowledge and construction of scientific explanations in five inquiry-based biology activities. Students' scores on multiple-choice pretest and posttest and worksheets for five inquiry-based activities…

Anomalies as a Catalyst for Middle School Students' Knowledge Construction and Scientific Reasoning during Science Inquiry.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Echevarria, Marissa

2003-01-01

Knowledge construction and scientific reasoning were examined during a unit in genetics, in which anomalies were used as a catalyst for student learning. Students used genetics simulation software to develop hypotheses and run tests of fruit fly crosses to develop mental models of simple dominance trait transmission. Instruction was intended to…

An Investigation of the Construct Validity of the Personality Trait of Self-Directed Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lounsbury, John W.; Levy, Levy J.; Park, Soo-Hee; Gibson, Lucy W.; Smith, Ryan

2009-01-01

Based on samples of 398 middle school students, 568 high school students, and 1159 college students, self-directed learning was found to be related to cumulative grade-point-average at all levels as well as to Big Five personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Extraversion), narrow personality traits (Optimism,…

Emerging High School Students' Problem Solving Trajectories Based on the Use of Dynamic Software

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Santos-Trigo, Manuel; Cristobal-Escalante, Cesar

2008-01-01

This study documents problem solving approaches that high school students develop as a result of using systematically Cabri-Geometry software. Results show that the use of the software becomes an important tool for students to construct dynamic representations of the problems that were used to identify and examine different mathematical relations.…

7th Grade Students' Mental Models about the Concept of "Sustainable Development"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keles, Özgül; Eris, Rabia; Aydogdu, Mustafa

2017-01-01

The purpose of the current study is to elicit the opinions constructed by 7th grade secondary school students about three components of the concept of sustainable development; environment, society and economy. Study group of the implementation consists of 20 students attending a public secondary school in 2014-2015 academic year. The study…

Formative Assessment and Increased Student Involvement Increase Grades in an Upper Secondary School Biology Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Granbom, Martin

2016-01-01

This study shows that formative methods and increased student participation has a positive influence on learning measured as grades. The study was conducted during the course Biology A in a Swedish Upper Secondary School. The students constructed grade criteria and defined working methods and type of examination within a given topic, Gene…

High-Stakes Testing and Student Achievement: Problems for the No Child Left Behind Act. Executive Summary

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nichols, Sharon L.; Glass, Gene V.; Berliner, David C.

2005-01-01

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), standardized test scores are the indicator used to hold schools and school districts accountable for student achievement. Each state is responsible for constructing an accountability system, attaching consequences--or stakes--for student performance. The theory of action implied by this…

High-Stakes Testing and Student Achievement: Problems for the No Child Left Behind Act

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nichols, Sharon L.; Glass, Gene V.; Berliner, David C.

2005-01-01

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), standardized test scores are the indicator used to hold schools and school districts accountable for student achievement. Each state is responsible for constructing an accountability system, attaching consequences--or stakes--for student performance. The theory of action implied by this…

The Benefits of Being Latino: Differential Interpretations of Student Behavior and the Social Construction of Being Well Behaved

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rueda, Eréndira

2015-01-01

Students of color are overrepresented in school disciplinary records nationally, but little is known about how disciplinary disproportionality varies among groups. Classroom observations in 1 elementary school suggested that when Latino students misbehaved, teachers were less inclined to interpret their behavior as problematic and less inclined to…

Teachers' Perceptions and Students' Lived Experiences in Vocational-Technical Subjects in a Rural High School in Zimbabwe

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Masinire, Alfred

2015-01-01

This paper explores the construction of dominant models of gender among students in the Vocational-Technical. In the backdrop of dominant narratives that structure gender policies and practices in schooling in Zimbabwe, the paper elaborates upon how students' daily experiences in workrooms perpetuate the feminisation and masculinisation of fields…

Using a Modeling Approach To Explore Scientific Epistemology with High School Biology Students. Research Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cartier, Jennifer

This paper describes a study of high school students' participation in the construction and revision of explanatory models as they attempted to account for a variety of inheritance phenomena observed in computer-generated "fruit flies". Throughout the course students were encouraged to explore epistemological issues related to the assessment and…

Sociotechnical Narratives in Rural, High-Poverty Elementary Schools: Comparative Findings from East Texas and South India

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Byker, Erik J.

2014-01-01

The article's purpose is to compare case studies of computer technology use at two rural elementary schools across two international settings. This study uses the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) theory to guide this comparative investigation of how elementary school teachers and students in East Texas and South India construct meaning for…

School climate: perceptual differences between students, parents, and school staff

PubMed Central

Ramsey, Christine M.; Spira, Adam P.; Parisi, Jeanine M.; Rebok, George W.

2016-01-01

Research suggests that school climate can have a great impact on student, teacher, and school outcomes. However, it is often assessed as a summary measure, without taking into account multiple perspectives (student, teacher, parent) or examining subdimensions within the broader construct. In this study, we assessed school climate from the perspective of students, staff, and parents within a large, urban school district using multilevel modeling techniques to examine within- and between-school variance. After adjusting for school-level demographic characteristics, students reported worse perceptions of safety and connectedness compared to both parent and staff ratings (all p < 0.05). Parents gave the lowest ratings of parental involvement, and staff gave the lowest ratings of academic emphasis (ps < 0.05). Findings demonstrate the importance of considering the type of informant when evaluating climate ratings within a school. Understanding how perceptions differ between informants can inform interventions to improve perceptions and prevent adverse outcomes. PMID:28642631

School climate: perceptual differences between students, parents, and school staff.

PubMed

Ramsey, Christine M; Spira, Adam P; Parisi, Jeanine M; Rebok, George W

2016-01-01

Research suggests that school climate can have a great impact on student, teacher, and school outcomes. However, it is often assessed as a summary measure, without taking into account multiple perspectives (student, teacher, parent) or examining subdimensions within the broader construct. In this study, we assessed school climate from the perspective of students, staff, and parents within a large, urban school district using multilevel modeling techniques to examine within- and between-school variance. After adjusting for school-level demographic characteristics, students reported worse perceptions of safety and connectedness compared to both parent and staff ratings (all p < 0.05). Parents gave the lowest ratings of parental involvement , and staff gave the lowest ratings of academic emphasis ( p s < 0.05). Findings demonstrate the importance of considering the type of informant when evaluating climate ratings within a school. Understanding how perceptions differ between informants can inform interventions to improve perceptions and prevent adverse outcomes.

What are Middle School Students Talking About During Clicker Questions? Characterizing Small-Group Conversations Mediated by Classroom Response Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barth-Cohen, Lauren A.; Smith, Michelle K.; Capps, Daniel K.; Lewin, Justin D.; Shemwell, Jonathan T.; Stetzer, MacKenzie R.

2016-02-01

There is a growing interest in using classroom response systems or clickers in science classrooms at both the university and K-12 levels. Typically, when instructors use this technology, students are asked to answer and discuss clicker questions with their peers. The existing literature on using clickers at the K-12 level has largely focused on the efficacy of clicker implementation, with few studies investigating collaboration and discourse among students. To expand on this work, we investigated the question: Does clicker use promote productive peer discussion among middle school science students? Specifically, we collected data from middle school students in a physical science course. Students were asked to answer a clicker question individually, discuss the question with their peers, answer the same question again, and then subsequently answer a new matched-pair question individually. We audio recorded the peer conversations to characterize the nature of the student discourse. To analyze these conversations, we used a grounded analysis approach and drew on literature about collaborative knowledge co-construction. The analysis of the conversations revealed that middle school students talked about science content and collaboratively discussed ideas. Furthermore, the majority of conversations, both ones that positively and negatively impacted student performance, contained evidence of collaborative knowledge co-construction.

What if Reading is Easy but Unimportant? How Students' Patterns of Affirming and Undermining Motivation for Reading Information Texts Predict Different Reading Outcomes.

PubMed

Rosenzweig, Emily Q; Wigfield, Allan

2017-01-01

Many affirming and undermining motivational constructs affect students as they read information texts, but few researchers have explored how these motivations are patterned within students. In this study we used cluster analysis to classify middle school students (n = 1,134) based on their patterns of self-efficacy, perceived difficulty, value, and devalue for reading school information texts. We then compared how the patterns predicted students' language arts grades, science information text comprehension, and dedication to reading school information texts. We found and validated a four-cluster solution. One cluster included a pattern of high affirming and low undermining motivations, and another included low affirming and high undermining motivations. Students with these patterns earned the highest and lowest scores, respectively, on all outcomes. A third pattern showed high self-efficacy/low difficulty with low value/high devalue, and a fourth showed moderate levels of all four motivational constructs. Students with the high efficacy and devalue pattern showed high information text comprehension but relatively low dedication. Students with the moderate pattern showed high dedication but low initial information text comprehension. Students with these two patterns earned similar grades. We discuss the implications of our findings for motivation theories and for school instruction that involves information text reading.

Students' Perceptions of Roundhouse Diagramming: A Middle-School Viewpoint.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ward, Robin E.; Wandersee, James H.

2002-01-01

Explores the effects in a multiple case study of Roundhouse diagram construction and use on meaningful learning of science concepts in a 6th grade classroom. Concludes that the students typically gained a greater understanding of science explanations by constructing the diagrams. (Author/MM)

ELWIRA "Plants, wood, steel, concrete - a lifecycle as construction materials": University meets school - science meets high school education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Strauss-Sieberth, Alexandra; Strauss, Alfred; Kalny, Gerda; Rauch, Hans Peter; Loiskandl, Willibald

2016-04-01

The research project "Plants, wood, steel, concrete - a lifecycle as construction materials" (ELWIRA) is in the framework of the Sparkling Science programme performed by the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences together with the Billroth Gymnasium in Vienna. The targets of a Sparkling Science project are twofold (a) research and scientific activities should already be transferred in the education methods of schools in order to fascinate high school students for scientific methods and to spark young people's interest in research, and (b) exciting research questions not solved and innovative findings should be addressed. The high school students work together with the scientists on their existing research questions improve the school's profile and the high school student knowledge in the investigated Sparkling Science topic and can lead to a more diverse viewing by the involvement of the high school students. In the project ELWIRA scientists collaborate with the school to quantify and evaluate the properties of classical building materials like concrete and natural materials like plants and woodlogs in terms of their life cycle through the use of different laboratory and field methods. The collaboration with the high school students is structured in workshops, laboratory work and fieldworks. For an efficient coordination/communication, learning and research progress new advanced electronic media like "Moodle classes/courses" have been used and utilized by the high school students with great interest. The Moodle classes are of high importance in the knowledge transfer in the dialogue with the high school students. The research project is structured into four main areas associated with the efficiencies of building materials: (a) the aesthetic feeling of people in terms of the appearance of materials and associated structures will be evaluated by means of jointly developed and collected questionnaires. The analysis, interpretation and evaluation are carried out in close cooperation between the scientists and the high school students, (b) high school students perform classical as well as advanced laboratory testing procedures on the selected materials under the guidance of researchers. They determine a set of mechanical properties and mechanical short and long term performance indicators, such as compression strength, Young modulus, fracture energy etc., (c) field tests on sites are performed to specify climatic characteristics of the examined materials, in order to find out their impact on the surrounding microclimate caused by for instance solar radiation and air temperature, and (d) finally an energy balance (CO2) for the selected materials over their entire life cycle will be carried out by the scientists. These results will provide an important contribution to a sustainable, climate-friendly and resource conserving handling with building materials. The aim of this poster is to present and discuss alternative scientific approaches of scientific working between scientists and high school students and to discuss the learning outcomes already obtained by the high school students within the project "Plants, wood, steel, concrete - a lifecycle as construction materials" ELWIRA.

Multilevel multi-informant structure of the authoritative school climate survey.

PubMed

Konold, Timothy; Cornell, Dewey; Huang, Francis; Meyer, Patrick; Lacey, Anna; Nekvasil, Erin; Heilbrun, Anna; Shukla, Kathan

2014-09-01

The Authoritative School Climate Survey was designed to provide schools with a brief assessment of 2 key characteristics of school climate--disciplinary structure and student support--that are hypothesized to influence 2 important school climate outcomes--student engagement and prevalence of teasing and bullying in school. The factor structure of these 4 constructs was examined with exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses in a statewide sample of 39,364 students (Grades 7 and 8) attending 423 schools. Notably, the analyses used a multilevel structural approach to model the nesting of students in schools for purposes of evaluating factor structure, demonstrating convergent and concurrent validity and gauging the structural invariance of concurrent validity coefficients across gender. These findings provide schools with a core group of school climate measures guided by authoritative discipline theory. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Frequent fliers, school phobias, and the sick student: school health personnel's perceptions of students who refuse school.

PubMed

Torrens Armstrong, Anna M; McCormack Brown, Kelli R; Brindley, Roger; Coreil, Jeannine; McDermott, Robert J

2011-09-01

This study explored school personnel's perceptions of school refusal, as it has been described as a "common educational and public health problem" that is less tolerated due to increasing awareness of the potential socioeconomic consequences of this phenomenon. In-depth interviews were conducted with school personnel at the middle school (N = 42), high school (N = 40), and district levels (N = 10). The findings focus on emergent themes from interviews with school health personnel (N = 12), particularly those themes related to their perceptions of and role in working with school-refusing students. Personnel, especially school health services staff, constructed a typification of the school-refusing student as "the sick student," which conceptualized student refusal due to reasons related to illness. Personnel further delineated sick students by whether they considered the illness legitimate. School health personnel referenced the infamous "frequent fliers" and "school phobics" within this categorization of students. Overarching dynamics of this typification included parental control, parental awareness, student locus of control, blame, and victim status. These typifications influenced how personnel reacted to students they encountered, particularly in deciding which students need "help" versus "discipline," thus presenting implications for students and screening of students. Overall, findings suggest school health personnel play a pivotal role in screening students who are refusing school as well as keeping students in school, underscoring policy that supports an increased presence of school health personnel. Recommendations for school health, prevention, and early intervention include the development of screening protocols and staff training. © 2011, American School Health Association.

Building Better Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kennedy, Mike

2003-01-01

Offers ten ideas for schools and universities before embarking on a new construction project: defining a school, shared space, sustainability, outdoor landscape, geoexchange, a variety of spaces, student-oriented space, technology, community use, and security. (EV)

Relationships between Student, Staff, and Administrative Measures of School Climate and Student Health and Academic Outcomes

PubMed Central

Gase, Lauren Nichol; Gomez, Louis M.; Kuo, Tony; Glenn, Beth A.; Inkelas, Moira; Ponce, Ninez A.

2018-01-01

BACKGROUND School climate is an integral part of a comprehensive approach to improving the wellbeing of students; however, little is known about the relationships between its different domains and measures. This study examined the relationships between student, staff, and administrative measures of school climate in order to understand the extent to which they were related to each other and student outcomes. METHODS The sample included 33,572 secondary school students from 121 schools in Los Angeles County during the 2014–2015 academic year. A multilevel regression model was constructed to examine the association between the domains and measures of school climate and five outcomes of student wellbeing: depressive symptoms or suicidal ideation, tobacco use, alcohol use, marijuana use, and grades. RESULTS Student, staff, and administrative measures of school climate were weakly correlated. Strong associations were found between student outcomes and student reports of engagement and safety, while school staff reports and administrative measures of school climate showed limited associations with student outcomes. CONCLUSIONS As schools seek to measure and implement interventions aimed at improving school climate, consideration should be given to grounding these efforts in a multi-dimensional conceptualization of climate that values student perspectives and includes elements of both engagement and safety. PMID:28382671

The relationship between teacher burnout and student motivation.

PubMed

Shen, Bo; McCaughtry, Nate; Martin, Jeffrey; Garn, Alex; Kulik, Noel; Fahlman, Mariane

2015-12-01

Teacher burnout is regarded as a serious problem in school settings. To date, studies on teachers' stress and burnout have largely centred on teachers' own characteristics, socialization, and behaviours, but few have explored the connection between teachers' burnout and students' motivation via their own perceptions of teachers' behaviour and emotional well-being. This study adopted Maslach et al.'s (2001, Annu. Rev. Psychol., 52, 397) job burnout construct and self-determination theory to investigate the relationships between teachers' burnout and students' autonomous motivation over one-semester physical education classes. A total of 1,302 high school students and their 33 physical education teachers in 20 high schools from two school districts in a major Midwest metropolitan area in the United States. The two school districts were demographically similar. Students and physical education teachers completed questionnaires assessing relevant psychological constructs. There were two time points for collecting students' data. One was at the beginning of a fall semester, and the other was at the end of that semester. Hierarchical linear modelling analyses were conducted. It was revealed that teachers' emotional exhaustion was negatively related to students' perceived teacher autonomy support (TAS); in turn, there was a negative relationship between teachers' feeling of depersonalization and students' autonomous motivation development even when controlling for inadequate TAS. The dimensions of teachers' burnout might play different roles in the transmission from teachers to students. Teachers' status of burnout is an important environmental factor associated with students' quality of motivation. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

A Quasi-Experimental Study of Two Selected Units of the Industrial Arts Curriculum Project Materials to Determine the Measurable Additive Effects of a Unit on Design in Manfacturing Technology upon a Similar Unit on Design in Construction Technology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kuwik, Paul David

The purpose of the study was to determine whether exposing junior high school students to a unit on design in construction technology and to a unit on design in manufacturing technology significantly affects their achievement on a test measuring "Technological Principles of Design" when compared to a group of junior high school students exposed…

Smartness as a Cultural Practice in Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hatt, Beth

2012-01-01

This study explores smartness as a cultural construct rather than a biological capacity. The cultural construction of smartness has broad consequences related to teacher expectations, student academic identity development, and schooling inequities. This study is based on a 1-year ethnography in a kindergarten classroom, and the author investigates…

Construction: Masonry. Secondary Schools. Curriculum Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands Dept. of Education, Saipan.

This construction curriculum guide on masonry for secondary students is one of six developed for inservice teachers at Marianas High School in Saipan. The guide provides the rationale, description, goals, and objectives of the program; the program of studies and performance objectives by levels; samples of lesson plans for effective delivery of…

Construction Carpentry. Secondary Schools. Curriculum Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tellei, Patrick U.

This document is intended to help construction carpentry instructors in the State of Truk, Truk, Federated States of Micronesia, to prepare their senior high school students uniformly to design and build residential structures capable of withstanding typhoons. Because of the threat of typhoons, the carpentry curriculum contained in the guide has a…

The Language Demands of Science Reading in Middle School

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fang, Zhihui

2006-04-01

The language used to construct knowledge, beliefs, and worldviews in school science is distinct from the social language that students use in their everyday ordinary life. This difference is a major source of reading difficulty for many students, especially struggling readers and English-language learners. This article identifies some of the linguistic challenges involved in reading middle-school science texts and suggests several teaching strategies to help students cope with these challenges. It is argued that explicit attention to the unique language of school science should be an integral part of science literacy pedagogy.

Modeling the Influences of Upper-Elementary School Students' Digital Reading Literacy, Socioeconomic Factors, and Self-Regulated Learning Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Shin-Feng

2017-01-01

Background: Reading is an interactive and constructive process of making meaning by engaging a variety of materials and sources and by participating in reading communities at school or in daily life. Aim: The purpose of this study was to explore the factors affecting digital reading literacy among upper-elementary school students. Method: A…

Drawing on Students' Evaluation to Draw a Strategy Canvas for a Business School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Khalifa, Azaddin Salem

2009-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show how to construct a strategy canvas for a business school based on students' perceptions of the importance of critical value dimensions of its undergraduate offering(s) and its comparable performance on each. This can be used in evaluating the school's extant strategy and in developing a new innovative…

Investigating the Major Effect of Principal's Change Leadership on School Teachers' Professional Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chang, Dian-Fu; Chen, Sheng-Nan; Chou, Wen-Ching

2017-01-01

In a rapidly changing era, educational change has become one of the crucial tasks for better student performance in schools. Potential and innovative leadership in schools is needed to keep up with the fast-pace of change, and to achieve better learning results for students. Therefore, how to construct a teacher's professional development to…

Try This: Construct a Water Catchment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Teaching Science, 2017

2017-01-01

EngQuest, an initiative of Engineers Australia, provides an exciting, non-competitive way for students to participate in free, fun and educational engineering activities involving mathematics, science and technology. This article describes a project designed to teach middle school students how to construct a water catchment system. Water…

An Intervention Model of Constructive Conflict Resolution and Cooperative Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhang, Quanwu

1994-01-01

Tests an intervention model of constructive conflict resolution (CCR) and cooperative learning in three urban high schools. Findings show that improvements in CCR increased social support and decreased victimization for the students. These changes improved student's attitudes, self-esteem, interpersonal relations, and academic achievement. (GLR)

Personal Constructs and Attribution for Academic Success and Failure in Dyslexia.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Humphrey, Neil; Mullins, Patricia M.

2002-01-01

A British study examined relationships between dyslexia and the ways in which students perceive themselves as learners, specifically their personal constructs and attributional styles. Results indicated that dyslexia has negative consequences for students' individual development. Suggestions are offered for making schools more "dyslexia…

"I See Myself as a Different Person Who [Has] Acquired a Lot ...": Somali Female Students' Journeys to Belonging

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oikonomidoy, Eleni

2007-01-01

How do refugee students construct their lives in school in their host country? What are some difficulties that they face and how do they respond to those? Findings of a qualitative study conducted with female refugee students from Somalia indicate that students are to varying degrees active agents in the construction of their lives in a US urban…

Residential Construction. Competencies for Articulation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Southeast Community Coll., Lincoln, NE.

Developed by high school teachers and junior college instructors in cooperation with representatives of business and industry, these materials are designed to help students move from class to class, from secondary to postsecondary education, and from school to employment. The materials consist of student outcomes; competencies for job or advanced…

Homework Involvement among Hong Kong Primary School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tam, Vicky C. W.

