This qualitative study uses the lens of expectation theory to highlight the educational achievements of Cameroonian youths in American educational institutions as it also examines their individual educational experiences and the many challenges (social, cultural, and academic) that each encountered in his or her journey toward significant educational outcomes. Findings from this study challenge the misconception that students coming into the United States other than from Asia and Europe are academically inferior to their counterparts born in the U.S. Six francophone Cameroonian-born young adults between the ages of 19-30 residing in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area participated in this study. Each had completed at least one full academic year in an American educational institution. Data collection included virtual interviews with follow-ups carried out via text exchanges and phone conversations. Participants reported experiences language barriers in U.S. education settings. Even students with strong knowledge of English or multiple years in English-speaking classrooms struggled with differences between British/Cameroonian spoken English and American pronunciations and accents. In addition, many students did not feel a sense of belonging in school until they had opportunities to be in classes with or interact with other students that share a similar background or until teachers recognized their potential. All participants felt a strong sense of parental expectation and were influenced by perceptions of teachers’ expectations. Findings of this study align with previous studies that identified influential factors of educational attainments for immigrant youths including the importance of family expectations, teacher expectations, and students’ sense of self-efficacy. Data also suggest that gender and birth order influence Cameroonian parents’ expectations related to household responsibilities and obligations towards siblings and that both male and female participants equally perceived parental expectations to achieve academically. This study suggests that institutions serving Cameroonian immigrant student, specifically, and immigrant students in general may better serve those students by understanding their needs and the specific barriers they may face. It may be helpful to provide language support, even for students who have strong command of written English, and to create meaningful opportunities to create supportive social networks during the transition to schooling in the U.S.

This study seeks to replicate and extend Roksa and Potter's (2011) analysis of the association between intergenerational family background and academic outcomes by utilizing the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 to examine alternative methods for operationalizing maternal educational background. Results indicate a positive association between maternal upward mobility and adolescent academic achievement. Measures of mobility affect adolescent achievement even when controlling for both mother's and maternal grandmother's educational attainment. Future research should examine the differential impact of extreme mobility, specifically downward mobility, on adolescent academic outcomes.

For more than a half a century the role of education and its influence on social mobility and status attainment has been a subject of research. Further more, education has been shown to be an important contributor for success over the life course. Much of the research surrounding status attainment and higher education has dealt with the Baby Boomer cohort. The purpose of the study is to examine education from a perspective that is less talked about to this point. This study uses data gathered by the Pew Research Center and examines a specific age group, current 18-30 year olds (Millennials), to gather a better understanding of their attitudes towards the value of higher education within the current era of the economy, education, and job opportunity. According to the analysis, females report higher odds of feeling that a college degree is important to success later in life. Equally important, results indicate that Blacks have greater odds of perceiving education to be important for success in life. Results also demonstrated that in this particular study, other factors such as income and employment status did not significantly affect respondent's perceptions on the importance of education.

In the last half century, gun ownership has been one of the most hotly debated topics in the United States. The right to bear arms was written into the U. S. Constitution and into the hearts and minds of its citizens. During the last half century, however, numerous gun control laws have been enacted at Federal, state and local levels, and it can be argued (plausibly or not) that part of the legislative intent has been to decrease the number of gun owning households in the United States. For many decades, this number hovered at one half of all households (Wright, 1995). The possible success of these gun control efforts is suggested by an apparent and rather sharp decline in the ownership percentage beginning in the 1990s. In 2000, the household gun ownership rate had decreased to 32.5% (according to the General Social Survey). The question raised in this thesis is how to account for declining gun ownership. More specifically, I ask if there has in fact been a decline in ownership, or whether the apparent decline is an illusion resulting from changing demographics. A third possibility, that social norms have changed such that admitting gun ownership in surveys is now more problematic for many people, is also considered and seems, indeed, to be the most telling line of explanation.

The problem of the study was to determine the relationship between teaching methods and attainment of knowledge and skill performance of nurse aides in rural area nursing homes. The purpose of this study was to determine the improvement in skills performance and knowledge gain in the population cited above. The skill to be learned was operation of an electronic thermometer. The analysis of variance used on the pretest for written performance showed a significant difference at the .01 level; however, the analysis of covariance done on the posttest results showed no significant difference, indicating that the initial difference was of no consequence to the results obtained on the posttests. The paired comparison t test of the group means obtained from written tests showed that the programmed instruction group was superior to either the control or teacher-taught groups at the .001 level. Overall the programmed instruction tool was more effective in teaching skill and learning of cognitive knowledge. This report concluded that the evidence seems to support the use of programmed instruction as a means of economically and effectively teaching nurse aides who work in a rural area nursing home.

Statistics show that boys perform better in mathematics tests than girls. In order to make a refined assessment of the magnitude of gender differences in mathematics performance, a study was made of one thousand 16+ mathematics scripts to find the precise topics on which girls and boys differ significantly in performance. These concepts were found to be concerned with scale or ratio, spatial problems, space-time relationships and probability questions. Differences were found in performance between girls and boys at each ten-percentile level through the ability range. A longitudinal study also revealed differences in mathematics 'performance through the years of secondary education. There is no convincing evidence that the discrepancy can be accounted for by innate or genetic reasons. Intervention programmes have been found to improve the performance of girls in the weak areas of spatial awareness, proportionality and problem solving. In addition, a study was made of gender attitudes towards mathematics. Ten secondary schools were surveyed and the results revealed a marked decrease in the attitudes of third and fourth form girls. During these difficult adolescent years girls and boys are susceptible to strong internal and external pressures. Corresponding differences were also found across the ability range. These social pressures are concerned with teacher influence, social interaction, type of grouping, sex stereotyping, choices, teaching materials and careers advice.

Despite a constant rise in the attainment of Sats results year on year, the perception remains that British primary school children are underachieving and that they are reluctant readers and writers. In order to motivate their students, some teachers use films as a visual stimulus to provide students with ideas and create a personal and emotion connection with the written text. In the school years of 2013/14 I followed 21 primary classes which were taking part in a ‘film literacy’ scheme run by Bradford UNESCO City of Film. This initiative saw the training of teachers in the use of film as a tool in literacy lesson with the hope to raise attainment and motivation. Students and teachers completed questionnaires and interviews which were analysed in conjunction with observations and the students’ literacy grades. The research showed that both students and teachers recorded an increase in motivation. Further, significant progress in attainment also became evident: film literacy students raised their grades by 23.3% beyond the expected year-on-year increase. Improvements in inference, comprehension and vocabulary were especially praised. Students from schools with a low-income environment benefitted in particular. The research discusses six potential reasons for these changes, two of which are based on the belief that film