2009-01-01

One component of the curriculum reform in Hong Kong focuses on the use of homework in consolidating learning, deepening understanding and constructing knowledge. This study examines the profile of Hong Kong primary school students' homework involvement, and investigates the relationships between time involvement and academic attributes, namely…

Educational Opportunities in the Global Village.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jenkins, John M.; Loveland, Tom

2000-01-01

Describes the Japan-Florida Teens Meet Project, an international program linking students at a Florida high school and a Japanese high school. Students were encouraged to e-mail their partners daily. The program also involved videoconferencing, a dollar/yen conversion exercise, and construction of space-station scale models. (MLH)

Teachers' Discriminations in the Narratives of Primary School Students of Different Periods in Turkey: 1950s, 1970s and 1980s

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saglam, Mehmet; Sungu, Hilmi

2015-01-01

This study zeros in on rendering the teachers' discriminations among their students in various aspects in the narratives of primary school students of 1950s, 1970s and 1980s' Turkey. Construction and reconstruction of personal and social stories of teachers and students is also a sort of education and educational research. The method of the…

Examination of the Predictors of Latent Class Typologies of Bullying Involvement among Middle School Students

PubMed Central

LOVEGROVE, PETER J.; HENRY, KIMBERLY L.; SLATER, MICHAEL D.

2012-01-01

This study employs latent class analysis to construct bullying involvement typologies among 3114 students (48% male, 58% White) in 40 middle schools across the U.S. Four classes were constructed: victims (15%); bullies (13%); bully-victims (13%); and noninvolved (59%). Respondents who were male and participated in fewer conventional activities were more likely to be members of the victims class. Students who were African-American and reported being less successful at school had a higher likelihood of membership in the bullies class. Bully-victims shared characteristics with bullies and victims: Students with more feelings of anger toward others and a higher tendency toward sensation-seeking had a higher likelihood of membership in the bullies and bully-victims classes, whereas lower levels of social inclusion was associated with membership in the victims and bully-victims classes. PMID:22606069

The effects of Roundhouse diagram construction and use on meaningful science learning in the middle school classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ward, Robin Eichel

This research explored the effects of Roundhouse diagram construction and use on meaningful learning of science concepts in a 6th-grade science classroom. This investigation examined the transformation of students' science concepts as they became more proficient in constructing Roundhouse diagrams, what problems students encountered while constructing Roundhouse diagrams, and how choices of iconic images affected their progress in meaningfully learning science concepts as they constructed a series of Roundhouse diagrams. The process of constructing a Roundhouse diagram involved recognizing the learner's relevant existing concepts, evaluating the central concepts for a science lesson and breaking them down into their component parts, reconstructing the learner's conceptual framework by reducing the amount of detail efficiently, reviewing the reconstruction process, and linking each key concept to an iconic image. The researcher collected and analyzed qualitative and quantitative data to determine the effectiveness of the Roundhouse diagram. Data included field notes, observations, students' responses to Roundhouse diagram worksheets, students' perceptions from evaluation sheets, students' mastery of technique sheets, tapes and transcripts of students' interviews, student-constructed Roundhouse diagrams, and documentation of science grades both pre- and post-Roundhouse diagramming. This multiple case study focused on six students although the whole class was used for statistical purposes. Stratified purposeful sampling was used to facilitate comparisons as well as week-by-week comparisons of students' science grades and Roundhouse diagram scores to gain additional insight into the effectiveness of the Roundhouse diagramming method. Through participation in constructing a series of Roundhouse diagrams, middle school students gained a greater understanding of science concepts. Roundhouse diagram scores improved over time during the 10-week Roundhouse diagramming session. Students' science scores improved as they became more proficient in constructing the Roundhouse diagrams. The major problems associated with constructing Roundhouse diagrams were extracting the main ideas from the textbook, understanding science concepts in terms of whole/part relationships, paraphrasing sentences effectively, and sequencing events in an accurate order. A positive relationship existed for the case study group based on students' choices and drawings of iconic images and the meaningful learning of science concepts.

School Counselor Perceptions and Attitudes about Collaboration

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gibbons, Melinda M.; Diambra, Joel F.; Buchanan, Deborah K.

2010-01-01

The American School Counselor Association's increased focus on collaboration in the schools indicates the importance of this activity. School counselors are charged with constructing collaborative relationships with stakeholders focused on academic success for all students. This study explores K-12 school counselors' perceptions and attitudes…

Constructing an Online MCAT Preparation Program as an Alternative to On-Site Preparation for Medical School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Navarre, Berengaria; Perez, Norma A.; Smith, Sarah Toombs

2017-01-01

Based on a successful five-week summer program, we constructed an online alternative to prepare Hispanic students to take the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). We used input from student premed advisors, students, a faculty mentor, a Verbal Reasoning coach, and the program administrator. Online activities were provided to support the student…

Construct and Predictive Validity of the Core Phonics Survey: A Diagnostic Assessment for Students with Specific Learning Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Park, Yujeong; Benedict, Amber E.; Brownell, Mary T.

2014-01-01

The factor structure of the CORE Phonics Survey was analyzed using a sample of 165 students in upper elementary school with specific learning disabilities. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to identify the hypothesized constructs of the CORE Phonics Survey and predictive validity of the CORE Phonics Survey to predict students' success in word…

A Cross-Cultural Study of the Career Maturity of Korean and United States High School Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Ki-Hak

2001-01-01

High school students in Korea (n=331) and the United States (n=266) completed the Career Attitude Maturity Inventory in Korean or English versions. Constructs of career maturity were similar across both cultures. Level of maturity was culture related: U.S. students had greater confidence; Koreans were more prepared. (Contains 28 references.) (SK)

Periodic Table Target: A Game that Introduces the Biological Significance of Chemical Element Periodicity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sevcik, Richard S.; McGinty, Ragan L.; Schultz, Linda D.; Alexander, Susan V.

2008-01-01

Periodic Table Target, a game for middle school or high school students, familiarizes students with the form of the periodic table and the biological significance of different elements. The Periodic Table Target game board is constructed as a class project, and the game is played to reinforce the content. Students are assigned several elements…

How school climate relates to chronic absence: A multi-level latent profile analysis.

PubMed

Van Eck, Kathryn; Johnson, Stacy R; Bettencourt, Amie; Johnson, Sarah Lindstrom

2017-04-01

Chronic absence is a significant problem in schools. School climate may play an important role in influencing chronic absence rates among schools, yet little research has evaluated how school climate constructs relate to chronic absence. Using multilevel latent profile analysis, we evaluated how profiles of student perceptions of school climate at both the student and school level differentiated school-level rates of chronic absence. Participants included 25,776 middle and high school students from 106 schools who completed a district administered school climate survey. Students attended schools in a large urban school district where 89% of 6th through 12th grade students were African-American and 61% were eligible for the federally subsidized school meals program. Three student-level profiles of perceptions of school climate emerged that corresponded to "positive," "moderate," and "negative" climate. Two predominant patterns regarding the distribution of these profiles within schools emerged that corresponded to the two school-level profiles of "marginal climate" and "climate challenged" schools. Students reporting "moderate" and "negative" climate in their schools were more likely to attend schools with higher chronic absence rates than students reporting that their school had "positive" climate. Likewise, "climate challenged" schools had significantly higher chronic absence rates than "marginal climate" schools. These results suggest that school climate shares an important relation with chronic absence among adolescent students attending urban schools. Implications for prevention and intervention programs are discussed. Copyright © 2016 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Thinking Process of Pseudo Construction in Mathematics Concepts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Subanji; Nusantara, Toto

2016-01-01

This article aims at studying pseudo construction of student thinking in mathematical concepts, integer number operation, algebraic forms, area concepts, and triangle concepts. 391 junior high school students from four districts of East Java Province Indonesia were taken as the subjects. Data were collected by means of distributing the main…

Argumentation in Secondary School Students' Structured and Unstructured Chat Discussions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salminen, Timo; Marttunen, Miika; Laurinen, Leena

2012-01-01

Joint construction of new knowledge demands that persons can express their statements in a convincing way and explore other people's arguments constructively. For this reason, more knowledge on different means to support collaborative argumentation is needed. This study clarifies whether structured interaction supports students' critical and…

Guidelines for Implementing State Skill Standards Certificate Program in Construction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wisconsin State Dept. of Workforce Development, Madison.

This packet contains guidelines, a student competency checklist, and student evaluation sheet for use in a Wisconsin school-to-work state skill standards certificate program in construction. The guidelines provide a planning resource for implementing the program, which was created in partnership with unions, employers, the state Department of…

Elective: African Literature.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jenkins, Kenneth V.

The make-up of a course in African literature for high school students is discussed. It is pointed out that the course can be constructed on already familiar lines. High school students will be able to describe clearly, for example, the relationship between environment and character or the dilemma of characters caught between traditional values…

Asian American High School Students' Self-Concepts and Identities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gao, Jing

2017-01-01

Purpose: This study aims to explore Asian American students' identities and their perceptions about who they are within the Midwestern American high school setting. Design/methodology/approach: A naturalistic inquiry (Lincoln and Guba, 1985) is employed in this qualitative study. Naturalistic inquiry assumes that reality is constructed by…

Four Ways.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dwyer, Mary Ellen; And Others

1984-01-01

Four art activities for high school students are described: (1) weaving using a vegetable sack; (2) creating kaleidoscope designs, from which students selected a unique, basic shape for a personalized belt buckle; (3) making boomerangs which, when thrown, return to the point of departure; and (4) constructing a mosaic in the school hall. (RM)

A Solar Furnace for Your School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meyer, Edwin C.

1978-01-01

Industrial arts students at Litchfield (Minnesota) High School designed and built a solar furnace for research and experimentation and to help heat the industrial arts department. A teacher describes the construction process and materials and the temperature record keeping by the physics classes. Student and community interest has been high. (MF)

Some Suggestions for Graduate School Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seidman, Ann

1977-01-01

Some of the implications of the failure of graduate schools to help students find constructive solutions to societal problems are considered. This issue is seen as a crucial one since graduate students are not only teaching assistants, with a major share of the burden of undergraduate education, but become university professors and secondary…

Collaborative Learning through Chat Discussions and Argument Diagrams in Secondary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marttunen, Miika; Laurinen, Leena

2007-01-01

This study clarifies whether secondary school students develop their argumentation skills through reading and collaboration. The students first constructed an individual argument diagram on genetically modified organisms, read three articles, and improved their diagrams. Next, they engaged in a chat debate, reflected on their debate by…

Line, Shape, Color.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Greenman, Geri

2002-01-01

Describes an art project used with beginning high school art students that teaches them about continuous line drawing. Explains that the students create portraits of themselves, or another student, using glue, black construction paper, and chalk. (CMK)

Vocational School Students' Information and Communication Technology Self-Efficacy Beliefs and the Factors Affecting Their Use of Such a Technology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turel, Vehbi; Calik, Sinan; Doganer, Adem

2015-01-01

The purpose of vocational schools (VSs) in Turkey, which offer two-year degree courses, is to provide the students who have completed a high school programme successfully with practical introductory experience in skilled trades such as computing, electronics, mechanics, carpentry, construction, field crops, and so on. Those who complete a two-year…

Mesa Verde--A Year-Round High School. A Descriptive Report of 1980-81.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Housden, Terry; Holmes, Lynda

Mesa Verde High School was constructed in 1974 and is the last high school built in the San Juan (California) Unified District. It serves students in grades 9 through 12 and has an open enrollment policy. Mesa Verde operates on a year-round schedule with students divided into three tracks. Basically, each track is in session for 9 weeks and then…

Adapting the Facilitating Conditions Questionnaire (FCQ) for Bilingual Filipino Adolescents: Validating English and Filipino Versions.

PubMed

Ganotice, Fraide A; Bernardo, Allan B I; King, Ronnel B

2013-06-01

This study examined the applicability of the English and Filipino versions of the Facilitating Conditions Questionnaire (FCQ) among Filipino high school students. The FCQ measures the external forces in students' social environments that can influence their motivation for school. It is composed of 11 factors: university intention, school valuing, parent support, teacher support, peer help, leave school, pride from others, negative parent influence, affect to school, negative peer influence, and positive peer influence. It was translated into conversational Filipino. Seven hundred sixty-five high school students answered one of the two language versions. Both within-network and between-network approaches to construct validation were used. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) of the two versions showed good fit. Results of the multigroup CFA indicated that there was invariance in terms of factor loadings for the two versions. Results of the between-network test also showed that the factors in the FCQ correlated systematically with theoretically relevant constructs. Taken together, this study supports the applicability of the FCQ for use with Filipino bilingual adolescents.

University of New Hampshire's Project SMART 2017: Marine and Environmental Science for High School Students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goelzer, J.; Varner, R. K.; Levergood, R.; Sullivan, F.; Palace, M. W.; Haney, J. F.; Rock, B. N.; Smith, C. W.

2017-12-01

The month long residential Marine and Environmental Science research program for high school students at the University of New Hampshire connects students with university researchers. This educational program provides upper level high school students who are considering majors in the earth and environmental sciences with the opportunity to perform field work and conduct authentic research. This year's program introduced students to four modules exploring topics ranging from forest ecology to island ecosystems. The unifying theme between modules was the use of spectroscopy and remote sensing as a method of assessing the characteristics of ecosystems. Students constructed their own photometers utilizing eight specific Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) spanning a wavelength range from 400 to 1200 nm. An Ultra Violet (UV) LED, four visible LEDs, and three different infrared LEDs were selected to detect light reflected by plant pigments and tissues. Students collected data using their photometers and compared results to an actual Analytical Spectral Device (ASD) reflectance data, mounted eight photometers on an unmanned aerial system (UAS) to collect forest canopy data and collected data from island rock pools. The students compared their photometer readings to data collected using a fluorometer to identify the presence of phycocyanin produced by cyanobacteria and chlorophyll produced by algae in the rock pools. Students found that the photometer data were comparable to the ASD data for several wavelengths, but recommended several changes. It was determined that to be useful for forest health assessment, two of the three infrared LEDs had the incorrect gain settings, and that for rock pool studies, the infrared LEDs were not necessary. Based on the student findings, we will refine the photometers for next year's program. The photometers constructed this summer will be utilized in high schools classes during the 2017-2018 school year. This low cost project will bring what is normally a university level STEM experience into the high school classroom with university faculty, students and staff collaborating with high school teachers and students.

Cooperative Learning for Fostering Knowledge Construction in Japanese High School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mizuno, Masao

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study is to investigate how cooperative learning approach supports teachers to design an effective teaching for promoting the students learning to construct knowledge in practice. Quantitative and qualitative research methods such as surveys and case studies were employed for data collection. A High School which challenges face…

Problem Solving Activity in the Workplace and the School: The Case of Constructing Solids.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jurdak, Murad; Shahin, Iman

2001-01-01

Documents, compares, and analyzes the nature of spatial reasoning by practitioners (plumbers) in the workplace and students in the school setting while constructing solids, with given specifications, from plane surfaces. Results confirm the power of activity theory and its methodology in explaining and identifying the structural differences…

Loving and Loathing: Portrayals of School Mathematics in Young Adult Fiction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Darragh, Lisa

2018-01-01

Images of mathematics and mathematicians are often negative and stereotyped. These portrayals may work to construct our impressions of mathematics and influence students' identity with and future participation in the subject. This study examined young adult fiction as a context in which school mathematics is portrayed and constructed. I used…

What if Reading is Easy but Unimportant? How Students’ Patterns of Affirming and Undermining Motivation for Reading Information Texts Predict Different Reading Outcomes

PubMed Central

Rosenzweig, Emily Q.; Wigfield, Allan

2016-01-01

Many affirming and undermining motivational constructs affect students as they read information texts, but few researchers have explored how these motivations are patterned within students. In this study we used cluster analysis to classify middle school students (n = 1,134) based on their patterns of self-efficacy, perceived difficulty, value, and devalue for reading school information texts. We then compared how the patterns predicted students’ language arts grades, science information text comprehension, and dedication to reading school information texts. We found and validated a four-cluster solution. One cluster included a pattern of high affirming and low undermining motivations, and another included low affirming and high undermining motivations. Students with these patterns earned the highest and lowest scores, respectively, on all outcomes. A third pattern showed high self-efficacy/low difficulty with low value/high devalue, and a fourth showed moderate levels of all four motivational constructs. Students with the high efficacy and devalue pattern showed high information text comprehension but relatively low dedication. Students with the moderate pattern showed high dedication but low initial information text comprehension. Students with these two patterns earned similar grades. We discuss the implications of our findings for motivation theories and for school instruction that involves information text reading. PMID:28496289

The Role of Self-control and Grit in Domains of School Success in Students of Primary and Secondary School

PubMed Central

Oriol, Xavier; Miranda, Rafael; Oyanedel, Juan C.; Torres, Javier

2017-01-01

Objective: Self-control and grit have become two of the most important variables that explain success in different aspects of people's daily life (Duckworth and Gross, 2014). Self-control promotes delayed gratification and directly influences thoughts, emotions, and impulses. On the other hand, grit enhances the achievement of goals through perseverance even before extreme external circumstances. Since both constructs are related, examining them together is compelling, as long as the different nuances that characterize each are taken into account. Two structural equation models (SEM) were conducted to observe the effect of self-control and grit on a more specific indicator of academic success (academic self-efficacy) and a more general indicator of school experience (satisfaction with school). Methods: The first model comprises 5,681 primary students (M = 9.05; SD = 0.79), and the second 10,017 secondary students (M = 14.20; SD = 1.04) from Lima, Peru. In both models, the influence of grit and self-control on school satisfaction was observed when taking self-efficacy as a mediator variable. Results: The results show that grit and self-control have strong associations in both primary and secondary students. When estimating the covariance of both constructs, grit is related with academic-self efficacy at both educational stages, but only to satisfaction with school in secondary students. On the contrary, self-control shows a significant relationship with school satisfaction only in primary education. In turn, self-efficacy shows a mediating effect between grit and school satisfaction. After calculating the invariance of the models, differences are observed by gender in the relationships between variables. Conclusion: The results indicate that both constructs are strongly interrelated. Regarding the associations with the indicators of academic success, a need for timely interventions specific to each educational stage is observed. PMID:29075211

The Role of Self-control and Grit in Domains of School Success in Students of Primary and Secondary School.

PubMed

Oriol, Xavier; Miranda, Rafael; Oyanedel, Juan C; Torres, Javier

2017-01-01

Objective: Self-control and grit have become two of the most important variables that explain success in different aspects of people's daily life (Duckworth and Gross, 2014). Self-control promotes delayed gratification and directly influences thoughts, emotions, and impulses. On the other hand, grit enhances the achievement of goals through perseverance even before extreme external circumstances. Since both constructs are related, examining them together is compelling, as long as the different nuances that characterize each are taken into account. Two structural equation models (SEM) were conducted to observe the effect of self-control and grit on a more specific indicator of academic success (academic self-efficacy) and a more general indicator of school experience (satisfaction with school). Methods: The first model comprises 5,681 primary students ( M = 9.05; SD = 0.79), and the second 10,017 secondary students ( M = 14.20; SD = 1.04) from Lima, Peru. In both models, the influence of grit and self-control on school satisfaction was observed when taking self-efficacy as a mediator variable. Results: The results show that grit and self-control have strong associations in both primary and secondary students. When estimating the covariance of both constructs, grit is related with academic-self efficacy at both educational stages, but only to satisfaction with school in secondary students. On the contrary, self-control shows a significant relationship with school satisfaction only in primary education. In turn, self-efficacy shows a mediating effect between grit and school satisfaction. After calculating the invariance of the models, differences are observed by gender in the relationships between variables. Conclusion: The results indicate that both constructs are strongly interrelated. Regarding the associations with the indicators of academic success, a need for timely interventions specific to each educational stage is observed.

An Examination of the Viability of Class Climate as a Useful Construct in Secondary Schools. A Study of Schooling in the United States. Technical Report Series, No. 23.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Engstrom, Gerald A.

Classroom climate has been found to predict a significant portion of the variance in student achievement, independent of student background and intelligence quotient scores. This study sought to more clearly define classroom climate by determining to what extent climate measures teacher characteristics, student characteristics, and classroom…

An Investigation of Teacher Efficacy: Understandings, Practices, and the Impact of Professional Development as Perceived by Elementary School Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

White, Arnold Jeffery

2014-01-01

The essential goal of schooling is to create learning experiences that promote student achievement for students of all abilities and talents. Teacher efficacy is a construct that supports this goal because it has been demonstrated to improve the teaching and learning process and therefore increase student achievement. The purpose of this study was…

Can Student Engagement Serve as a Motivational Resource for Academic Coping, Persistence, and Learning during Late Elementary and Early Middle School?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Skinner, Ellen A.; Pitzer, Jennifer R.; Steele, Joel S.

2016-01-01

How children and youth deal with academic challenges and setbacks can make a material difference to their learning and school success. Hence, it is important to investigate the factors that allow students to cope constructively. A process model focused on students' motivational resources was used to frame a study examining whether engagement in…

Disciplined knowledge: Differentiating and binding the elementary science curriculum

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hayes, Michael Thomas

The purpose of this research was to investigate elementary science curriculum differentiation at two schools with widely divergent student demographics. Historically, elementary school students of ethnic-minority and low-socioeconomic backgrounds have not performed on traditional assessments of academic achievement and progress in science education at the same level as their White and more affluent peers. This inequality has long been of interest to the proponents of science education reform who are concerned with the ability of students to participate successfully in a democratic society and in the labor market. Differentiating the curriculum such that students, because of their socioeconomic, ethnic, or racial backgrounds, receive different knowledge, skills, and experiences is a key component of school activity that supports social inequality. Participants in the study included the teachers and students of four classrooms in two schools with student populations that differed in their socioeconomic and ethnic demographics. Qualitative research methods, including fieldnotes, audiorecordings, and interviews, were utilized to gather data. The collection and analysis of data were articulated in a developmental research process in which theories and interpretations were continuously constructed and tested for validity. The results of this research show that the science curricula at the two schools were different, with differences being understood in terms of the populations served. The particular form of differentiation observed in this study was closely correlated to elements of social discipline, knowledge segmentation and reconfiguration, time and pacing, control of bodies, and testing. The elementary science curriculum at the two schools differed in the formality and intensity with which the curriculum was constructed in adherence to these elements of discipline. Such differences cannot be understood in traditional terms as supporting White middle-class students' academic and social progress while retarding that of students from low-socioeconomic and ethnic-minority backgrounds. Curriculum differentiation, when considered on a theory of discipline, is not simply a matter of placing students into inequitable social and educational positions. Instead, the curriculum is implicated in the construction of a stratified social system that at once constrained and provided for educational, social, and economic possibility.

Study of a Low Profile School: Riverheights School, Brandon, Manitoba.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Manitoba Dept. of Education, Winnipeg. Research Branch.

The new Riverheights School, constructed by the Brandon (Manitoba) School Board for kindergarten through ninth grade students, was built as a "low-profile" school with an "earthberm" in order to save on heating, vandalism, and insurance costs and to integrate the building into a neighborhood park setting.…

Humanizing the High School: The Power of Peers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stader, David L.; Gagnepain, F. J.

2000-01-01

Discusses what high schools can do to improve student relationships, highlighting a St. Louis area school's efforts to develop peer-mentoring and peer-mediation programs. Offers guidelines to help other schools develop a school culture that promotes caring, teaches constructive conflict resolution, and reduces potential for violence. (MLH)

Strategies for Passing School Bond Elections

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adams, Christy Harris

2017-01-01

Inadequate, deteriorating, old school buildings and facilities are a major concern in many school districts across the country. Studies have determined that students perform better and learn more in newer, cleaner facilities. For school districts to be able to afford new constructions or renovations, school bonds are often necessary. There are…

An Analysis of High School Students' Performance on Five Integrated Science Process Skills

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beaumont-Walters, Yvonne; Soyibo, Kola

2001-02-01

This study determined Jamaican high school students' level of performance on five integrated science process skills and if there were statistically significant differences in their performance linked to their gender, grade level, school location, school type, student type and socio-economic background (SEB). The 305 subjects comprised 133 males, 172 females, 146 ninth graders, 159 10th graders, 150 traditional and 155 comprehensive high school students, 164 students from the Reform of Secondary Education (ROSE) project and 141 non-ROSE students, 166 urban and 139 rural students and 110 students from a high SEB and 195 from a low SEB. Data were collected with the authors' constructed integrated science process skills test the results indicated that the subjects' mean score was low and unsatisfactory; their performance in decreasing order was: interpreting data, recording data, generalising, formulating hypotheses and identifying variables; there were statistically significant differences in their performance based on their grade level, school type, student type, and SEB in favour of the 10th graders, traditional high school students, ROSE students and students from a high SEB. There was a positive, statistically significant and fairly strong relationship between their performance and school type, but weak relationships among their student type, grade level and SEB and performance.

Constructing Bridges of Support: School Counsellors' Experiences of Student Suicide

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Christianson, Carley L.; Everall, Robin D.

2008-01-01

School counsellors are professionals with specialized training in personal counselling who work in school settings. They are usually the front-line school personnel required to deal with youth suicide. Despite the important roles of school counsellors, there is little research that explores the experiences of school counsellors who have lost…

Constructing the integral concept on the basis of the idea of accumulation: suggestion for a high school curriculum

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kouropatov, Anatoli; Dreyfus, Tommy

2013-07-01

Students have a tendency to see integral calculus as a series of procedures with associated algorithms and many do not develop a conceptual grasp giving them the desirable versatility of thought. Thus, instead of a proceptual view of the symbols in integration, they have, at best, a process-oriented view. On the other hand, it is not surprising that many students find concepts such as the integral difficult when they are unable to experience these processes directly in the classroom. With a view towards improving this situation, constructing the integral concept on the basis of the idea of accumulation has been proposed (Educ Stud Math. 1994;26:229-274; Integral as accumulation: a didactical perspective for school mathematics; Thessaloniki: PME; 2009. p. 417-424). In this paper, we discuss a curriculum that is based on this idea and a design for curriculum materials that are intended to develop an improved cognitive base for a flexible proceptual understanding of the integral and integration in high school. The main focus is on how we (mathematics teachers and mathematics educators) might teach the integral concept in order to help high school students to construct meaningful knowledge alongside acquiring technical abilities.

The Two-Way Language Bridge: Co-Constructing Bilingual Language Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin-Beltran, Melinda

2010-01-01

Using a sociocultural theoretical lens, this study examines the nature of student interactions in a dual immersion school to analyze affordances for bilingual language learning, language exchange, and co-construction of language expertise. This article focuses on data from audio- and video-recorded interactions of fifth-grade students engaged in…

[Evaluating health state and professional adaptation of young workers and students on aircraft-construction plant].

PubMed

Gus'kova, T M; D'iakovich, M P; Shaiakhmetov, S F

2007-01-01

The article deals with materials on parameters of health and functional cardiovascular resources, some psychophysiologic functions, social and psychologic characteristics in young workers of aircraft-construction plant and in potential workers - technical school and college students. The authors evaluate efficiency of occupational adaptation of the youth.

Exploring Novice and Experienced Teachers' Perceptions of Motivational Constructs with Adolescent Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiesman, Jeff

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to compare novice and experienced teachers' perceptions of student motivation at the high school level and to determine if the teachers were likely to incorporate research-based techniques. Survey data were collected on the following motivational constructs: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation; performance, mastery,…

Hui Students' Identity Construction in Eastern China: A Postcolonial Critique

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Yuxiang; Phillion, JoAnn

2011-01-01

In this article, we explored Hui students' lived experiences in school in eastern China and the impact of their experiences on their identity construction. We used postcolonial theory as a theoretical framework and narrative inquiry as a research methodology to guide questions that we asked, data collection, data analysis, and interpretation and…

Introduce Construction Technology through Home Inspection

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiggins, Enrique R.

2007-01-01

Introducing technology education students to the field of home inspection gives them a great opportunity to learn about and apply construction technology content. In working with his 8th-grade students, the author covers the purpose of a home inspection, the dynamic of home inspections, the process involved in inspecting schools and homes and…

Collaboration of School Social Workers and Drug Prevention Staff in the Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nemes, Helen

2009-01-01

This study examined the factors that are related to collaboration between high school social workers and substance abuse prevention/intervention counselors in New York State high schools (except for New York City high schools). Constructs that were analyzed were high school social workers' perceived adequacy in working with high school students'…

Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Programs in Elementary and Secondary Schools: A Review of the Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, David W.; Johnson, Roger T.

1996-01-01

A review of studies of conflict and conflict resolution training in schools finds evidence suggesting that untrained students often use strategies with destructive outcomes. After training, outcomes of conflict are more likely to be constructive and students are more able to resolve their own conflicts. (SLD)

Integrating Moral and Social Development within Middle School Social Studies: A Social Cognitive Domain Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nucci, Larry; Creane, Michael W.; Powers, Deborah W.

2015-01-01

Eleven teachers and 254 urban middle-school students comprised the sample of this study examining the social and moral development outcomes of the integration of social cognitive domain theory within regular classroom instruction. Participating teachers were trained to construct and implement history lessons that stimulated students' moral…

Race and Ethnicity: Powerful Cultural Forecasters of Science Learning and Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Atwater, Mary M.; Lance, Jennifer; Woodard, UrLeaka; Johnson, Natasha Hillsman

2013-01-01

This article addresses the impact of race and ethnicity on students' science learning in US schools. Specifically, it discusses (a) the constructs of race, ethnicity, and culture, and the racial and ethnic student composition in US public schools; (b) effective classroom practices for curriculum, instruction, and assessment related to race…

"That Thing You Do!" Compositional Processes of a Rock Band

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davis, Sharon G.

2005-01-01

Understanding how students make music in non-school settings can inform teaching practice in schools, making teaching more relevant to students' musical perspectives. This research study examined the musical processes of a three-member rock band, their roles within the group, and considered how they constructed musical meaning. The most salient…

Evaluation of Alternative Schools in South Carolina: A Companion Dissertation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mills, Perry Demangio, Sr.

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate two alternative programs in a North Carolina and South Carolina (SC) public school district to determine if they are effective in delivering constructive interventions that modify student behavior once students have left the programs and have returned to their regular learning environments. This…

Constructing a Discourse of Inquiry: Findings from a Five-Year Ethnography at One Elementary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jennings, Louise; Mills, Heidi

2009-01-01

Background/Context: In an age of test-driven accountability, many schools are returning to banking pedagogies in which students passively take in content. Inquiry-based instruction offers one approach for actively involving students in meaningful learning activity, however, research on inquiry pedagogies often focuses on academic accomplishments.…

Students with Learning Disabilities' Satisfaction, Employment, and Postsecondary Education Outcomes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rabren, Karen; Eaves, Ronald C.; Dunn, Caroline; Darch, Craig

2013-01-01

This study investigates the construct of satisfaction as a post-school outcome for students with learning disabilities (LD). More specifically, the effects of postsecondary education or training as well as employment are examined as they contribute to the overall satisfaction of young people with LD, one year after they exit high school. The…

Authoring Multiple "Formas de ser": Three Bilingual Latino/a Fifth Graders Navigating School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cuero, Kimberley K.

2009-01-01

Drawing from sociocultural and anthropological perspectives, I present 3 case examples of bilingual, Mexican-origin students enrolled in a transitional bilingual educational program in an urban elementary school. By using the theoretical constructs of figured worlds, authoring, and "formas de ser" (ways of being), I examine how student identities…

Ninth Graders' Energy Balance Knowledge and Physical Activity Behavior: An Expectancy-Value Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Senlin; Chen, Ang

2012-01-01

Expectancy beliefs and task values are two essential motivators in physical education. This study was designed to identify the relation between the expectancy-value constructs (Eccles & Wigfield, 1995) and high school students' physical activity behavior as associated with their energy balance knowledge. High school students (N = 195) in two…

Low-Income Students and School Meal Programs in California. Technical Appendices

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Danielson, Caroline

2015-01-01

These technical appendices are intended to accompany the study, "Low-Income Students and School Meal Programs in California." Two appendices are included. Appendix A provides tables detailing: (1) the variables included in the main models and the datasets(s) used to construct each; (2) observations in each dataset and categorizes them…

Do Poor Students Benefit from China's Merger Program? Transfer Path and Educational Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Xinxin; Yi, Hongmei; Zhang, Linxiu; Mo, Di; Chu, James; Rozelle, Scott

2014-01-01

Aiming to provide better education facilities and improve the educational attainment of poor rural students, China's government has been merging remote rural primary schools into centralized village, town, or county schools since the late 1990s. To accompany the policy, boarding facilities have been constructed that allow (mandate) primary…

Multilevel Motivation and Engagement: Assessing Construct Validity across Students and Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Andrew J.; Malmberg, Lars-Erik; Liem, Gregory Arief D.

2010-01-01

Statistical biases associated with single-level analyses underscore the importance of partitioning variance/covariance matrices into individual and group levels. From a multilevel perspective based on data from 21,579 students in 58 high schools, the present study assesses the multilevel factor structure of motivation and engagement with a…

Role of Self-Identity and Self-Determination in English Learning among High School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhou, Wanying; Zhou, Mingming

2018-01-01

A considerable amount of research has investigated the separate roles of motivation and identity in language learning. This study aimed to examine these two important constructs jointly by exploring the relationship between motivation, identity processing styles, and English learning among high school students. The hypotheses were empirically…

Students' Intentions To Engage in Science Activities: Public, Private and Home Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ray, Brian D.

The Theory of Reasoned Action was used to ascertain students' salient beliefs, correlations between constructs in the theory, relative weights of the determinants of intention, and the effect of type of schooling, gender, and grade level on the determinants of intention. This exploratory study generated baseline information and used correlational…

Measuring Promotion and Prevention Orientations of Secondary School Students: It Is More Than Meets the Eye

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hodis, Flaviu A.; Hattie, John A. C.; Hodis, Georgeta M.

2016-01-01

The General Regulatory Focus Measure has been used extensively in psychological research to gauge promotion and prevention orientations. Findings of this research show that for New Zealand secondary school students, the General Regulatory Focus Measure does not measure promotion and prevention as theoretically independent constructs.

Program Evaluation of Alternative Schools in North Carolina: A Companion Dissertation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Michael O.

2013-01-01

The purpose of the evaluation was to evaluate two alternative programs in a North Carolina (NC) and South Carolina (SC) public school district to determine if they are effective in delivering constructive interventions that modify student behavior once students have left the programs and have returned to their regular learning environments. This…

The "Big Box"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gran, Warren; Krudwig, Kevin

2007-01-01

The small-schools movement has revolutionized educational concepts, design and construction. By reconfiguring large high schools into smaller learning academies, districts believe they can educate students more effectively. However, planners face numerous challenges in creating or renovating small schools, especially in urban environments where…

Exploring How Social Capital Works for Children Who Have Experienced School Turbulence: What Is the Role of Friendship and Trust for Children in Poverty?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Ceri

2012-01-01

This paper is concerned with the role of friendship in the construction of social capital within schools for students in poverty. It undertakes an analysis of friendship through the lens of students who have experienced turbulence. "Turbulence" refers to a type of pupil mobility between schools (not to be confused with social mobility) understood…

Co-constructing cultural landscapes for disciplinary learning in and out of school: the next generation science standards and learning progressions in action

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Córdova, Ralph A.; Balcerzak, Phyllis

2016-12-01

The authors of this study are teacher-researchers, the first is a university researcher and former third and fourth grade teacher, while the second author is a university-based science educator. They report findings from a community-based study that Ralph, the first author, and his students conducted across two academic years (2001-2003) in order to illustrate the ways in which the next generation science standards and learning progressions can be appropriated as social-constructed practices inside and outside of school. The authors argue that what constitutes science learning in school is not a `state of grace' dictated by standards. Rather, becoming a scientist within a community of learners is a cultural phenomenon that teachers and students co-construct and as such teachers can approach the next generation science standards and learning progressions as opportunities to create intentional, disciplinary practice-based learning communities inside and outside of school.

Programs for Students and Teachers | NREL

Science.gov Websites

competition that tests the brainpower of middle and high school teams on science and math topics. Model Car 8th grade students. Student teams apply math, science, and creativity to construct solar and battery

Storymaking: Combining Making and Storytelling in a School Makerspace

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bull, Glen; Schmidt-Crawford, Denise A.; McKenna, Michael C.; Cohoon, Jim

2017-01-01

"Storymaking" makes use of school makerspaces to combine making and storytelling. Constructing a diorama is a common storytelling activity in schools. This exploratory study describes preliminary efforts that explored the feasibility of extending "Make to Learn" activities with elementary and middle school students from two…

Test of Achievement in Quantitative Economics for Secondary Schools: Construction and Validation Using Item Response Theory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eleje, Lydia I.; Esomonu, Nkechi P. M.

2018-01-01

A Test to measure achievement in quantitative economics among secondary school students was developed and validated in this study. The test is made up 20 multiple choice test items constructed based on quantitative economics sub-skills. Six research questions guided the study. Preliminary validation was done by two experienced teachers in…

"Sexuality Isn't Just about Sex": Pre-Service Teachers' Shifting Constructs of Sexuality Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sinkinson, Margaret

2009-01-01

This paper presents the findings of a three-year study into pre-service (student) teachers' experiences of and beliefs about sexuality education in New Zealand schools. It reports on participants' own memories of school sexuality education programmes, and examines changes in their constructs of sexuality education during their teacher education in…

Construction and Characterization of a Compact, Portable, Low-Cost Colorimeter for the Chemistry Lab

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clippard, Carrie M.; Hughes, William; Chohan, Balwant S.; Sykes, Danny G.

2016-01-01

A low-cost and portable colorimeter was constructed featuring a low-voltage programmable color light sensor-to-frequency converter, a CMOS 8-bit microcontroller, and an LCD display. The instrument has successfully facilitated the introduction and application of spectroscopy to groups of middle school, high school, and undergraduate students. A…

School climate and physical adolescent relationship abuse: Differences by sex, socioeconomic status, and bullying.

PubMed

Jain, Sonia; Cohen, Alison K; Paglisotti, Taylor; Subramanyam, Malavika A; Chopel, Alison; Miller, Elizabeth

2018-07-01

Little is known about the association between school climate and adolescent relationship abuse (ARA). We used 2011-2012 data from surveys of California public school students (in the United States of America) who were in a dating relationship in the last year (n = 112 378) to quantify the association between different school climate constructs and physical ARA. Fifty-two percent of students were female, and all students were in 9th or 11th grade (approximately ages 14-17). Over 11% of students reported experiencing physical ARA in the last year. Increased school connectedness, meaningful opportunities for participation, perceived safety, and caring relationships with adults at school were each significantly associated with lower odds of physical ARA. Increased violence victimization and school-level bullying victimization were associated with higher odds of physical ARA. These school climate-ARA associations were significantly moderated by student sex, school socioeconomic status, and school-level bullying victimization. School climate interventions may have spillover benefits for ARA prevention. Copyright © 2018 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Archimedes in Action

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vo, Phong T.

2013-11-01

Hands-on learning is very effective in teaching physical concepts to students. Applying the principles they learn to a real-life situation, students are more likely to retain this knowledge, especially when it is presented in a stimulating format. With this in mind, we present here a high school physics project in which students apply basic hydrostatics to construct corrugated cardboard boats capable of supporting two individuals across the length of a high school pool.

Effectiveness of Peer Counseling on High School Students Who Failed Two or More Classes in a Nine Week Quarter

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reardon, Michelle Turner

1990-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of peer counseling on high school students who have previously failed two or more classes in a nine week quarter. This study was constructed by comparing who previously failed and were subsequently given peer counseling with a matched group of students who failed and did not receive peer…

Assessing Time Management Skills as an Important Aspect of Student Learning: The Construction and Evaluation of a Time Management Scale with Spanish High School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Garcia-Ros, Rafael; Perez-Gonzalez, Francisco; Hinojosa, Eugenia

2004-01-01

The main purpose of this study is to analyse the factorial structure, psychometric properties and predictive capacity for academic achievement of a scale designed to evaluate the time management skills of Spanish high school students. An adaptation of the Time Management Questionnaire was presented to two samples of 350 Spanish high school…

The Efficacy of Conflict-Mediation Training in Elementary Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Campbell, Karen

2003-01-01

Conflict resolution training teaches students to manage interpersonal conflict more constructively. This approach to safe schools has benefits but needs more research to demonstrate effectiveness. Alberta's Safe and Caring Schools project is a replicable example. (Contains 25 references.) (SK)

School Counselors' Constructions of Student Confidentiality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trice-Black, Shannon; Riechel, Morgan E. Kiper; Shillingford, M. Ann

2013-01-01

Confidentiality in counseling relationships helps ensure trust between clients and counselors. Yet, defining and understanding the boundaries of confidentiality in school settings is often difficult, as school counselors are engaged in multiple relationships with various stakeholders. This qualitative phenomenological study explores the…

Managing Student Behavior on the School Bus: A Key to Bus Safety

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

American Federation of Teachers (NJ), 2007

2007-01-01

School buses are the safest form of mass transit in America. Every day, school buses travel through congested city traffic and on isolated country roads in all types of weather, safely transporting millions of children to and from school and school-related activities. Federal and state standards for school bus construction and maintenance and…

School climate and bullying victimization: a latent class growth model analysis.

PubMed

Gage, Nicholas A; Prykanowski, Debra A; Larson, Alvin

2014-09-01

Researchers investigating school-level approaches for bullying prevention are beginning to discuss and target school climate as a construct that (a) may predict prevalence and (b) be an avenue for school-wide intervention efforts (i.e., increasing positive school climate). Although promising, research has not fully examined and established the social-ecological link between school climate factors and bullying/peer aggression. To address this gap, we examined the association between school climate factors and bullying victimization for 4,742 students in Grades 3-12 across 3 school years in a large, very diverse urban school district using latent class growth modeling. Across 3 different models (elementary, secondary, and transition to middle school), a 3-class model was identified, which included students at high-risk for bullying victimization. Results indicated that, for all students, respect for diversity and student differences (e.g., racial diversity) predicted within-class decreases in reports of bullying. High-risk elementary students reported that adult support in school was a significant predictor of within-class reduction of bullying, and high-risk secondary students report peer support as a significant predictor of within-class reduction of bullying. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

The Roland Maze Project — Cosmic Ray Registration at Schools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Feder, J.; JȨDRZEJCZAK, K.; Karczmarczyk, J.; Lewandowski, R.; Swarzyński, J.; Szabelska, B.; Szabelski, J.; Tokarski, P.; Wibig, T.

Experimental studies of cosmic rays at the highest energies (above 1018 eV) are the main scientific goal of the projected large area network of extensive air shower detectors. Placing the detectors on the roofs of high school buildings will lower the cost by using the existing urban infrastructure (INTERNET, power supply, etc.), and can be a very efficient way of science popularisation by engaging high school students in the research program. 30 high schools in Łódź are already involved in the project. The project has recently obtained some financial support from the City Council of Łódź. The donation enabled us to start experimental work on detector construction details. A cycle of lectures and seminars devoted to different aspects of project realization (detector construction, on-line data acquisition system, C++ programming) has been organized for students at our Institute and at schools.

Measuring Parent Perceptions of Family-School Engagement: The Development of New Survey Tools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schueler, Beth E.; McIntyre, Joseph C.; Gehlbach, Hunter

2017-01-01

Given family-school engagement is correlated with student academic achievement, educational researchers have long been interested in the construct. However, measuring parental engagement is deceptively challenging. The concept includes school-based engagement, home-based learning support, and family-school communication. In this article we focus…

Stress and the Administrator of Rural Schools Being Rebuilt

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, Robert J.; Lesisko, Lee J.

2010-01-01

School construction or renovation projects can have a profound affect on students, faculty and administration. The negative impact on the ongoing educational programs is a stressor for many administrators. The possibility that rural school administrators would experience more stress producing problems than would suburban and urban school leaders…

Using Rasch Measurement To Evaluate the Organizational Climate Index.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Borkan, Bengu; Capa, Yesim; Figueiredo, Claudia; Loadman, William E.

School climate has been acknowledged as a construct with impact on important aspects of educational outcomes, such as student achievement, school effectiveness, and school completion. The Organizational Climate Index was an instrument developed to measure school climate (W.Hoy, 2001). This study evaluated this instrument by using Rasch…

A Measure for Pupils' Inconsistency of Response to a Self-Report Instrument of Attitudes toward School.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Darom, Efraim; Rich, Yisrael

1983-01-01

To measure pupils' inconsistency in replying to a self-report questionnaire regarding attitudes toward school, 6,000 elementary and secondary school students participated in a nation-wide project to construct and validate the Israeli Quality of School Life Questionnaire (IQSL). (PN)

Developing a Measure of Traffic Calming Associated with Elementary School Students’ Active Transport

PubMed Central

Nicholson, Lisa M.; Turner, Lindsey; Slater, Sandy J.; Abuzayd, Haytham; Chriqui, Jamie F.; Chaloupka, Frank

2014-01-01

The objective of this study is to develop a measure of traffic calming with nationally available GIS data from NAVTEQ and to validate the traffic calming index with the percentage of children reported by school administrators as walking or biking to school, using data from a nationally representative sample of elementary schools in 2006-2010. Specific models, with and without correlated errors, examined associations of objective GIS measures of the built environment, nationally available from NAVTEQ, with the latent construct of traffic calming. The best fit model for the latent traffic calming construct was determined to be a five factor model including objective measures of intersection density, count of medians/dividers, count of low mobility streets, count of roundabouts, and count of on-street parking availability, with no correlated errors among items. This construct also proved to be a good fit for the full measurement model when the outcome measure of percentage of students walking or biking to school was added to the model. The traffic calming measure was strongly, significantly, and positively correlated with the percentage of students reported as walking or biking to school. Applicability of results to public health and transportation policies and practices are discussed. PMID:25506255

A Conceptual and Measurement Model of Student-Teacher Classroom Social Capital: An Exploration of Relationships

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trahan, MayBelle N.

2013-01-01

Classroom social capital utilizing constructs of student-teacher relationships were examined while focusing on their impact on student self-efficacy. The lack of positive student-teacher relationships may cause students to experience a disconnection within in the middle school classroom. Once this disconnection occurs, students may become…

Block scheduling: Instructional practices in high school science classrooms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Richelsoph, Barry

Proponents of block scheduling perceive this approach to be a 'structural lever' to invite and impel teachers to change their teaching (Marshak, 1997). This desired shift is supposed to be manifest in movement from the traditional classroom structure, focusing on the teacher as lecturer or transmitter of subject matter, to that of teacher as coach with students as active learners, engaged in a variety of activities involving them individually and collaboratively in their education (Canady & Rettig, 1995). Block scheduling changes the formal structure of the school day, but does it really change pedagogical practices in high school science classrooms? Fraser's Individualized Classroom Environment Questionnaire (ICEQ) the instrument used in this study of science classes in five block-scheduled high schools in Connecticut, incorporates the tenets for an enriched classroom environment in its five scales or constructs: Participation---Extent to which students are encouraged to participate rather than be passive learners; Personalization---Emphasis on opportunities for individual students to interact with the teacher and on concern for the personal welfare and social growth of the individual; Investigation---Emphasis on the skills and processes of inquiry and their use in problem solving and investigation. Independence---Extent to which students are allowed to make decisions and have control over their own learning environment and behavior; Differentiation---Emphasis on the selective treatment of students on the basis of ability, learning style, interests, and rate of working (Fraser, 1990). The results and conclusions from this research study suggested that the block-scheduled high school science classes that participated in this research do promote, to varying degrees, those tenets that define an enriched classroom environment. Both the teachers and their classes of students perceived opportunities for Participation, Personalization, and Investigation constructs as prevalent in science instruction. However, Independence and Differentiation, although existent to some extent, were perceived to occur less by both the teachers and the students in their classes. The provision of more class time alone was not enough to drive the tenets of these two constructs significantly.

Construction and Validation of an Instrument to Measure Taiwanese Elementary Students' Attitudes toward Their Science Class

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Tzu-Ling; Berlin, Donna

2010-01-01

The main purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable instrument for measuring the "attitudes toward science class" of fourth- and fifth-grade students in an Asian school culture. Specifically, the development focused on three science attitude constructs--science enjoyment, science confidence, and importance of science as…

Identity Construction and Negotiation within and across School Communities: The Case of One English-as-a-New-Language (ENL) Student

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Xiaoning

2010-01-01

Through a theoretical framework that builds on constructs of identity, community of practice, power relations, and investment (Blackledge & Pavlenko, 2001; Gee, 2001; Norton, 2000; Peirce, 1995; Wenger, 1998), this educational ethnographic study (Preissle, 1999) explores one English-as-a-new-language (ENL) student's identities within and across…

"Doing School" Right: How University Students from Diverse Backgrounds Construct Their Academic Literacies and Academic Identities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tudor Sarver, Whitney Ann

2012-01-01

This study explores the academic lives of three multilingual undergraduate student writers in order to better understand how they have constructed their academic literacies and academic identities since taking the required English courses at a mid-sized state university. Within the overarching discussions of academic discourse and the idea of…

An Analysis of How and Why High School Geometry Teachers Implement Dynamic Geometry Software Tasks for Student Engagement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nirode, Wayne

2012-01-01

This study examined teachers' use of student tasks involving dynamic geometry software, in which a figure is constructed then altered while maintaining its constructed properties. Although researchers, professional organizations, and policy makers generally have been proponents of dynamic geometry for instruction, there is little research about…

Exploring Asian Students' Citizenship Values and Their Relationship to Civic Knowledge and School Participation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kennedy, Kerry J.; Kuang, Xiaoxue; Chow, Joseph Kui Foon

2013-01-01

Empirical evidence of Asian students' traditional citizenship values was provided in the Asian Regional Module (ARM) of the International Civic and Citizenship Study. This paper is based on a secondary analysis of the ARM data. Three issues are addressed. First, a theoretical analysis of the ARM constructs contributes to their construct validity.…

"A Bad Head for Maths"? Constructions of Educability and Mathematics in Adult Students' Narrative Life Histories

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Siivonen, Päivi

2013-01-01

The article focuses on the social differences of educability constructed in Finnish general upper secondary school adult graduates' narratives on mathematics. Social class, gender, and age intertwine in the narratives that express the adult students' worries about their ability and competence to study and learn mathematics. Social differences of…

High-School Students' Reasoning while Constructing Plant Growth Models in a Computer-Supported Educational Environment. Research Report

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ergazaki, Marida; Komis, Vassilis; Zogza, Vassiliki

2005-01-01

This paper highlights specific aspects of high-school students' reasoning while coping with a modeling task of plant growth in a computer-supported educational environment. It is particularly concerned with the modeling levels ('macro-phenomenological' and 'micro-conceptual' level) activated by peers while exploring plant growth and with their…

Development of Science Anxiety Scale for Primary School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guzeller, Cem Oktay; Dogru, Mustafa

2012-01-01

The principal aim of the study is to develop a new scale Science Anxiety Scale and to examine its the psychometric properties and construct validity of the Science Anxiety Scale in a sample of 797 primary school students. Exploratory factor analysis was applied and found to have a two-dimensional structure. Confirmatory factor analyses provide…

Factorial Invariance of the Academic Amotivation Inventory (AAI) across Gender and Grade in a Sample of Canadian High School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Green-Demers, Isabelle; Legault, Lisa; Pelletier, Daniel; Pelletier, Luc G.

2008-01-01

Motivation deficits are common in high school and constitute a significant problem for both students and teachers. The Academic Amotivation Inventory (AAI) was developed to measure the multidimensional nature of the academic amotivation construct (Legault, Green-Demers, & Pelletier, 2006). The present project further examined the consistency…

Collaborative Drawing on a Shared Digital Canvas in Elementary Science Education: The Effects of Script and Task Awareness Support

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gijlers, Hannie; Weinberger, Armin; van Dijk, Alieke Mattia; Bollen, Lars; van Joolingen, Wouter

2013-01-01

Creating shared representations can foster knowledge acquisition by elementary school students by promoting active integration and translation of new information. In this study, we investigate to what extent awareness support and scripting facilitate knowledge construction and discourse quality of elementary school students (n?=?94) in a…

Homophobia and Heterosexism in Public School Reform: Constructions of Gender and Sexuality in California's Single Gender Academies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Woody, Elisabeth L.

2003-01-01

This article examines heterosexist assumptions and the role of homophobia in students' experiences in California's public "Single Gender Academies," in an effort to include issues of sexuality in current discourses on adolescent gender identity and public school reform. Interviews with students, conducted as part of the most…

Analyzing Learning about Conservation of Matter in Students while Adapting to the Needs of a School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doucerain, Marina; Schwartz, Marc S.

2010-01-01

We probed the impact of two teaching strategies, "guided inquiry" and "argumentation," on students' conceptual understanding of the conservation of matter. Conservation of matter is a central concept in middle school science curriculum and a prerequisite upon which rests more complex constructs in chemistry. The results indicate that guided…

The Relations among Family Functioning, Class Environment, and Gratitude in Chinese Elementary School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bai, Yu; Jin, Leili

2016-01-01

Gratitude is a key construct in positive psychology. Previous studies seldom examined the salient contextual correlates of gratitude in early adolescence in non-Western society. This study examined the relations among family functioning, class environment, and gratitude in a sample of 202 Chinese elementary school students. The results showed that…

A Framework for Proofs and Refutations in School Mathematics: Increasing Content by Deductive Guessing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Komatsu, Kotaro

2016-01-01

The process of proofs and refutations described by Lakatos is essential in school mathematics to provide students with an opportunity to experience how mathematical knowledge develops dynamically within the discipline of mathematics. In this paper, a framework for describing student processes of proofs and refutations is constructed using a set of…

Mexican Origin Students in the Borderlands: The Construction of Social Identity in the School Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Villarreal Sosa, Leticia

2011-01-01

There has been continued concern over the continued high dropout rate among Mexican origin youth. The purpose of this study is to understand how everyday experiences in school shape the content and meaning of Mexican origin students' social identities and how those social identities influence their academic trajectories over the transition to…

Engineering-Based Problem Solving in the Middle School: Design and Construction with Simple Machines

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

English, Lyn D.; Hudson, Peter; Dawes, Les

2013-01-01

Incorporating engineering concepts into middle school curriculum is seen as an effective way to improve students' problem-solving skills. A selection of findings is reported from a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-based unit in which students in the second year (grade 8) of a three-year longitudinal study explored…

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in an Elementary School: Students' Engagement in Higher Order Thinking

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lim, Cher Ping; Tay, Lee Yong

2003-01-01

Based on a case study of an elementary school in Singapore, this article describes and analyzes how different types of ICT tools (informative, situating, constructive, and communicative tools) are used to engage students in higher-order thinking. The discussion emphasizes that the objective of the lesson and the orienting activities, rather than…

Teacher Adaptations to a Core Reading Program: Increasing Access to Curriculum for Elementary Students in Urban Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maniates, Helen

2017-01-01

This article examines how three urban elementary school teachers adapted pedagogical strategies from a school district--adopted core reading program to increase their students' access to the curriculum. Using teacher interviews and classroom observations to construct a descriptive case study of teacher adaptation, analysis reveals that the…

Blueprint for Establishing an Effective Postbaccalaureate Medical School Pre-Entry Program for Educationally Disadvantaged Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blakely, Alan W.; Broussard, Larry G.

2003-01-01

The structure, experiences, and results of the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine's Postbaccalaureate Reapplicant Program are used as a case study to construct a blueprint for returning 85-90 percent of program participants to shortage areas while increasing minority student admissions. This success rate has been achieved through…

Effects of State Policies on Facilities Planning and Construction in Rural Districts. ERIC Digest.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lawrence, Barbara Kent

State policies greatly affect the decisions rural districts make about building or renovating school facilities. State, federal, and local mechanisms for funding school facilities are briefly described. Some states require a specific percentage of growth or decline in student population or a minimum number of students as a prerequisite for…

The Effects of Participating in a Multi-Media Social Skills Intervention on the Social Functioning of Three Middle School Students with IEPs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Geiger, Michael Damon, Jr.

2012-01-01

Students with emotional disturbance exhibit difficulty interpreting and responding appropriately to social situations occurring in the community, home, and school. Interactive multimedia instruction has advanced to the degree that it is possible to create learning environments that encourage active problem solving and knowledge construction. This…

Developing Verbal Talent: Ideas and Strategies for Teachers of Elementary and Middle School Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

VanTassel-Baska, Joyce, Ed.; Johnson, Dana T., Ed.; Boyce, Linda Neal, Ed.

This book provides ideas and strategies for developing verbal talents in elementary and middle school students. Chapters include: (1) "The Process of Talent Development" (Joyce VanTassel-Baska); (2) "Talent Identification and Development in the Language Arts" (A. Harry Passow); (3) "Reading, Writing, and the Construction of Meaning" (Nancy Nelson…

Coping Strategies of Part-Time MBA Students: The Role of Boundary Management

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dunagan, Marion

2012-01-01

Using the framework of boundary theory as applied to the work-life-school construct, the study focused on part-time MBA students who worked full-time, their tendency to segment or integrate their numerous roles, and the coping tactics they utilized in redistributing their efforts as they added graduate school to these roles. The research…

Web 2.0 and Self-Reported Student Performance among High School Students in Rural Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cash, Joseph Carl

2010-01-01

This research intends to contribute to the current literature available on the appropriate levels of utilizing Web 2.0 resources in the classroom, therefore, amicably submitting the study's results collaboration of a dynamic theoretical construct for pedagogy in the digital age. Educators must contend with and adapt to cognitive changes within…

Constructing Inclusive Education in a Neo-Liberal Context: Promoting Inclusion of Arab-Australian Students in an Australian Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kamp, Annelies; Mansouri, Fethi

2010-01-01

School systems are a major social change agent capable of challenging social inequalities and economic disadvantages. Yet, while schools in Australia are being confronted with increasingly culturally diverse populations as well as an increasing focus on student retention, this transformative role is increasingly being played out in a broader…

The comparative effect of individually-generated vs. collaboratively-generated computer-based concept mapping on science concept learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kwon, So Young

Using a quasi-experimental design, the researcher investigated the comparative effects of individually-generated and collaboratively-generated computer-based concept mapping on middle school science concept learning. Qualitative data were analyzed to explain quantitative findings. One hundred sixty-one students (74 boys and 87 girls) in eight, seventh grade science classes at a middle school in Southeast Texas completed the entire study. Using prior science performance scores to assure equivalence of student achievement across groups, the researcher assigned the teacher's classes to one of the three experimental groups. The independent variable, group, consisted of three levels: 40 students in a control group, 59 students trained to individually generate concept maps on computers, and 62 students trained to collaboratively generate concept maps on computers. The dependent variables were science concept learning as demonstrated by comprehension test scores, and quality of concept maps created by students in experimental groups as demonstrated by rubric scores. Students in the experimental groups received concept mapping training and used their newly acquired concept mapping skills to individually or collaboratively construct computer-based concept maps during study time. The control group, the individually-generated concept mapping group, and the collaboratively-generated concept mapping group had equivalent learning experiences for 50 minutes during five days, excepting that students in a control group worked independently without concept mapping activities, students in the individual group worked individually to construct concept maps, and students in the collaborative group worked collaboratively to construct concept maps during their study time. Both collaboratively and individually generated computer-based concept mapping had a positive effect on seventh grade middle school science concept learning but neither strategy was more effective than the other. However, the students who collaboratively generated concept maps created significantly higher quality concept maps than those who individually generated concept maps. The researcher concluded that the concept mapping software, Inspiration(TM), fostered construction of students' concept maps individually or collaboratively for science learning and helped students capture their evolving creative ideas and organize them for meaningful learning. Students in both the individual and the collaborative concept mapping groups had positive attitudes toward concept mapping using Inspiration(TM) software.

Student Involvement: A Bridge to Total Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

North Carolina State Dept. of Public Instruction, Raleigh.

This document, prepared by students involved in the Task Force on Student Involvement program, provides guidelines for administrators who are attempting to enhance constructive student participation in the total educational program. An outline of specific recommendations for dealing with high school unrest is followed by general recommendations…

Exclusion, Engagement and Identity Construction in a Socioeconomically Diverse Middle School Wind Band Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hoffman, Adria Rachel

2012-01-01

The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the wind band classroom as a social context and examine its influence on middle-school students' identity constructions. The integration of sociologically based identity theory and social identity theory from social psychology suggested by Deaux and Martin as well as Stets and Burke proved…

Assessing Learning Progression of Energy Concepts across Middle School Grades: The Knowledge Integration Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Hee-Sun; Liu, Ou Lydia

2010-01-01

We use a construct-based assessment approach to measure learning progression of energy concepts across physical, life, and earth science contexts in middle school grades. We model the knowledge integration construct in six levels in terms of the numbers of ideas and links used in student-generated explanations. For this study, we selected 10 items…

Academic Motivation Scale: adaptation and psychometric analyses for high school and college students.

PubMed

Stover, Juliana Beatriz; de la Iglesia, Guadalupe; Boubeta, Antonio Rial; Liporace, Mercedes Fernández

2012-01-01

The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS), supported in Self-Determination Theory, has been applied in recent decades as well in high school as in college education. Although several versions in Spanish are available, the underlying linguistic and cultural differences raise important issues when they are applied to Latin-American population. Consequently an adapted version of the AMS was developed, and its construct validity was analyzed in Argentine students. Results obtained on a sample that included 723 students from Buenos Aires (393 high school and 330 college students) verified adequate psychometric properties in this new version, solving some controversies regarded to its dimensionality.

Academic Motivation Scale: adaptation and psychometric analyses for high school and college students

PubMed Central

Stover, Juliana Beatriz; de la Iglesia, Guadalupe; Boubeta, Antonio Rial; Liporace, Mercedes Fernández

2012-01-01

The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS), supported in Self-Determination Theory, has been applied in recent decades as well in high school as in college education. Although several versions in Spanish are available, the underlying linguistic and cultural differences raise important issues when they are applied to Latin-American population. Consequently an adapted version of the AMS was developed, and its construct validity was analyzed in Argentine students. Results obtained on a sample that included 723 students from Buenos Aires (393 high school and 330 college students) verified adequate psychometric properties in this new version, solving some controversies regarded to its dimensionality. PMID:22888280

High School Beef Farm is Career Education Center

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herren, Ray

1976-01-01

The beef farm at Gaylesville High School, Gaylesville, Alabama, has provided an opportunity for students to gain work experience in a variety of areas including construction, animal care, and packing plant procedures. (LH)

Conative aptitudes in science learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jackson, Douglas Northrop, III

2000-09-01

The conative domain of aptitude constructs spans the domains of individual differences in motivation and volition. This research sampled a broad range of conative constructs, including achievement motivation, anxiety, goal orientations, and interest, among others. The purpose was threefold: (a) to explore relationships among conative constructs hypothesized to affect student commitment to learning and subsequent performance, (b) to determine whether or not individual differences in conative constructs were associated with the learning activities and time-on-task of students learning science, and (c) to ascertain whether or not the conative constructs and the time and activity variables were associated with performance differences in a paper-and-pencil science recall measure. This research consisted of three separate studies. Study I involved 60 U.S. college students. In Study II, 234 Canadian high school students participated. These two studies investigated the construct validity of a selection of conative constructs. A principal components analysis of the measures was undertaken and yielded seven components: Pursuit of Excellence, Evaluation Anxiety, Self-Reported Grades, Science Confidence, Science Interest vs. Science Ambivalence, Performance Orientation, and Verbal Ability. For Study III, 82 Canadian high school students completed the same conative questionnaires as were administered in Study II. A computerized environment patterned after an internet browser allowed students to learn about disease-causing microbes. The environment yielded aggregate measures of the time spent learning science, the time spent playing games, the number of games played, and the number of science-related learning activities engaged in by each student. Following administration of the computerized learning environment, students were administered a paper-and pencil science recall measure. Study III found support for the educational importance of the conative variables. Among the principal components, the strongest positive relationship was found between Science Interest vs. Science Ambivalence and performance on the recall measure. Scores on the conative variables were also correlated with both the time and activity variables from the computerized learning task. The implications of the findings are discussed with regard to the construct validation of conative constructs, the use of conative constructs for future educational research, and the design of computerized learning environments for both educational research and applied use.

The Implementation of Character Education Model Based on Empowerment Theatre for Primary School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anggraini, Purwati; Kusniarti, Tuti

2016-01-01

This study aimed at constructing character education model implemented in primary school. The research method was qualitative with five samples in total, comprising primary schools in Malang city/regency and one school as a pilot model. The pilot model was instructed by theatre coach teacher, parents, and school society. The result showed that…

Results of Student-Generated 'Unique Characteristics' on the Medical Student Performance Evaluation.

PubMed

Holloway, Richard; Domack, Aaron; Treat, Robert; Roo, Koenraad De

2016-06-01

The Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE)--formerly called the dean's letter--is an important tool for residency program directors to use in assessing student qualifications for both invitation to interview and construction of their rank order list. Many institutions are now allowing students to construct their own Unique Characteristics (UC) section for the MSPE. This study addresses the results of allowing students to construct their own UC. The goal of this study was to allow students to voice their thoughts regarding their participation in the construction of the UC section of the MSPE. The survey evaluated student attitude toward, value of, and support for the UC section. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of all fourth-year medical students at the Medical College of Wisconsin during the 2014-2015 academic year. Responses were received from 66% of students (133 out of 199). We developed a question bank to cover the aims of the study--to assess student perceived value, experience writing, and support for the UC section. There was agreement among students that their participation will positively affect their candidacy for interview selection and success in the match. Overall significance of regression model P = .001, R2. = .60. Additionally, students believed they had an advantage over applicants at other schools without the opportunity to draft their UC. Other findings included that men found the task more challenging, psychiatry applicants were least satisfied with the character count, and emergency medicine applicants voiced the lowest value for the UC section. The present study supports, in general terms, the utility and value of students drafting their own UC section of the MSPE. Future investigations should focus on expanding to other schools, comparing public to private institutions, and refining the interspecialty comparisons.

A Framework for Assessing High School Students' Statistical Reasoning.

PubMed

Chan, Shiau Wei; Ismail, Zaleha; Sumintono, Bambang

2016-01-01

Based on a synthesis of literature, earlier studies, analyses and observations on high school students, this study developed an initial framework for assessing students' statistical reasoning about descriptive statistics. Framework descriptors were established across five levels of statistical reasoning and four key constructs. The former consisted of idiosyncratic reasoning, verbal reasoning, transitional reasoning, procedural reasoning, and integrated process reasoning. The latter include describing data, organizing and reducing data, representing data, and analyzing and interpreting data. In contrast to earlier studies, this initial framework formulated a complete and coherent statistical reasoning framework. A statistical reasoning assessment tool was then constructed from this initial framework. The tool was administered to 10 tenth-grade students in a task-based interview. The initial framework was refined, and the statistical reasoning assessment tool was revised. The ten students then participated in the second task-based interview, and the data obtained were used to validate the framework. The findings showed that the students' statistical reasoning levels were consistent across the four constructs, and this result confirmed the framework's cohesion. Developed to contribute to statistics education, this newly developed statistical reasoning framework provides a guide for planning learning goals and designing instruction and assessments.

Primary and Secondary Students' Motivation in Learning English: Grade and Gender Differences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yeung, Alexander Seeshing; Lau, Shun; Nie, Youyan

2011-01-01

Student motivation may have significant influences on essential academic outcomes. However, students' motivation may decline as they grow older. This study examined six motivation constructs (self-efficacy, interest, mastery goal orientation, engagement, avoidance coping, and effort withdrawal) of students from 78 schools in Singapore (N = 4214)…

Picture This Curriculum.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Center for Understanding the Built Environment, Prairie Village, KS.

This curriculum packet of teacher-developed lesson plans, intended for use with students in middle and/or high schools, focuses on student involvement in community projects. The first lesson plan, "Physics Park" (Scott McQuerry), aims for students to construct a playground and the examine the physics behind the playground's equipment. Students use…

Students' Understanding of Advanced Properties of Java Exceptions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rashkovits, Rami; Lavy, Ilana

2012-01-01

This study examines how Information Systems Engineering School students on the verge of their graduation understand the mechanism of exception handling. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: we construct a questionnaire aimed at examining students' level of understanding concerning exceptions; we classify and analyse the students'…

The Impact of School Facility Construction and Renovation on Academic Achievement in Texas

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holmes, Shannon J.

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the possible relationship between school facility conditions and student academic achievement. Participating schools designated as having new facilities were determined by the campus earning an Educational Appropriateness Award from the Texas Association of School Boards between 2005 and 2009. Older…

Sustainability in Schools: Why Green Buildings Have Become a Catalyst

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barr, Stephanie; Dunbar, Brian; Schiller, Craig

2012-01-01

With the increase in both green school construction and research linking green schools to healthier students, higher performance and financial return on investment, it is no surprise that the green school design practices are quickly becoming standard practice. This is reason for celebration, yet there are still many mountains to climb to achieve…

School Autonomy, Accountability and Collaboration: A Critical Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keddie, Amanda

2015-01-01

English education has recently experienced radical policy reform in the areas of school autonomy and accountability. The key focus of this paper is on how schools might best navigate through these policy moves. It highlights how these moves have constructed schools, teachers and students in problematic ways but also how they are offering…

Schools Ethos and the Construction of Masculine Identity: Do Schools Create, Condone and Sustain Aggression?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carter, Charlotte

2002-01-01

An action research project in a British boys' school found the dominant school ethos to include an authoritarian style and an expectation of predetermined masculinity. The ethos was maintained by explicit and implicit encouragement of aggressive behavior. Students exhibited low self-esteem, deficit interpersonal skills, nonparticipation, and…

The Promise and the Caution of Resilience Models for Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doll, Beth; Jones, Kristin; Osborn, Allison; Dooley, Kadie; Turner, April

2011-01-01

Resilience is a very useful construct for framing school mental health services to children and is particularly applicable to mental health services in school settings. Still, resilience perspectives should not be overgeneralized to school mental health practice because risk and resilience wax and wane over time and daily decisions about students'…

Constructing Global Competence through Relationship Building in Mexican High Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Petro, Lisa; Garin, Maria Jose Pineda

2017-01-01

As globalization speeds forward, there is immense pressure on school systems to keep up with the changing world. School leaders and teachers must continuously reevaluate their students' needs and consider the forces that will shape their futures. Learn how a dynamic, multi-campus high school in Mexico reimagined its approach to global competence…

Low-level violence in schools: is there an association between school safety measures and peer victimization?

PubMed

Blosnich, John; Bossarte, Robert

2011-02-01

Low-level violent behavior, particularly school bullying, remains a critical public health issue that has been associated with negative mental and physical health outcomes. School-based prevention programs, while a valuable line of defense to stave off bullying, have shown inconsistent results in terms of decreasing bullying. This study explored whether school safety measures (eg, security guards, cameras, ID badges) were associated with student reports of different forms of peer victimization related to bullying. Data came from the 2007 School Crime Supplement of the National Crime Victimization Survey. Chi-square tests of independence were used to examine differences among categorical variables. Logistic regression models were constructed for the peer victimization outcomes. A count variable was constructed among the bullying outcomes (0-7) with which a Poisson regression model was constructed to analyze school safety measures' impacts on degree of victimization. Of the various school safety measures, only having adults in hallways resulted in a significant reduction in odds of being physically bullied, having property vandalized, or having rumors spread. In terms of degree of victimization, having adults and/or staff supervising hallways was associated with an approximate 26% decrease in students experiencing an additional form of peer victimization. Results indicated that school safety measures overall were not associated with decreased reports of low-level violent behaviors related to bullying. More research is needed to further explore what best promotes comprehensive safety in schools. © 2011, American School Health Association.

The relationship between constructivist supervisory practices, school climate, and student proficiency in reading, mathematics, and science: Evidence from NELS:88

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Molnar, John Alexander

In an effort to improve instruction and student learning, school reform efforts have become prevalent. School reformers have examined many aspects of the school experience, including learning theories such as behaviorism and constructivism, the changing roles of teachers and supervisors, and even the concept of the school itself. The theoretical framework for this study centered around constructivist learning theory. The study itself focused on the application of constructivist learning theory to the supervisory process. The study examined five areas of interest: (a) teachers' perceptions of constructivist supervisory behavior; (b) teachers' perceptions of efficacy and control in the classroom; (c) teachers' perceptions of school climate; (d) teachers' perceptions of job satisfaction, and (e) the influences of each of the aforementioned on student proficiency in mathematics, reading, and science. Data for the study was drawn from the first follow-up survey of the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS: 88). NELS: 88 investigated a wide variety of factors that influence the educational process. The first follow-up focuses on environmental factors that affect teachers and students. Variables were selected from the NELS:88 data set that represented the areas to be examined. Factor analysis and correlational analysis were applied to ensure that the variables were measuring distinct constructs and to determine ways they could be grouped for analysis. Multiple linear regression analysis was applied to determine relationships among the individual and composite variables, controlling for student and teacher demographic factors. The results of the study suggest that varying relationships do exist between constructivist supervisory practices and the constructs measuring school climate and job satisfaction. The results also suggest that varying relationships exist between each of these factors and student proficiency in mathematics, reading, and science. Specifically, school climate, job satisfaction, and student proficiency were influenced by constructivist supervisory practices that included teachers' freedom to experiment with teaching and teachers' control over texts and materials.

An exploration of the relationship between academic and experiential learning approaches in vocational education.

PubMed

de Jong, Jan A Stavenga; Wierstra, Ronny F A; Hermanussen, José

2006-03-01

Research on individual learning approaches (or learning styles) is split in two traditions, one of which is biased towards academic learning, and the other towards learning from direct experience. In the reported study, the two traditions are linked by investigating the relationships between school-based (academic) and work-based (experiential) learning approaches of students in vocational education programs. Participants were 899 students of a Dutch school for secondary vocational education; 758 provided data on school-based learning, and 407 provided data on work-based learning, resulting in an overlap of 266 students from whom data were obtained on learning in both settings. Learning approaches in school and work settings were measured with questionnaires. Using factor analysis and cluster analysis, items and students were grouped, both with respect to school- and work-based learning. The study identified two academic learning dimensions (constructive learning and reproductive learning), and three experiential learning dimensions (analysis, initiative, and immersion). Construction and analysis were correlated positively, and reproduction and initiative negatively. Cluster analysis resulted in the identification of three school-based learning orientations and three work-based learning orientations. The relation between the two types of learning orientations, expressed in Cramér's V, appeared to be weak. It is concluded that learning approaches are relatively context specific, which implies that neither theoretical tradition can claim general applicability.

Discourse Appropriation, Construction of Identities, and the Complex Issue of Plagiarism: ESL Students Writing in Graduate School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abasi, Ali R.; Akbari, Nahal; Graves, Barbara

2006-01-01

Recent research on academic writing has established the intersection of writing and identity. However, it is not clear whether writers themselves are aware of this link. In this study, we investigated five ESL graduate students' awareness of the identities that they constructed through the appropriation of others' words and ideas in their texts.…

One of the Boys: Constructions of Disengagement and Criteria for Being a Successful Student

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grønborg, Lisbeth

2013-01-01

The article discusses how a peer group culture in the school setting, embedded in conflicting fields of work and education, co-constructs student disengagement. Disengagement is traditionally linked with dropout and engagement with completion, but the study shows that this relation is not so linear. The data are based on a field study, where the…

The Role of Institutional, Family and Peer-Based Discourses and Practices in the Construction of Students' Socio-Academic Trajectories

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Poveda, David; Jociles, Maria Isabel; Franze, Adela; Moscoso, Maria Fernanda; Calvo, Albano

2012-01-01

In this article, we discuss findings from multi-level ethnography conducted in a secondary school located in Madrid (Spain). The study focuses on the variety of institutional, family and peer-based factors that contribute to the construction of students' socio-academic trajectories. In particular, we attempt to understand the role these social…

Effect of Constructivist Based Training on Learning and Teaching: An Experiment in Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pandey, Laxmi; Ameta, Devendra

2017-01-01

The aim of the study was to study the effect of constructive based training approach on teachers' attitude and students' achievement. The study comprised 80 students of class VI from Nagar Palika Girls Middle School Balmiki Basti New Delhi and Nagar Palika Girls Sr. Sec. School, Havelock Square, New Delhi. A quasi experimental pre-test and…

Epistemic Beliefs of Middle and High School Students in a Problem-Based, Scientific Inquiry Unit: An Exploratory, Mixed Methods Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gu, Jiangyue

2016-01-01

Epistemic beliefs are individuals' beliefs about the nature of knowledge, how knowledge is constructed, and how knowledge can be justified. This study employed a mixed-methods approach to examine: (a) middle and high school students' self-reported epistemic beliefs (quantitative) and epistemic beliefs revealed from practice (qualitative) during a…

The Internet in the Everyday Life-World: A Comparison between High-School Students in China and Norway

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Fengshu

2010-01-01

Based on in-depth interviews, this study offers a comparison of how high-school students in China and Norway are actively constructing the Internet as an element of their everyday lives. Through the Schutzian notions of everyday life-world, social-biographical situation and relevance, the study has revealed striking differences between the Chinese…

Constructing a High-Stakes Community in the Classroom: A Case Study of One Urban Middle-School Teacher

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rothrock, Racheal M.

2017-01-01

A teacher at an urban middle school worked to become part of her students' communities and utilized the notion of community within her pedagogy. Her example offers hope that engaging with students' communities and building community within the classroom are attainable and valuable goals. Her example also demonstrates that the concept of community…

Norms and Construct Validity of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale in Canadian High School Populations: Implications for Counselling.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bagley, Christopher; Bolitho, Floyd; Bertrand, Lorne

1997-01-01

Reports on instrument validity regarding self-esteem among high school students (N=2,108) in the Province of Alberta. Results indicate significant variation of mean scores across age-groups within female students even though females had significantly lower self-esteem than males. Findings support the reliability of the self-esteem instrument. (RJM)

A Case Study on the Personal Constructs of How Stakeholders of a Regional Alternative Day School Facility Make Meaning of the Physical Plant

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schultz, Penny D.

2011-01-01

This case study involved an examination of stakeholders' (parents, community members, staff members, students) perceptions of how they made meaning of a regional alternative day school located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Individual interviews were conducted with the parents, community members, and students. One focus group interview was…

The Right to "Bricolage": Catholic Pupils' Perception of Their Religious Identity and the Implications for Catholic Schools in England

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Casson, Ann

2011-01-01

The present article highlights one of the challenges faced by the Catholic Church in maintaining the Catholicity of Catholic schools in England, that is to say, the students' construction of a fragmented Catholic identity from elements of the Catholic faith tradition. The article explores Catholic students' perceptions of their Catholic identity.…

Development of Elementary School Students' Cognitive Structures and Information Processing Strategies under Long-Term Constructivist-Oriented Science Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wu, Ying-Tien; Tsai, Chin-Chung

2005-01-01

The main purpose of this study was to explore the effects of long-term constructivist-oriented science instruction on elementary school students' process of constructing cognitive structures. Furthermore, such effects on different science achievers were also investigated. The subjects of this study were 69 fifth graders in Taiwan, while they were…

Results of the 2004 DesignShare POE Program: Students and Teachers Tell Us what They Really Think

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lackney, Jeffery A.

2004-01-01

DesignShare/School Construction News (DS/SCN) Jurists have often critically reflected on their desire to know more about how teachers and students really experience so-called innovative award-winning schools. Through the DesignShare Post-Occupancy Evaluation Program, the intention is to give voice to the individuals whose lives are directly…

Testing the Factorial Invariance of the English and Filipino Versions of the Inventory of School Motivation with Bilingual Students in the Philippines

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ganotice, Fraide A., Jr.; Bernardo, Allan B. I.; King, Ronnel B.

2012-01-01

The study explored the invariance of Filipino and English versions of the Inventory of School Motivation (ISM) for Filipino-English bilingual students. There was invariance in the factor structure and factor loadings across the two language versions. Between-network construct validation showed consistent associations between ISM-mastery goals and…

Evaluation of English Achievement Test: A Comparison between High and Low Achievers amongst Selected Elementary School Students of Pakistan

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haider, Zubair; Latif, Farah; Akhtar, Samina; Mushtaq, Maria

2012-01-01

Validity, reliability and item analysis are critical to the process of evaluating the quality of an educational measurement. The present study evaluates the quality of an assessment constructed to measure elementary school student's achievement in English. In this study, the survey model of descriptive research was used as a research method.…

Politics, Media and Youth: Understanding Political Socialization via Video Production in Secondary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dunsmore, Kate; Lagos, Taso G.

2008-01-01

Research on the lack of civic and political engagement on the part of today's youth has relied on traditional, often quantitative, measures of political knowledge that may miss important elements of the process. Using an ethnographic approach with a group of inner-city high school students, our study reveals a richer construction of students'…

Construction Exploration. Practical Arts. Instructor's Manual. Competency-Based Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keeton, Martha; And Others

This manual provides curriculum materials for implementing a career exploration class in construction occupations within a Practical Arts Education program for middle/junior high school students. Introductory materials include the program master sequence, a list of construction occupations, and an overview of the competency-based instructional…

The Association Between School Bonding and Smoking Amongst Chilean Adolescents.

PubMed

Gaete, Jorge; Montgomery, Alan; Araya, Ricardo

2015-01-01

The objective of the research was to study the association between school bonding dimensions (school commitment and school attachment) and current adolescent smoking in Chile, controlling for confounding variables using the fifth Chilean School Population National Substance Use Survey, 2003 (CHSS-2003) data set. The CHSS-2003 is a stratified cross-sectional survey that gathers information about personal, familial, peer, and school factors and cigarette use using a self-reported questionnaire. Complete data from 21,956 adolescent students for all the variables of interest were used in the analyses. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed in order to explore the construct validity of the questionnaire and create the main exposure and potential confounding variables. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were undertaken to study the association between school bonding and smoking. The construct validity of the school attachment and school commitment scales was mainly supported by the EFA. Multivariable analyses showed strong evidence that, after adjusting for factors from different domains, school commitment (student's good grades and school attendance) appears to have a clear inverse association with current smoking (odds ratio [OR]=0.46, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.38-0.56). On the other hand, school attachment (their feelings towards their school and their teachers) was not associated with adolescent smoking (OR=1.16, 95% CI: 0.88-1.53). School commitment was strongly associated with current smoking. It is important to further study this variable with the aim of ascertaining whether or not interventions that improve school commitment may prevent or reduce smoking amongst adolescent students.

Developmental changes and gender effects on motivational constructs based on the expectancy-value model in Czech and United States students regarding learning of science, mathematics, and other subjects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Eun-Mi

This study employed American and Czech student samples to investigate the motivational constructs used in Eccles and Wigfield's (1983) expectancy-value model. To predict achievement behavior, the model specifies relationships among expectancy for-success and task value, task-specific self-concept, perception of task-difficulty, perceptions of social environment, and interpretations and attributions for past events in relation to the social world. Czech and American students (n = 1,145) in grades 4--12 were the participants in this study. The causal relationships among the constructs were tested to investigate structural similarities and differences in the models for both countries. This study also explored developmental changes, gender, and national differences in the students' motivational beliefs for these motivational constructs: Expectancy for Success, Intrinsic Interest Value, Task-specific Self-concept, Perception of Task-difficulty, and Perceived Vocational Gender Dominance for science, mathematics, and other school subjects. The findings indicated that, for both countries, with respect to changes over grade level, compared to the younger students, the older students showed lower motivational beliefs for most subject areas except reading. However, the Czech students in grades 6--8 showed more positive motivational beliefs in life science and social studies than did the Czech students in other grade levels. In comparing genders, the male students exhibited more positive motivational beliefs in physical science than did the female students, and female students showed more positive motivational beliefs in reading than did the male students. For life science, the Czech female students rated Intrinsic Interest Value and Task-specific Self-concept higher than did their peer male students. The American students' motivational beliefs in reading were more positive than were Czech students', and the Czech students held more positive motivational beliefs in life science than did the American students. With minor variations for each country, the expectancy-value model provided a reasonable tool for understanding the causal relationships among the motivational beliefs. For the Czech sample, Perception of Task-difficulty was a strong negative predictor for Expectancy for Success for most school subjects except life science whereas, for the American sample, it was a weak but significant negative predictor for Intrinsic Interest Value for most school subjects except social studies. Implications for science education are discussed.

Association of School District Policies for Radon Testing and Radon-Resistant New Construction Practices with Indoor Radon Zones.

PubMed

Foster, Stephanie; Everett Jones, Sherry

2016-12-13

Radon is a naturally occurring, colorless, odorless, and tasteless radioactive gas. Without testing, its presence is unknown. Using nationally representative data from the 2012 School Health Policies and Practices Study, we examined whether the prevalence of school district policies for radon testing and for radon-resistant new construction practices varied by district location in relation to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Map of Radon Zones. Among school districts located in counties with high predicted average indoor radon, 42.4% had policies for radon testing and 37.5% had policies for radon-resistant new construction practices. These findings suggest a critical need for improved awareness among policy makers regarding potential radon exposure for both students and school staff.

Association of School District Policies for Radon Testing and Radon-Resistant New Construction Practices with Indoor Radon Zones

PubMed Central

Foster, Stephanie; Everett Jones, Sherry

2016-01-01

Radon is a naturally occurring, colorless, odorless, and tasteless radioactive gas. Without testing, its presence is unknown. Using nationally representative data from the 2012 School Health Policies and Practices Study, we examined whether the prevalence of school district policies for radon testing and for radon-resistant new construction practices varied by district location in relation to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Map of Radon Zones. Among school districts located in counties with high predicted average indoor radon, 42.4% had policies for radon testing and 37.5% had policies for radon-resistant new construction practices. These findings suggest a critical need for improved awareness among policy makers regarding potential radon exposure for both students and school staff. PMID:27983613

Hierarchical and Multidimensional Academic Self-Concept of Commercial Students.

PubMed

Yeung; Chui; Lau

1999-10-01

Adapting the Marsh (1990) Academic Self-Description Questionnaire (ASDQ), this study examined the academic self-concept of students in a school of commerce in Hong Kong (N = 212). Confirmatory factor analysis found that students clearly distinguished among self-concept constructs in English, Chinese, Math and Statistics, Economics, and Principles of Accounting, and each of these constructs was highly associated with a global Academic self-concept construct, reflecting the validity of each construct in measuring an academic component of self-concept. Domain-specific self-concepts were more highly related with students' intention of course selection in corresponding areas than in nonmatching areas, further supporting the multidimensionality of the students' academic self-concept. Students' self-concepts in the five curriculum domains can be represented by the global Academic self-concept, supporting the hierarchical structure of students' academic self-concept in an educational institution with a specific focus, such as commercial studies. The academic self-concepts of the commercial students are both multidimensional and hierarchical. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.

Sex Equity: Factors Associated with Nontraditional Vocational Enrollments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Veres, Helen C.; And Others

1982-01-01

Information was collected from high school students and their parents, teachers, and counselors to examine factors influential in students' career and program decisions. Students were selected from general curriculum and vocational tracks, the latter including construction and maintenance trades, drafting, electronics, and cosmetology. (Author/GC)

Change in weight status and academic performance among senior high school students in Taiwan.

PubMed

Liao, Pei-An; Chang, Hung-Hao; Wang, Jiun-Hao; Wu, Min-Chen

2015-01-01

This study examines how the changes in weight status across the spectrum of a senior high school study are associated with academic performance measured by the university entrance exam scores. A unique dataset which compiles a national health examination profile and the General Scholastic Ability Test data bank in Taiwan was constructed. The final sample comprised 149,240 senior high school students of which 70,662 were males and 78,578 were female students. The school-level fixed effect models were estimated. Students who were either (a) not overweight in the first year but overweight in the third year of senior high school, (b) overweight in both the first and third year, or (c) overweight in the first year but not overweight in the third year, were more likely to score lower on the university entrance exam, compared with their never-overweight counterparts. The findings differ by gender and test subjects. The change in weight status during senior high school period is associated with subsequent university entrance exam outcome. Students who start senior high school being overweight should be paid attention. School-based programs and practices need to be implemented to reduce the prevalence of overweight among students.

School Indicators of Violence Experienced and Feeling Unsafe of Dutch LGB Versus Non-LGB Secondary Students and Staff, 2006-2010.

PubMed

Mooij, Ton

2016-12-01

Gender and sexual orientation are expressed in heterosexual, lesbian (L), gay (G), bisexual (B), transgender (T), or queer (Q) interests and behavior. Compared with heterosexual persons, LGBTQ persons seem to experience more antisocial behavior, including negative discrimination and violence. To assess differences in LGBTQ-related discrimination in schools, the question for this research is "Do the degrees of violence experienced and feeling unsafe of LGBTQ students and staff in a school differ from those of non-LGBTQ students and staff in the same school?" Secondary analysis was carried out on data from a Dutch national digital monitor survey on safety in secondary schools. In 2006, 2008, and 2010, participation amounted to 570 schools, 18,300 teaching and support staff, and 216,000 students. Four indicators were constructed at the school level: two Mokken Scale means assessing severity of violence experienced and two Alpha Scale means assessing feeling unsafe. Analysis of mean differences showed that LGB students experienced more violence and felt less safe than non-LGB students; LGB staff felt less safe in school than non-LGB staff. When LGB students experienced more violence at school than non-LGB students, LGB students also felt less safe than non-LGB students for all 3 years. No such relationships existed for LGB staff, or between LGB staff and LGB students. No significant relationships were found between the four LGB school indicators and contextual school variables. The outcomes and uniqueness of the study are discussed. Recommendations are made to improve assessment and promote prosocial behavior of students and staff in schools. © The Author(s) 2015.

Vignettes of scholars: A case study of black male students at a STEM early college high school

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Adams, Tempestt Richardson

Ensuring students graduate high school ready to enter college or the workforce has become a prime focus within secondary education. High school graduates are often ill-prepared for college-level work and often have to register for remedial courses before they can take standard college level courses (Southern Regional Education Board, 2010). Serving as both a solution to this concern and an alternative to traditional high schools, early college high schools were created to focus on increasing the number of students graduating from high school and enrolling in college. Early college high schools seek to serve students who have traditionally underperformed in school and those who are underrepresented in higher education including students of color, first-generation college students, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and English language learners (Barnett, Bucceri, Hindo, Kim, 2013; "Overview & FAQS," 2013). In efforts to learn more about how early colleges are meeting the needs of students, this dissertation examines the experiences, identity construction, and perceptions of Black male students at a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) based early college high school. Using a qualitative case study design, participants were eight Black male upperclassmen enrolled in a STEM early college high school, located on the campus of a four-year university. Data was collected through focus groups and individual interviews and data was analyzed thematically. Findings suggest students in this study have largely positive experiences at their early college high school. Despite some challenges, the early college high school environment helps facilitate scholar identities, and the STEM focus of the school helps students learn more about their strengths and weaknesses. The implications of the research, recommendations for educational stakeholders, and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Assessing the Learning Environment for Medical Students: An Evaluation of a Novel Survey Instrument in Four Medical Schools.

PubMed

Pololi, Linda H; Evans, Arthur T; Nickell, Leslie; Reboli, Annette C; Coplit, Lisa D; Stuber, Margaret L; Vasiliou, Vasilia; Civian, Janet T; Brennan, Robert T

2017-06-01

A practical, reliable, and valid instrument is needed to measure the impact of the learning environment on medical students' well-being and educational experience and to meet medical school accreditation requirements. From 2012 to 2015, medical students were surveyed at the end of their first, second, and third year of studies at four medical schools. The survey assessed students' perceptions of the following nine dimensions of the school culture: vitality, self-efficacy, institutional support, relationships/inclusion, values alignment, ethical/moral distress, work-life integration, gender equity, and ethnic minority equity. The internal reliability of each of the nine dimensions was measured. Construct validity was evaluated by assessing relationships predicted by our conceptual model and prior research. Assessment was made of whether the measurements were sensitive to differences over time and across institutions. Six hundred and eighty-six students completed the survey (49 % women; 9 % underrepresented minorities), with a response rate of 89 % (range over the student cohorts 72-100 %). Internal consistency of each dimension was high (Cronbach's α 0.71-0.86). The instrument was able to detect significant differences in the learning environment across institutions and over time. Construct validity was supported by demonstrating several relationships predicted by our conceptual model. The C-Change Medical Student Survey is a practical, reliable, and valid instrument for assessing the learning environment of medical students. Because it is sensitive to changes over time and differences across institution, results could potentially be used to facilitate and monitor improvements in the learning environment of medical students.

A Healthy School Is just What the Doctor Ordered

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Modern Schools, 1973

1973-01-01

Discusses key factors to be considered by local educational authorities in creating a healthful -- and consequently constructive -- environment in the school building for students, teachers, and administrators. Focuses on ventilation, air cleaning, and humidification. (EA)

Development and Analysis of a Scale for Meauring Teachers' Sense of Efficacy in Urban Schools (SEUS).

PubMed

Garner, Mary; Kokan, Julie; Annis, Kathy; Baker, Mark; Phillips, Maggie; Head, Catherine; Hearrington, Doug; Yanosky, Daniel; Holbein, Marie

2015-01-01

Research in teacher self-efficacy has a long history that can be traced back to Bandura (1986) and has been shown to be linked to teacher performance. This article presents evidence for teacher self-efficacy in urban schools, a construct that is separate from but related to the more general construct of teacher self-efficacy. An instrument was developed and validated by a team of university faculty, urban teachers, and school administrators. The Teachers' Sense of Efficacy in Urban Schools (SEUS) is a 15-item instrument designed to address factors that are important for success in teaching in an urban environment, including working effectively with English language learners, students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students, cultural diversity, literacy, technology, differentiation, and assessment data. The present study analyzes SEUS on multiple levels, using the Rasch partial credit model.

Jump-Start Inquiry: How Students Begin when They Don't Know

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fontichiaro, Kristin; Green, Julie

2010-01-01

In today's increasingly diverse schools, how can educators level the playing field for students with varied background knowledge before these students begin doing research? How can prior knowledge be awakened to give students a foundation upon which meaningful questions can be constructed? How can students be helped to know the words, terms, and…

20th Annual Residence Hall Construction Report

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Agron, Joe

2009-01-01

Even in difficult economic times, colleges and universities continue to invest in residence hall construction projects as a way to attract new students and keep existing ones on campus. According to data from "American School & University"'s 20th annual Residence Hall Construction Report, the median new project completed in 2008 was…

The Construction of Pro-Science and Technology Discourse in Chinese Language Textbooks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Yongbing

2005-01-01

This paper examines the pro-science and technology discourse constructed in Chinese language textbooks currently used for primary school students nationwide in China. By applying analytical techniques of critical discourse analysis (CDA), the paper critically investigates how the discourse is constructed and what ideological forces are manifested…

School bonding in early adolescents: Psychometrics of the brief survey of school bonding

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The comprehensive assessment of middle school student bonding is important for basic research and to evaluate interventions. Of over 30 tools reviewed, this study examined the psychometric properties of three that together assessed the four constructs identified by Hirschi as key elements. With some...

Socially Responsible Investing: It's Time for Schools to Get on Board

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Armoza, Natalia

2011-01-01

Whether it is in their professional development programs, admissions materials, or curricula, independent schools have a lot to say about environmental stewardship, equity, community service, and justice. When they send their students to rebuild post-Katrina New Orleans or construct LEED-certified structures, the schools and their constituents…

"Crazyghettosmart": A Case Study in Latina Identities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vetter, Amy M.; Fairbanks, Colleen; Ariail, Mary

2011-01-01

Drawing from recent scholarship that examines schooling and the shifting terrain of youth identities, this study examines the identity constructions of Jessica, a Latina high school student. Our portrait of Jessica is part of a larger longitudinal study in which the middle and high school experiences of three Latinas, including Jessica, were…

Measuring School Functioning in Students with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Systematic Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tollit, Michelle; Politis, Jennifer; Knight, Sarah

2018-01-01

Background: It is often surmised that school functioning is significantly impacted in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS); however, how this phenomenon manifests itself has rarely been characterized. Methods: This systematic review synthesized and critically appraised methods, constructs, and instruments used to assess school functioning in students…

Managing Conflict: 50 Strategies for School Leaders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Edmonson, Stacey; Combs, Julie; Harris, Sandra

2008-01-01

This book offers 50 easy-to-read strategies for managing conflicts in your school involving students, parents, and teachers. Individually, these strategies provide specific insights into conflict resolution, reduction, and management. As a whole, the 50 strategies provide a comprehensive method to lead constructive change in your school. With…

Sounds Like a Winner.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rittner-Heir, Robbin M.

2001-01-01

Explains how the Ocoee Middle School (Orlando, Florida) improved the ability of students to hear in their classrooms and gained improvements in their attention levels and their conduct. Specific design concepts that make Ocoee Middle School the SMART school of the future while also controlling design and construction costs are examined. (GR)

School Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lamas, Héctor A.

2015-01-01

The school performance study of students is, due to its relevance and complexity, one of the issues of major controversy in the educational research, and it has been given special attention in the last decades. This study is intended to show a conceptual approach to the school performance construct, contextualizing the reality in the regular basic…

SECONDARY SCHOOL MATHEMATICS CURRICULUM IMPROVEMENT STUDY. FINAL REPORT.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

FEHR, HOWARD F.

THIS SECONDARY SCHOOL MATHEMATICS CURRICULUM IMPROVEMENT STUDY GROUP (SSMCIS), COMPOSED OF BOTH AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN EDUCATORS, WAS GUIDED BY TWO MAIN OBJECTIVES--(1) TO CONSTRUCT AND EVALUATE A UNIFIED SECONDARY SCHOOL MATHEMATICS PROGRAM FOR GRADES 7-12 THAT WOULD TAKE THE CAPABLE STUDENT WELL INTO CURRENT COLLEGE MATHEMATICS, AND (2) DETERMINE…

Teachers guide for building and operating weather satellite ground stations for high school science

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Summers, R. J.; Gotwald, T.

1981-01-01

A number of colleges and universities are operating APT direct readout stations. However, high school science teachers have often failed to realize the potential of meteorological satellites and their products as unique instructional tools. The ability to receive daily pictures from these satellites offers exciting opportunities for secondary school teachers and students to assemble the electronic hardware and to view real time pictures of Earth from outer space. The station and pictures can be used in the classroom to develop an approach to science teaching that could span many scientific disciplines and offer many opportunities for student research and participation in scientific processes. This can be accomplished with relatively small expenditures of funds for equipment. In most schools some of the equipment may already be available. Others can be constructed by teachers and/or students. Yet another source might be the purchase of used equipment from industry or through the government surplus channels. The information necessary for individuals unfamiliar with these systems to construct a direct readout for receiving real time APT photographs on a daily basis in the classroom is presented.

enVision > Connect > Create. How Collaborative Design Shapes an "Architecture of Place"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moroz, Jeff; Klassen, Ken

2012-01-01

Hanover School Division (HSD) is located southeast of Winnipeg, Canada and is currently Manitoba's largest rural school division, with 7500 students in 18 schools. A recent wave of immigration has led to rapid growth in both numbers and diversity and the recent planning and construction of Clearspring Middle School in Steinbach is providing many…

The Construction of Parents and Teachers as Agents for the Improvement of Municipal Schools in Chile

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Montecinos, Carmen; Sisto, Vicente; Ahumada, Luis

2010-01-01

This article examines how teachers and parents in 10 municipal schools serving students growing up under conditions of social vulnerability represented themselves, and others, as valid agents for charting school improvement. In four schools parents and teachers saw each other as trustworthy and collaborating to provide an education that could…

A Multilevel Analysis of Teacher and School Academic Optimism in Taiwan Elementary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wu, Jason Hsinchieh; Lin, Chunn-Ying

2018-01-01

Research on teacher and school academic optimism has abounded ever since these two constructs were confirmed and shown to have positive effects on student achievement. However, one overlooked research question is the nested association between teacher and school academic optimism. This study intends to fill this gap by using hierarchical linear…

The Influence of Inadequate Teacher-to-Student Social Support on Amotivation of Physical Education Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shen, Bo; Li, Weidong; Sun, Haichun; Rukavina, Paul Bernard

2010-01-01

Guided by Green-Demers, Leagult, Pelletier, and Pelletier's (2008) assumption that amotivation (absence of motivation) is a multidimensional construct, we designed this study to investigate the influence of inadequate teacher-to-student social support on amotivation of high-school physical education students. Five hundred and sixty-six ninth…

To Decrease the Negative Behavior of High School Students by Increasing Pro-Social Behavior.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cabeza, Catherine

This practicum was designed to reduce the instances of negative behavior exhibited by students in a special education setting. Various interventions were initiated and implemented, such as engaging students in conflict resolution workshops, involving student in extracurricular activities so as to help them use leisure time constructively, and…

Student's Concept of Infinity in the Context of a Simple Geometrical Construct

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jirotkova, Darina; Littler, Graham

2003-01-01

The research described in this paper was undertaken to determine student-teachers' understanding of infinity in a geometrical context. The methods of analysis of students' responses is presented and these were found to be universally applicable. The findings show that school mathematics does not generally develop the students' ideas of infinity…

A phenomenological study on middle-school science teachers' perspectives on utilization of technology in the science classroom and its effect on their pedagogy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rajbanshi, Roshani

With access to technology and expectation by the mainstream, the use of technology in the classroom has become essential these days. However, the problem in science education is that with classrooms filled with technological equipment, the teaching style is didactic, and teachers employ traditional teacher-centered methods in the classroom. In addition, results of international assessments indicate that students' science learning needs to be improved. The purpose of this study is to analyze and document the lived experience of middle-school science teachers and their use of technology in personal, professional lives as well as in their classroom and to describe the phenomenon of middle-school science teachers' technological beliefs for integration of digital devices or technology as an instructional delivery tool, knowledge construction tool and learning tool. For this study, technology is defined as digital devices such as computer, laptops, digital camera, iPad that are used in the science classroom as an instructional delivery tool, as a learning tool, and as a knowledge construction tool. Constructivism is the lens, the theoretical framework that guides this qualitative phenomenological research. Observation, interview, personal journal, photo elicitation, and journal reflection are used as methods of data collection. Data was analyzed based on a constructivist theoretical framework to construct knowledge and draw conclusion. MAXQDA, a qualitative analysis software, was also used to analyze the data. The findings indicate that middle-school science teachers use technology in various ways to engage and motivate students in science learning; however, there are multiple factors that influence teachers' technology use in the class. In conclusion, teacher, students, and technology are the three sides of the triangle where technology acts as the third side or the bridge to connect teachers' content knowledge to students through the tool with which students are familiar. Keywords: Teachers' belief, science and technology, knowledge construction.

A High School Level Course On Robot Design And Construction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sadler, Paul M.; Crandall, Jack L.

1984-02-01

The Robotics Design and Construction Class at Sehome High School was developed to offer gifted and/or highly motivated students an in-depth introduction to a modern engineering topic. The course includes instruction in basic electronics, digital and radio electronics, construction skills, robotics literacy, construction of the HERO 1 Heathkit Robot, computer/ robot programming, and voice synthesis. A key element which leads to the success of the course is the involvement of various community assets including manpower and financial assistance. The instructors included a physics/electronics teacher, a computer science teacher, two retired engineers, and an electronics technician.

Epistemic beliefs of middle and high school students in a problem-based, scientific inquiry unit: An exploratory, mixed methods study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gu, Jiangyue

Epistemic beliefs are individuals' beliefs about the nature of knowledge, how knowledge is constructed, and how knowledge can be justified. This study employed a mixed-methods approach to examine: (a) middle and high school students' self-reported epistemic beliefs (quantitative) and epistemic beliefs revealed from practice (qualitative) during a problem-based, scientific inquiry unit, (b) How do middle and high school students' epistemic beliefs contribute to the construction of students' problem solving processes, and (c) how and why do students' epistemic beliefs change by engaging in PBL. Twenty-one middle and high school students participated in a summer science class to investigate local water quality in a 2-week long problem-based learning (PBL) unit. The students worked in small groups to conduct water quality tests at in their local watershed and visited several stakeholders for their investigation. Pretest and posttest versions of the Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire were conducted to assess students' self-reported epistemic beliefs before and after the unit. I videotaped and interviewed three groups of students during the unit and conducted discourse analysis to examine their epistemic beliefs revealed from scientific inquiry activities and triangulate with their self-reported data. There are three main findings from this study. First, students in this study self-reported relatively sophisticated epistemic beliefs on the pretest. However, the comparison between their self-reported beliefs and beliefs revealed from practice indicated that some students were able to apply sophisticated beliefs during the unit while others failed to do so. The inconsistency between these two types of epistemic beliefs may due to students' inadequate cognitive ability, low validity of self-report measure, and the influence of contextual factors. Second, qualitative analysis indicated that students' epistemic beliefs of the nature of knowing influenced their problem solving processes and construction of arguments during their inquiry activities. Students with more sophisticated epistemic beliefs acquired knowledge, presented solid evidence, and used it to support their claims more effectively than their peers. Third, students' self-reported epistemic beliefs became significantly more sophisticated by engaging in PBL. Findings from this study can potentially help researchers to better understand the relation between students' epistemic beliefs and their scientific inquiry practice,

Hope in the Face of Climate Change: Associations with Environmental Engagement and Student Perceptions of Teachers' Emotion Communication Style and Future Orientation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ojala, Maria

2015-01-01

Is hope concerning climate change related to environmental engagement, or is it rather associated with unrealistic optimism and inactivity? This study on Swedish high school students identified two kinds of hope: constructive hope and hope based on denial. Constructive hope was positively associated with engagement and a perception that teachers…

Car Builder: Design, Construct and Test Your Own Cars. School Version with Lesson Plans. [CD-ROM].

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Highsmith, Joni Bitman

Car Builder is a scientific CD-ROM-based simulation program that lets students design, construct, modify, test, and compare their own cars. Students can design sedans, four-wheel-drive vehicles, vans, sport cars, and hot rods. They may select for aerodynamics, power, and racing ability, or economic and fuel efficiency. It is a program that teaches…

Negotiating Competing Schemas for Discourse: A Framework and Study of Argument Construction. The Writing of Arguments across Diverse Contexts. Study 2. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Higgins, Lorraine; Flower, Linda

A study described college student writers as they constructed arguments, creating a picture of school-based argument drawn not from ideal models of arguments as envisioned by educators, but from experiences of students themselves. A three-part framework that synthesizes rhetorical perspectives on argument with a social-cognitive view of the…

The Effect of Primary School Students' Writing Attitudes and Writing Self-Efficacy Beliefs on Their Summary Writing Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bulut, Pinar

2017-01-01

In this study, the effect of writing attitude and writing self-efficacy beliefs on the summarization achievement of the 4th grade primary school students was examined using the structural equation modeling. The study employed the relational survey model. The study group constructed by means of simple random sampling method is comprised of 335…

Development and Factor Analysis of the Protective Factors Index: A Report Card Section Related to the Work of School Counselors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bass, Gwen; Lee, Ji Hee; Wells, Craig; Carey, John C.; Lee, Sangmin

2015-01-01

The scale development and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the Protective Factor Index (PFI) is described. The PFI is a 13-item component of elementary students' report cards that replaces typical items associated with student behavior. The PFI is based on the Construct-Based Approach (CBA) to school counseling, which proposes that…

Adolescent Boys' and Girls' Block Constructions Differ in Structural Balance: A Block-Building Characteristic Related to Math Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Casey, Beth M.; Pezaris, Elizabeth E.; Bassi, Julie

2012-01-01

Two studies were conducted on block building in adolescents, assessing middle school (Study 1) and high school students (Study 2). Students were asked to build something interesting with blocks. In both samples, the same pattern of gender differences were found; boys built taller structures than girls, and balanced a larger number of blocks on a…

Studies in Mathematics, Volume XVI. Some Uses of Mathematics: A Source Book for Teachers and Students of School Mathematics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bell, Max S., Ed.

This is a collection of articles dealing with mathematical applications for use by high school teachers and students. The articles are intended to illustrate several themes: (1) how mathematics is applied via construction of mathematical models; (2) the various types of activities in applied mathematics; (3) the role of pure mathematics in applied…

Impact of Simulator-Based Instruction on Diagramming in Geometrical Optics by Introductory Physics Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reiner, Miriam; And Others

1995-01-01

Observations of high school physics students in an instructional experiment with an interactive learning environment in geometrical optics indicated that students in the Optics Dynagrams Project went through major conceptual developments as reflected in the diagrams they constructed. (Author/MKR)

Constructing Scientific Literacy in Inquiry-Based Communities of Science Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lewis, Kristen Adair

2010-01-01

English Language Learners and socioeconomically disadvantaged students were studied from an ethnographic perspective in this research study. These high school students were engaged in the study of local fresh water ecology with their teacher, the researcher. Transcribed audiotapes of students' discourse, their illustrated guides to…

"Canteiro Escola"--Uma Resposta da Industria da Construcao no Contexto Produtivo Atual (The "Building Site" School--A Construction Industry Answer in the Actual Productive Context).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barone, Rosa Elisa; Letelier, Maria Eugenia

1995-01-01

Presents examples of the discourse of construction industry personnel involved in workplace basic education in Brazil. Reports on the perspective of the workers/students and on the experiences and the vision of those who implement the educational programs. Identifies the limits of the schooling process and the difficulties inherent in the present…

Changes in cognitive functions of students in the transitional period from elementary school to junior high school.

PubMed

Mizuno, Kei; Tanaka, Masaaki; Fukuda, Sanae; Sasabe, Tetsuya; Imai-Matsumura, Kyoko; Watanabe, Yasuyoshi

2011-05-01

When students proceed to junior high school from elementary school, rapid changes in the environment occur, which may cause various behavioral and emotional problems. However, the changes in cognitive functions during this transitional period have rarely been studied. In 158 elementary school students from 4th- to 6th-grades and 159 junior high school students from 7th- to 9th-grades, we assessed various cognitive functions, including motor processing, spatial construction ability, semantic fluency, immediate memory, delayed memory, spatial and non-spatial working memory, and selective, alternative, and divided attention. Our findings showed that performance on spatial and non-spatial working memory, alternative attention, divided attention, and semantic fluency tasks improved from elementary to junior high school. In particular, performance on alternative and divided attention tasks improved during the transitional period from elementary to junior high school. Our finding suggests that development of alternative and divided attention is of crucial importance in the transitional period from elementary to junior high school. Copyright © 2010 The Japanese Society of Child Neurology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Evaluation: Two Studies of SCSD Schools. Building Systems Information Clearinghouse Research Report Number Two.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Building Systems Information Clearinghouse, Menlo Park, CA.

The first evaluative study is a survey of user -- student and teacher -- response to the School Construction Systems Development (SCSD) schools and to elements of the SCSD building system. Results of the 3,000 person survey are presented both as comparative findings for the 11 SCSD schools involved and as response profiles for each of the schools.…

Other People's Racism: Race, Rednecks, and Riots in a Southern High School.

PubMed

Hardie, Jessica Halliday; Tyson, Karolyn

2013-01-01

This article uses data drawn from nine months of fieldwork and student, teacher, and administrator interviews at a southern high school to analyze school racial conflict and the construction of racism. We find that institutional inequalities that stratify students by race and class are routinely ignored by school actors who, we argue, use the presence of so-called redneck students to plausibly deny racism while furthering the standard definition of racism as blatant prejudice and an individual trait. The historical prominence of rednecks as a southern cultural identity augments these claims, leading to an implicit division of school actors into friendly/nonracist and unfriendly/racist and allowing school actors to set boundaries on the meaning of racism. Yet these rhetorical practices and the institutional structures they mask contributed to racial tensions, culminating in a race riot during our time at the school.

Other People’s Racism: Race, Rednecks, and Riots in a Southern High School

PubMed Central

Hardie, Jessica Halliday; Tyson, Karolyn

2013-01-01

This article uses data drawn from nine months of fieldwork and student, teacher, and administrator interviews at a southern high school to analyze school racial conflict and the construction of racism. We find that institutional inequalities that stratify students by race and class are routinely ignored by school actors who, we argue, use the presence of so-called redneck students to plausibly deny racism while furthering the standard definition of racism as blatant prejudice and an individual trait. The historical prominence of rednecks as a southern cultural identity augments these claims, leading to an implicit division of school actors into friendly/nonracist and unfriendly/racist and allowing school actors to set boundaries on the meaning of racism. Yet these rhetorical practices and the institutional structures they mask contributed to racial tensions, culminating in a race riot during our time at the school. PMID:23710099

The discourse of causal explanations in school science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Slater, Tammy Jayne Anne

Researchers and educators working from a systemic functional linguistic perspective have provided a body of work on science discourse which offers an excellent starting point for examining the linguistic aspects of the development of causal discourse in school science, discourse which Derewianka (1995) claimed is critical to success in secondary school. No work has yet described the development of causal language by identifying the linguistic features present in oral discourse or by comparing the causal discourse of native and non-native (ESL) speakers of English. The current research responds to this gap by examining the oral discourse collected from ESL and non-ESL students at the primary and high school grades. Specifically, it asks the following questions: (1) How do the teachers and students in these four contexts develop causal explanations and their relevant taxonomies through classroom interactions? (2) What are the causal discourse features being used by the students in these four contexts to construct oral causal explanations? The findings of the social practice analysis showed that the teachers in the four contexts differed in their approaches to teaching, with the primary school mainstream teacher focusing largely on the hands-on practice , the primary school ESL teacher moving from practice to theory, the high school mainstream teacher moving from theory to practice, and the high school ESL teacher relying primarily on theory. The findings from the quantitative, small corpus approach suggest that the developmental path of cause which has been identified in the writing of experts shows up not only in written texts but also in the oral texts which learners construct. Moreover, this move appears when the discourse of high school ESL and non-ESL students is compared, suggesting a developmental progression in the acquisition of these features by these students. The findings also reveal that the knowledge constructed, as shown by the concept maps created from the discourse, follows a developmental path similar to the linguistic causal path, from the concrete, hands-on, observable items to more abstract, theoretical concepts. This study is the first systemic functional comparison of the oral discourse of primary and secondary learners as well as the first to compare ESL and non-ESL speakers in this way, and as such it helps map general trends in causal discourse development. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The influence of a Classroom Model of Scientific Scholarship on Four Girls' Trajectories of Identification with Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cook, Melissa Sunshine

This study examines the teacher's role in shaping the identity construction resources available in a classroom and the ways in which individual students take up, modify, and appropriate those resources to construct themselves as scientists through interaction with their teacher and peers. Drawing on frameworks of identity construction and social positioning, I propose that the locally-negotiated classroom-level cultural model of what it means to be a "good" science student forms the arena in which students construct a sense of their own competence at, affiliation with, and interest in science. The setting for this study was a 6th grade science class at a progressive urban elementary school whose population roughly represents the ethnic and socioeconomic diversity of the state of California. The teacher was an experienced science and math teacher interested in social justice and inquiry teaching. Drawing from naturalistic observations, video and artifact analysis, survey data, and repeated interviews with students and the teacher, I demonstrated what it meant to be a "good" science student in this particular cultural community by analyzing what was required, reinforced, and rewarded in this classroom. Next, I traced the influence of this particular classroom's conception of what it meant to be good at science on the trajectories of identification with science of four 6th grade girls selected to represent a variety of stances towards science, levels of classroom participation, and personal backgrounds. Scientific scholarship in this class had two parts: values related to science as a discipline, and a more generic set of school-related values one might see in any classroom. Different meanings of and values for science were indexed in the everyday activities of the classroom: science as a language for describing the natural world, science as a set of rhetorical values, science as an adult social community, and science as a place for mess and explosions. Among school-related values, participation, cooperation, and completing work were most important. Individual students leveraged different aspects of the local cultural model of scientific scholarship to construct themselves as competent participants in the science classroom. This study extends and complicates current analyses of classroom norms by showing that to understand identity construction, we must do more than identify a list of norms operating in a classroom---we must map the relationships between norms. This analysis demonstrates how broader discourses, in this case about schooling and science, infiltrated the classroom and influenced the meaning and operation of classroom norms and individual students' efforts to position themselves in relation to the classroom model of a good student. Finally, these findings show the value in examining recognition from three interrelated lenses: self-narratives, other-narratives, and observational accounts of positioning.

Toward an Understanding of Higher-Order Thinking among Minority Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Armour-Thomas, Eleanor; And Others

1992-01-01

Used principal-factors extraction with varimax rotation analysis to clarify nature and function of higher-order thinking among minority high school students (n=107) from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Results allowed for specification of mental processes associated with the construct and the extent to which students reported awareness and…

Developing a Scale to Measure Students' Attitudes toward Chemistry Lessons

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cheung, Derek

2009-01-01

Students' attitudes toward chemistry lessons in school are important dependent variables in curriculum evaluation. Although a variety of instruments have been developed by researchers to evaluate student attitudes, they are plagued with problems such as the lack of theoretical rationale and of empirical evidence to support the construct validity…

Swedish Upper Secondary Students' Perspectives on the Typical Mathematics Lesson

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Andrews, Paul; Larson, Niclas

2017-01-01

This paper presents a group interview study of Swedish upper secondary students' perspectives on the typical mathematics lesson. Students, from four demographically different schools, constructed a collective synthesis of their many years' experience of mathematics classrooms. Transcriptions were subjected to a constant comparison analysis, which…

The Academic Motivation of At-Risk Students in a Counseling Prevention Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scheel, Michael John; Madabhushi, Soumya; Backhaus, Autumn

2009-01-01

School dropout is a problem that has distressing personal and societal consequences. Not surprising, students who drop out are typically not academically motivated. This phenomenological study examined the meanings that students construct about academic motivation while participating in a dropout prevention program that primarily uses counseling.…

Applying Descriptive Statistics to Teaching the Regional Classification of Climate.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lindquist, Peter S.; Hammel, Daniel J.

1998-01-01

Describes an exercise for college and high school students that relates descriptive statistics to the regional climatic classification. The exercise introduces students to simple calculations of central tendency and dispersion, the construction and interpretation of scatterplots, and the definition of climatic regions. Forces students to engage…

Exploring Solar Power at Zion-Benton High

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kasper, Rick

1978-01-01

Developed to provide students with actual hands-on experience in constructing energy-efficient homes and to increase the community's and students' knowledge of solar power as an alternate source of energy, a building trades program at a high school in Zion, Illinois has its students building single-family solar energy homes. (BM)

Charging Ahead: An Introduction to Electromagnetism.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shafer, Larry E.

This guide explores the connection between electricity and magnetism with middle level and high school students. The phenomenon of electromagnetism is broken down into four lesson plans that provide students and teachers with a carefully constructed yet easy way to learn about their history. All four activities prompt students to use inexpensive,…

Tessellating with Logo: Effects on Visual Literacy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knupfer, Nancy Nelson; Clark, Barbara I.

This investigation of the potential of a Logo environment to develop visual literacy skills in elementary school students focused on the recognition of Escher-type geometric constructions by second and sixth grade students. Four research questions were addressed: (1) whether students can use higher-order and creative thinking skills in using…

Developing Reading Comprehension among Students with Mild Intellectual Disabilities: An Intervention Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lundberg, Ingvar; Reichenberg, Monica

2013-01-01

The present study demonstrated that students with mild intellectual disabilities are capable of constructing meaning from written text by guided social interaction. Participants were 40 adolescents in special schools divided into two intervention conditions: reciprocal teaching (RT) and inference teaching (IT). In RT the students practiced four…

Homework Motivation and Preferences of Turkish Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iflazoglu, Ayten; Hong, Eunsook

2012-01-01

Turkish students' motivation sources, organisational approaches, physical needs and environmental and interpersonal preferences during the homework process were examined in 1776 students in Grades 5-8 from 10 randomly selected schools in two districts of a major urban city in Turkey. These constructs were examined to determine grade, gender,…

Planet Activism: Students Further Their Environmental Passions through Clubs and Groups

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fernandez, Kim

2010-01-01

Community colleges across the country have reported waves of student environmentalists committed to "greening" their schools through student-faculty partnerships, environmental clubs, honor-society projects, and other means. From trash dumps and recycling sorting to educational campaigns born from the construction of greener academic buildings,…

School belongingness and mental health functioning across the primary-secondary transition in a mainstream sample: multi-group cross-lagged analyses.

PubMed

Vaz, Sharmila; Falkmer, Marita; Parsons, Richard; Passmore, Anne Elizabeth; Parkin, Timothy; Falkmer, Torbjörn

2014-01-01

The relationship between school belongingness and mental health functioning before and after the primary-secondary school transition has not been previously investigated in students with and without disabilities. This study used a prospective longitudinal design to test the bi-directional relationships between these constructs, by surveying 266 students with and without disabilities and their parents, 6-months before and after the transition to secondary school. Cross-lagged multi-group analyses found student perception of belongingness in the final year of primary school to contribute to change in their mental health functioning a year later. The beneficial longitudinal effects of school belongingness on subsequent mental health functioning were evident in all student subgroups; even after accounting for prior mental health scores and the cross-time stability in mental health functioning and school belongingness scores. Findings of the current study substantiate the role of school contextual influences on early adolescent mental health functioning. They highlight the importance for primary and secondary schools to assess students' school belongingness and mental health functioning and transfer these records as part of the transition process, so that appropriate scaffolds are in place to support those in need. Longer term longitudinal studies are needed to increase the understanding of the temporal sequencing between school belongingness and mental health functioning of all mainstream students.

Environmentally friendly education: A passive solar, straw-bale school

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Stone, L.; Dickinson, J.

The Waldorf students in the Roaring Fork Valley of western Colorado are learning their reading, writing and arithmetic in the cozy confines of a solar heated, naturally lit, straw-bale school. The Waldorf education system, founded in 1919 by Austrian Rudolph Steiner, stresses what's appropriate for the kids, not what's easiest to teach. In constructing a new school, the Waldorf community wanted a building that would reflect their philosophy. There was a long list of requirements: natural, energy efficient, light, warm, alive, and earthy. Passive solar straw-bale construction brought together all those qualities.

The Construction of Cultural Values and Beliefs in Chinese Language Textbooks: A Critical Discourse Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Yongbing

2005-01-01

This article examines the discourses of cultural values and beliefs constructed in Chinese language textbooks currently used for primary school students nationwide in China. By applying story grammar analysis in the framework of critical discourse analysis, the article critically investigates how the discourses are constructed and what ideological…

The Critical Orientation in Research on Historical School Narrative and Its Relation with the History of Women

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Skórzynska, Izabela; Glowacka-Sobiech, Edyta; Chmura-Rutkowska, Iwona

2017-01-01

The article attempts to present selected theoretical standpoints concerning the place and role of school textbook narrative in teaching history to school students. In this context we posit a hypothesis about the hybrid construction (history memories and ideology) of the narration for teaching history in Polish school textbooks in lower secondary…

Financing Facilities in Rural School Districts: Variations among the States and the Case of Arkansas.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hughes, Mary F.

This chapter examines the main challenges that rural school districts face in school facilities funding and illustrates these problems with a case study of Arkansas. Most rural school districts serve only a small number of students, which tends to limit the funds available for construction or renovation. In addition, rural districts are likely to…

Assessing the Change Process in Comprehensive High Schools Implementing Professional Learning Communities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shaner, Robert G.

2009-01-01

Professional learning communities (PLC) have been identified as scaffolds that can facilitate, support, and sustain systemic change focused on improving student achievement. PLCs represent the application of the theoretical constructs of the learning organization within the framework of schools and school systems. Little is known about the change…

Teachers and the Re-Production of Middle-Class Culture in Australian Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Forsey, Martin

2010-01-01

Based mainly on my own ethnographic research, which is committed to uncovering the constructed or "practiced" nature of social life, I seek to demonstrate the ways in which Australian school teachers, administrators, students and parents are engaged in a re-productive process that simultaneously reinforces and reinvents schools and…

Keys to Success: School Facilities Primer, Questions & Answers 101.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brady, Jim

This publication provides answers to basic questions to help school board members more fully address the complexities of the planning, design, and construction process in order to maximize the goal of student success. The 101 questions and answers are in the areas of: facility planning; learning environment; information technology; safe schools;…

Longer School Years: Reform or Illusion? Policy Studies in Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Edward C.

The advantages and disadvantages of the year-round school fall into three major categories: financial, educational, and professional. Financial advantages are based on the postponement of construction costs and the use of existing school facilities and equipment to serve a larger number of students. Financial disadvantages include a rise in…

Coloniality and Education: Negotiating Discourses of Immigration in Schools and Communities through Border Thinking

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ghiso, Maria Paula; Campano, Gerald

2013-01-01

In this article, we examine the discursive construction of knowledge about immigration in two geographic spaces whose "border" many students navigate: a school context meant to support English Language Learners and an out-of-school faith based organization serving immigrant communities. We draw on the concept of "border…

Students' Collective Knowledge Construction in the Virtual Learning Environment ""ToLigado"--Your School Interactive Newspaper"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Passarelli, Brasilina

2008-01-01

Introduction: The ToLigado Project--Your School Interactive Newspaper is an interactive virtual learning environment conceived, developed, implemented and supported by researchers at the School of the Future Research Laboratory of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Method: This virtual learning environment aims to motivate trans-disciplinary…

COLOR PLANNING FOR HOSPITALS AND SCHOOLS.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mobil Finishes Co., Inc., Chicago, IL.

THE AIM OF THIS MANUAL PREPARED FOR ARCHITECTS AND BUILDERS IS TO PROVIDE FOR COLOR PLANNING IN HOSPITALS AND SCHOOLS AND ALTHOUGH APPROPRIATE FOR THE SELECTION OF ALL INTERIOR SURFACE MATERIALS IN NEW CONSTRUCTION. IN SCHOOL, AND INDIVIDUAL'S EXPOSURE TO DECORATION IS REPEATED DAILY FOR BOTH STUDENTS AND STAFF ATTEND AT LEAST FOR THE SCHOOL…

Educacao Fisica Escolar: A Construcao de um Conceito (School Physical Education: The Construction of a Concept).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Colpas, Ricardo Ducatti

2000-01-01

Seeks to understand school physical education praxis in light of the human development theories of Lev Vygotsky. Develops a methodology of teaching and a conception of learning that enables students to recognize physical education as a school discipline connected to a dynamic curriculum. (BT)

Planning Educational Facilities for the Next Century.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Earthman, Glen I.

A school building constructed 10 years ago may not be relevant to what is needed in a new building today. Methodology and curriculum change rapidly, and, as a result, buildings change as do the students attending schools today. The administrators in the school system are responsible for adequately planning a new capital-improvement project and…

Mathematics Reform in a Minority Community: Student Outcomes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Haneghan, James P.; Pruet, Susan A.; Bamberger, Honi J.

2004-01-01

This article reports on 3 years of mathematics reform that took place in 4 high-poverty minority schools in a large, demographically mixed public school system in the South. Comparisons were made with 2 demographically similar sets of schools on project-constructed interviews, items taken from the Third International Math/Science Study (TIMSS)…

A School for Complex Needs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leisner, Hava

2001-01-01

Presents a case study showing the role specialty materials and finishes play in the design of a school for autistic students. Use of incandescent lighting, muted colors and contrast, and padded flooring are examined as are classroom features and construction challenges encountered. (GR)

Concept Mapping in Science Class: A Case Study of Fifth Grade Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Asan, Askin

2007-01-01

The purpose of this research project was to determine the effects of incorporating concept mapping on the achievement of fifth grade students in science class. The study was conducted with twenty-three students at Ata Elementary School, Trabzon, Turkey. The students were tested with teacher-constructed pre- and post tests containing 20…

When Procedures Discourage Insight: Epistemological Consequences of Prompting Novice Physics Students to Construct Force Diagrams

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kuo, Eric; Hallinen, Nicole R.; Conlin, Luke D.

2017-01-01

One aim of school science instruction is to help students become adaptive problem solvers. Though successful at structuring novice problem solving, step-by-step problem-solving frameworks may also constrain students' thinking. This study utilises a paradigm established by Heckler [(2010). Some consequences of prompting novice physics students to…

The Impact of Using Multi-Sensory Approach for Teaching Students with Learning Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Obaid, Majeda Al Sayyed

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of using the Multi-Sensory Approach for teaching students with learning disabilities on the sixth grade students' achievement in mathematics at Jordanian public schools. To achieve the purpose of the study, a pre/post-test was constructed to measure students' achievement in mathematics. The…

A Comparison of Middle School Students' Mathematical Arguments in Technological and Non-Technological Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Ryan Cummings

2010-01-01

Prior research on students' uses of technology has suggested it can be used to support students' development of formal justifications and proofs. The ways in which these technologies influence the construction of arguments and proofs remain uncertain. Furthermore, research has not been conducted that compares the arguments students develop while…

SENSE IT: Teaching STEM Principles to Middle and High School Students through the Design, Construction and Deployment of Water Quality Sensors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hotaling, Liesl; Lowes, Susan; Stolkin, Rustam; Lin, Peiyi; Bonner, James; Kirkey, William; Ojo, Temitope

2012-01-01

This paper describes the structure and impact of an NSF-funded ITEST project designed to enrich science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education using educational modules that teach students to construct, program, and test a series of sensors used to monitor water quality. During the two years of the SENSE IT project, over 30…

School physics teacher class management, laboratory practice, student engagement, critical thinking, cooperative learning and use of simulations effects on student performance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Riaz, Muhammad

The purpose of this study was to examine how simulations in physics class, class management, laboratory practice, student engagement, critical thinking, cooperative learning, and use of simulations predicted the percentage of students achieving a grade point average of B or higher and their academic performance as reported by teachers in secondary school physics classes. The target population consisted of secondary school physics teachers who were members of Science Technology, Engineeering and,Mathematics Teachers of New York City (STEMteachersNYC) and American Modeling Teachers Association (AMTA). They used simulations in their physics classes in the 2013 and 2014 school years. Subjects for this study were volunteers. A survey was constructed based on a literature review. Eighty-two physics teachers completed the survey about instructional practice in physics. All respondents were anonymous. Classroom management was the only predictor of the percent of students achieving a grade point average of B or higher in high school physics class. Cooperative learning, use of simulations, and student engagement were predictors of teacher's views of student academic performance in high school physics class. All other variables -- class management, laboratory practice, critical thinking, and teacher self-efficacy -- were not predictors of teacher's views of student academic performance in high school physics class. The implications of these findings were discussed and recommendations for physics teachers to improve student learning were presented.

When procedures discourage insight: epistemological consequences of prompting novice physics students to construct force diagrams

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kuo, Eric; Hallinen, Nicole R.; Conlin, Luke D.

2017-05-01

One aim of school science instruction is to help students become adaptive problem solvers. Though successful at structuring novice problem solving, step-by-step problem-solving frameworks may also constrain students' thinking. This study utilises a paradigm established by Heckler [(2010). Some consequences of prompting novice physics students to construct force diagrams. International Journal of Science Education, 32(14), 1829-1851] to test how cuing the first step in a standard framework affects undergraduate students' approaches and evaluation of solutions in physics problem solving. Specifically, prompting the construction of a standard diagram before problem solving increases the use of standard procedures, decreasing the use of a conceptual shortcut. Providing a diagram prompt also lowers students' ratings of informal approaches to similar problems. These results suggest that reminding students to follow typical problem-solving frameworks limits their views of what counts as good problem solving.

Using Office Discipline Referral Data for Decision Making about Student Behavior in Elementary and Middle Schools: An Empirical Evaluation of Validity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Irvin, Larry K.; Horner, Robert H.; Ingram, Kimberly; Todd, Anne W.; Sugai, George; Sampson, Nadia Katul; Boland, Joseph B.

2006-01-01

In this evaluation we used Messick's construct validity as a conceptual framework for an empirical study assessing the validity of use, utility, and impact of office discipline referral (ODR) measures for data-based decision making about student behavior in schools. The Messick approach provided a rubric for testing the fit of our theory of use of…

Standing Outside on the Inside. Black Adolescents and the Construction of Academic Identity. SUNY Series, The Social Context of Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Welch, Olga M.; Hodges, Carolyn R.

Project EXCEL, developed from a 2-year pilot study, provided college enrichment in reading, writing, and foreign languages for rising sophomores and sophomores in two inner-city high schools. One school had a predominantly black student body; the other had a student body that was 40% black. This study focused on the sources of equality and…

Relationship between cognitive functions and prevalence of fatigue in elementary and junior high school students.

PubMed

Mizuno, Kei; Tanaka, Masaaki; Fukuda, Sanae; Imai-Matsumura, Kyoko; Watanabe, Yasuyoshi

2011-06-01

Fatigue is a common complaint among elementary and junior high school students, and is related to poor academic performance. Since grade-dependent development of cognitive functions also influences academic performance, we attempted to determine whether cognitive functions were associated with the prevalence of fatigue. Participants were 148 elementary school students from 4th- to 6th-grades and 152 junior high school students from 7th- to 9th-grades. Participants completed a questionnaire about fatigue (Japanese version of the Chalder Fatigue Scale) and paper-and-pencil and computerized cognitive tests which could evaluate the abilities of motor processing, immediate, delayed and working memory, selective, divided and alternative attention, retrieve learned material, and spatial construction. We found that in multivariate logistic regression analyses adjusted for grade and gender, slow motor processing was positively correlated with the prevalence of fatigue in the elementary school students and decreases in working memory and divided and alternative attention processing were positively correlated with the prevalence of fatigue in the junior high school students. The grade-dependent development of cognitive function influences the severity of fatigue in elementary and junior high school students. Copyright © 2010 The Japanese Society of Child Neurology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Impact on staff of improving access to the school breakfast program: a qualitative study.

PubMed

Haesly, Blair; Nanney, Marilyn S; Coulter, Sara; Fong, Sherri; Pratt, Rebekah J

2014-04-01

Project BREAK! was designed to test the efficacy of an intervention to increase student participation in the reimbursable School Breakfast Program (SBP). Two schools developed grab-n-go menus, added convenient serving locations, and allowed eating in the hallway. This follow-up study investigated faculty and staff perspectives of how the SBP changes influenced schools. Project BREAK! high schools were located near Minneapolis, Minnesota, enrolled over 1200 students each and were 70% to 90% white. Interviews with school personnel (N = 11) and focus groups with teachers (N = 16) from the 2 intervention schools were conducted. The Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) framework guided the question development. Analysis of the interviews identified the following DOI constructs as most prominently mentioned by school personnel and teachers: advantages for students and faculty/staff, minimal staff time required, communication of the changes, support of social relations between students and faculty/staff and trialability of the program. There appears to be numerous advantages for both students and school personnel to improving SBP access. The relative advantages of Project BREAK! appear to outweigh the negatives associated with extra time and effort required by staff. Communication about the changes is an area that needs strengthening. © 2014, American School Health Association.

Young adolescents' engagement in dietary behaviour - the impact of gender, socio-economic status, self-efficacy and scientific literacy. Methodological aspects of constructing measures in nutrition literacy research using the Rasch model.

PubMed

Guttersrud, Øystein; Petterson, Kjell Sverre

2015-10-01

The present study validates a revised scale measuring individuals' level of the 'engagement in dietary behaviour' aspect of 'critical nutrition literacy' and describes how background factors affect this aspect of Norwegian tenth-grade students' nutrition literacy. Data were gathered electronically during a field trial of a standardised sample test in science. Test items and questionnaire constructs were distributed evenly across four electronic field-test booklets. Data management and analysis were performed using the RUMM2030 item analysis package and the IBM SPSS Statistics 20 statistical software package. Students responded on computers at school. Seven hundred and forty tenth-grade students at twenty-seven randomly sampled public schools were enrolled in the field-test study. The engagement in dietary behaviour scale and the self-efficacy in science scale were distributed to 178 of these students. The dietary behaviour scale and the self-efficacy in science scale came out as valid, reliable and well-targeted instruments usable for the construction of measurements. Girls and students with high self-efficacy reported higher engagement in dietary behaviour than other students. Socio-economic status and scientific literacy - measured as ability in science by applying an achievement test - did not correlate significantly different from zero with students' engagement in dietary behaviour.

Introducing Argumentation About Climate Change Socioscientific Issues in a Disadvantaged School

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dawson, Vaille; Carson, Katherine

2018-03-01

Improving the ability of young people to construct arguments about controversial science topics is a desired outcome of science education. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the impact of an argumentation intervention on the socioscientific issue of climate change with Year 10 students in a disadvantaged Australian school. After participation in a professional development workshop on climate change science, socioscientific issues and argumentation, an early career teacher explicitly taught argumentation over four non-consecutive lessons as part of a 4 week (16 lesson) topic on Earth science. Thirty students completed a pre- and post-test questionnaire to determine their understanding of climate change science and their ability to construct an argument about a climate change socioscientific issue. Students' understanding of climate change improved significantly (p < .001) with a large effect size. There was also a significant increase (p < .05) in the number of categories provided in written arguments about a climate change issue. Qualitative data, comprising classroom observation field notes, lesson transcripts, work samples, and teacher and student interviews, were analysed for the extent to which the students' argumentation skills improved. At the end of the intervention, students became aware of the need to justify their decisions with scientific evidence. It is concluded that introducing argumentation about climate change socioscientific issues to students in a disadvantaged school can improve their argumentation skills.

The Meteor Meter.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eggensperger, Martin B.

2000-01-01

Introduces the Meteor Scatter Project (MSP) in which high school students build an automated meteor observatory and learn to monitor meteor activity. Involves students in activities such as radio frequency survey, antenna design, antenna construction, manual meteor counts, and computer board configuration and installation. (YDS)

Problem Solvers' Conceptions about Osmosis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zuckerman, June T.

1994-01-01

Discusses the scheme and findings of a study designed to identify the conceptual knowledge used by high school students to solve a significant problem related to osmosis. Useful tips are provided to teachers to aid students in developing constructs that maximize understanding. (ZWH)

School safe driving climate: Theoretical and practical considerations for promoting teen driver safety in school settings.

PubMed

Mirman, Jessica H; Roche, Brianne; Higgins-D'Alessandro, Ann

2018-06-21

The aims of this study were to extend the current literature on school climate that is focused on understanding how teacher, administrator, and student perceptions about driving-focused aspects of the social, educational, and institutional climate of schools can affect students' achievement, behavior, and adjustment towards the development of the concept of school safe driving climate (SSDC) and initiate the development of tools and processes for assessing SSDC. A mixed-methods approach was used to develop an initial version of a survey-based measure of SSDC that involved self-report surveys (students) and in-depth interviews (teachers). Exploratory factor analytic procedures identified SSDC constructs and a regression framework was used to examine associations among SSDC constructs and self-reported driver behaviors. Qualitative data were subjected to inductive analysis, with a goal of elucidating teachers' perspectives on SSDC and an SSDC intervention. The study sample consisted of 947 adolescents (48% male) from one large high school and 44 teacher advisors. Participants were recruited from a school participating in a state-wide effort to promote transportation safety through peer-led programming. Two SSDC factors were identified: Administrative Contributions to School Safety and Value of School Safety, which were associated with adolescents' perceptions of their driving behaviors. Adolescents' perceived that the intervention affected administrative safety. Teacher interviews contextualized these results and provided guidance on program revisions. Safe driving climate may be an important, modifiable, and measurable aspect of school climate. Additional research is needed to refine the assessment tool and to use it in longitudinal and experimental studies.

Language and Power: Korean-Chinese Students' Language Attitude and Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gao, F.

2009-01-01

Language is not only a method of communication, but also a mechanism of power. The ethnographic research reported in this article documents how a group of Korean students, who are participating in a bilingual Korean school in Northeast China, construct their language attitude and practice. Research findings indicate that the Korean students value…

"Triangulation": An Expression for Stimulating Metacognitive Reflection Regarding the Use of "Triplet" Representations for Chemistry Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thomas, Gregory P.

2017-01-01

Concerns persist regarding high school students' chemistry learning. Learning chemistry is challenging because of chemistry's innate complexity and the need for students to construct associations between different, yet related representations of matter and its changes. Students should be taught to reason about and consider chemical phenomena using…

The Effects of Classroom Teaching on Students' Self-Efficacy for Personal Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cheung, Derek; Lai, Edith

2013-01-01

The personal development of students is an essential component of school guidance and counselling programmes, but no published research on guidance and counselling has investigated the effects of regular classroom teaching on students' self-efficacy for personal development. In this study, questionnaire items were constructed to measure classroom…

Reverse and Add to 100: Explorations in Place Value

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Edwards, Michael Todd; Quinlan, James; Strayer, Jeremy F.

2016-01-01

During the past few years, several of the authors have incorporated student problem posing as a regular instructional feature in their classrooms. When they offer their students the opportunity to construct their own problems, particularly during the course of an entire school year, they create many novel tasks. Student-created tasks not only…

Improving Students' Revision of Physics Concepts through ICT-Based Co-Construction and Prescriptive Tutoring

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Soong, Benson; Mercer, Neil

2011-01-01

In this paper, we describe and discuss an information and communication technology (ICT)-based intervention designed to improve secondary school students' "revision" (in contrast to "learning") of physics concepts. We show that students' engagement in joint activities via our ICT-based intervention can provide them (and their…

Impacting Academic Achievement with Student Learners Teaching Digital Storytelling to Others: The ATTTCSE Digital Video Project

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Figg, Candace; McCartney, Robin

2010-01-01

University researchers, teacher candidates, language and technology instructors, student learners, and families from diverse backgrounds partnered in an invitational teaching/learning experience--middle school student learners teaching their VIPs (very important persons) how to create stories and construct digital movies with reference to their…

NNS Students' Arguments in English: Observations in Formal and Informal Contexts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chandrasegaran, Antonia

2008-01-01

The ability to construct supported arguments in English is important for academic success in educational contexts where English is the language of instruction and student assessment is mediated through the academic essay. Starting from the hypothesis that students schooled in an English-medium education system do engage in friendly argument in…

Modification of the Affective Work Competencies Inventory for Use with Vocational Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beach, David P.

A project was conducted to determine whether a vocational student's version of the Affective Work Competencies Inventory could be prepared to measure the psychological constructs of values, habits, and attitudes. A revised inventory was developed and administered to 194 students in eight selected programs at Toledo vocational high schools (data…

Heritage and Identity: Ethnic Minority Students from South Asia in Hong Kong

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gu, Mingyue; Patkin, John

2013-01-01

This article investigates the language attitudes, language practices and identity construction of a group of ethnic minority students in a secondary school in Hong Kong. Drawing on data from focus group and individual interviews, this research shows that the ethnic minority students negotiate and contest their heritage identity by utilizing their…

Understanding Alternative Education: A Mixed Methods Examination of Student Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Farrelly, Susan Glassett; Daniels, Erika

2014-01-01

Alternative education plays a critical role in the opportunity gap that persists in the US public education system. However, there has been little research on alternative schools. Scaffolded by a theoretical framework constructed from critical theory, self-determination theory (SDT) and student voice, this research examined how well students in…

Changing Images of the Inclined Plane: A Case Study of a Revolution in American Science Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turner, Steven C.

2012-01-01

Between 1880 and 1920 the way science was taught in American High Schools changed dramatically. The old "lecture/demonstration" method, where information was presented to essentially passive students, was replaced by the "laboratory" method, where students performed their own experiments in specially constructed student laboratories. National…

A Twice-Told Tale: Voices of Resistance in a Borderlands Spanish Heritage Language Class

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Helmer, Kimberly Adilia

2013-01-01

Drawn from a two-year critical ethnography, the author explores how Mexican-origin students in a U.S. southwest charter high school resisted Spanish heritage language instruction. Resistance was rooted in students' perception that their teacher unfairly characterized their linguistic and social identities. Students also constructed their…

Impact of Student Leadership Engagement on Early Adolescents' Self-Concepts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hollar, Christine Lynn

2014-01-01

This study represents a paradigm shift in an attempt to examine early adolescent self-concept while in a student leadership role. Positive Youth Development intertwined with Personal Construct Theory and Social Learning Theory framed the study. Students from a rural Wisconsin high school participated in a two-day leadership retreat. The…

How Students Navigate the Construction of Heritage Narratives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levy, Sara A.

2017-01-01

Using a multiple case study design, I examine how public high school students (n = 17) make sense of narratives about defining events with which they have specific heritage connections. Focusing on 3 groups of students (Hmong, Chinese, and Jewish) studying 3 heritage events (respectively, the Vietnam War, Modern China, and the Holocaust), this…

Build a Bird House. Grades 3-5.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rushton, Erik; Ryan, Emily; Swift, Charles

In this activity, students construct bird nests and birdhouses. Students research a bird of their choice in order to design a house that will meet that bird's specific needs. The activity works well in conjunction with a high school level woodshop class where students would partner up. This activity requires an 80-minute time period for…

Deaf Children: Three Ideas for Adapting Current Trends in Mathematics Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schroeder, Brenda

Three lesson plans to adapt mathematics education for middle school students, including deaf students, are presented. The first lesson, "How Do I Identify Myself," teaches students to participate in a survey, conduct a survey, weigh results, convert results to ratios, convert ratios to percentages, construct a circle graph, and write a paragraph…

L'impact de l'enseignement de la biologie sur la construction de la distinction entre normal et pathologique chez les eleves du secondaire Marocain (The Impact of Teaching Biology on the Way Moroccan High School Students Construe the Difference between Normal and Pathological).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Khzami, Salah-Eddine; Favre, Daniel

2002-01-01

Study of the distinction between the notions of the normal and the pathological among Moroccan high school students and their teachers of biology found that students confused the registers of the normal/abnormal with the healthy/pathological, a fact that is at odds with current teaching in biology. It also found a possible link to the values held…

Guided by Principles. Shaping the State of California's Role in K-12 Public School Facility Funding. Full Policy Research Working Paper

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vincent, Jeffrey M.; Gross, Liz S.

2015-01-01

K-12 public school facilities need regular investment to ensure student health and safety and support educational programming. Yet, the future of K-12 school facility funding in California is uncertain. A strong state-local partnership has existed that funded new construction, modernization, and other investments in public school facilities across…

"That School Had Become All about Show": Image Making and the Ironies of Constructing a Good Urban School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Niesz, Tricia

2010-01-01

The last two decades have seen dramatic change in U.S. schooling as a response to high-stakes accountability and market-based reform movements. Critics cite a number of unfortunate consequences of these movements, especially for students in urban schools. This article explores the troubling ironies related to one strategy for survival in this…

An Instructional Playground for the Handicapped Using Tires as Inexpensive Playground Equipment: Activity and Construction Manual.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

New York State Education Dept., Albany. Special Education Instructional Materials Center.

The manual explains how special education students in an occupational program used tires to construct an inexpensive instructional playground for handicapped elementary school pupils. Presented in two sections with accompanying pictures or diagrams are activity ideas for using the tires in a variety of configurations (Part 1) and construction and…

Application of the Levenshtein Distance Metric for the Construction of Longitudinal Data Files

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doran, Harold C.; van Wamelen, Paul B.

2010-01-01

The analysis of longitudinal data in education is becoming more prevalent given the nature of testing systems constructed for No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). However, constructing the longitudinal data files remains a significant challenge. Students move into new schools, but in many cases the unique identifiers (ID) that should remain constant…

Identifying Indicators Related to Constructs for Engineering Design Outcome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilhelmsen, Cheryl A.; Dixon, Raymond A.

2016-01-01

This study ranked constructs articulated by Childress and Rhodes (2008) and identified the key indicators for each construct as a starting point to explore what should be included on an instrument to measure the engineering design process and outcomes of students in high schools that use the PLTW and EbDTM curricula in Idaho. A case-study design…

Impact on staff of improving access to the school breakfast program: a qualitative study

PubMed Central

Haesly, Blair; Nanney, Marilyn S.; Coulter, Sara; Fong, Sherri; Pratt, Rebekah J.

2014-01-01

BACKGROUND Project BREAK! was designed to test the efficacy of an intervention to increase student participation in the reimbursable School Breakfast Program (SBP). Two schools developed grab-n-go menus, added convenient serving locations, and allowed eating in the hallway. This follow-up study investigated faculty and staff perspectives of how the SBP changes influenced schools. METHODS Project BREAK! high schools were located near Minneapolis, Minnesota, enrolled over 1200 students each and were 70%–90% white. Interviews with school personnel (N=11) and focus groups with teachers (N=16) from the 2 intervention schools were conducted. The Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) framework guided the question development. RESULTS Analysis of the interviews identified the following DOI constructs as most prominently mentioned by school personnel and teachers: advantages for students and faculty/staff, minimal staff time required, communication of the changes, support of social relations between students and faculty/staff and trialability of the program. CONCLUSION There appears to be numerous advantages for both students and school personnel to improving SBP access. The relative advantages of Project BREAK! appear to outweigh the negatives associated with extra time and effort required by staff. Communication about the changes is an area that needs strengthening. PMID:24617910

Developing Conceptual Understanding and Procedural Fluency for Junior High School Students through Model-Facilitated Learning (MFL)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Laswadi; Kusumah, Yaya S.; Darwis, Sutawanir; Afgani, Jarnawi D.

2016-01-01

Conceptual understanding (CU) and procedural fluency (PF) are two important mathematical competencies required by students. CU helps students organizing their knowledge into a coherent whole, and PF helps them to find the right solution of a problem. In order to enhance CU and PF, students need learning experiences in constructing knowledge and…

Students' perceptions of Roundhouse diagramming: a middle-school viewpoint

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ward, Robin E.; Wandersee, James H.

2002-02-01

This multiple case study explored the effects of Roundhouse diagram construction and use on meaningful learning of science concepts in a sixth-grade classroom. The investigation examined three issues: (1) the transformation of students' science conceptions as they become more proficient in constructing Roundhouse diagrams; (2) problems students encountered using this technique; and (3) the effect of choices of iconic images on their progress toward meaningfully learning science concepts. A Roundhouse diagram is a graphic representation of a learner's conceptual understanding regarding a predetermined science topic. This method involves recognizing the main ideas within a science lesson, breaking down the information into interrelated segments, and then linking each portion to an iconic image. These students typically gained a greater understanding of science explanations by constructing the diagrams. Student's science scores improved over the 10-week diagramming period and a positive relationship existed between students' choices and drawings of iconic images and the meaningful learning of science topics.

Schooling in Babylon, Babylon in School: When Racial Profiling and Zero Tolerance Converge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Solomon, R. Patrick

2004-01-01

This study is about systemic containment of Black youth by authority structures within schools and law enforcement agents in racialized communities. Through the retrospective narratives of incarcerated Black students in a secure custody institution, vivid insights are provided into the construction of fear of Black youth and of the ways that…

Collaborative Course Syllabus Construction: Impact on Consultative Competency of Graduate Students in School Psychology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Camilli, Andrea Lauren

2009-01-01

Consultation has emerged as an effective alternative to traditional methods of service delivery in schools. Additionally, current research and recent changes in legislation (e.g., reauthorization of IDEA) indicate that not only is consultation an effective approach to service delivery, but it is a preferred activity of school psychologists and an…

"The Public" in Public Schools: The Social Construction/Constriction of Moral Communities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fine, Michelle

This essay, written from the point of view of a social researcher with a direct personal involvement in the cases studied, discusses how public schools, as universally accessible moral communities, engage in patterns of systematic exclusion. Through three case studies of public secondary schools in which groups of students have been situated…

Achievement-Oriented Beliefs and Their Relation to Academic Expectations and School Achievement among Qatari Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nasser, Ramzi; McInerney, Dennis

2016-01-01

This study investigated the relation between motivational goals and university intentions, school valuing and school achievement. The premise of this study is that motivational goals play a key role in academic values and achievement. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to establish the construct validity of the motivational measures drawn…

Kissing Brides and Loving Hot Vampires: Children's Construction and Perpetuation of Heteronormativity in Elementary School Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ryan, Caitlin L.

2016-01-01

This paper explores notions of (hetero)sexuality circulating in elementary school classrooms through an analysis of students' own talk and interactions. Data collected during a multi-site ethnography in a diverse set of elementary schools demonstrate that while curricular silences and teachers contribute to heteronormative classroom environments,…

Teachers' Views of Professional Learning and Collaboration in Four Urban Lebanese Primary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bahous, Rima; Busher, Hugh; Nabhani, Mona

2016-01-01

This study to investigate how teachers develop their skills and knowledge to construct enthusiastic student learning and what part school principals play in that development was carried out in four primary schools serving disadvantaged communities in Beirut. In the absence of rich research in Lebanon on this topic, western literature was used to…

Clarke Central High School: One Student at a Time

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Principal Leadership, 2013

2013-01-01

There is excitement in the air at Clarke Central High School in anticipation of a $28 million renovation planned on its 27-acre, urban campus located just minutes from the University of Georgia in Athens. This extensive construction aims to fulfill a board of education mandate to provide equity among the Clarke County school facilities and will…

Elementary students' engagement in failure-prone engineering design tasks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Andrews, Chelsea Joy

Although engineering education has been practiced at the undergraduate level for over a century, only fairly recently has the field broadened to include the elementary level; the pre-college division of the American Society of Engineering Education was established in 2003. As a result, while recent education standards require engineering in elementary schools, current studies are still filling in basic research on how best to design and implement elementary engineering activities. One area in need of investigation is how students engage with physical failure in design tasks. In this dissertation, I explore how upper elementary students engage in failure-prone engineering design tasks in an out-of-school environment. In a series of three empirical case studies, I look closely at how students evaluate failed tests and decide on changes to their design constructions, how their reasoning evolves as they repeatedly encounter physical failure, and how students and facilitators co-construct testing norms where repetitive failure is manageable. I also briefly investigate how students' engagement differs in a task that features near-immediate success. By closely examining student groups' discourse and their interactions with their design constructions, I found that these students: are able to engage in iteration and see failure-as-feedback with minimal externally-imposed structure; seem to be designing in a more sophisticated manner, attending to multiple causal factors, after experiencing repetitive failure; and are able to manage the stress and frustration of repetitive failure, provided the co-constructed testing norms of the workshop environment are supportive of failure management. These results have both pedagogical implications, in terms of how to create and facilitate design tasks, and methodological implications--namely, I highlight the particular insights afforded by a case study approach for analyzing engagement in design tasks.

Profile of High School Students’ Propositional Network Representation when Interpreting Convention Diagrams

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fatiha, M.; Rahmat, A.; Solihat, R.

2017-09-01

The delivery of concepts in studying Biology often represented through a diagram to easily makes student understand about Biology material. One way to knowing the students’ understanding about diagram can be seen from causal relationship that is constructed by student in the propositional network representation form. This research reveal the trend of students’ propositional network representation patterns when confronted with convention diagram. This descriptive research involved 32 students at one of senior high school in Bandung. The research data was acquired by worksheet that was filled by diagram and it was developed according on information processing standards. The result of this research revealed three propositional network representation patterns are linear relationship, simple reciprocal relationship, and complex reciprocal relationship. The dominating pattern is linear form that is simply connect some information components in diagram by 59,4% students, the reciprocal relationship form with medium level by 28,1% students while the complex reciprocal relationship by only 3,1% and the rest was students who failed to connect information components by 9,4%. Based on results, most of student only able to connect information components on the picture in linear form and a few student constructing reciprocal relationship between information components on convention diagram.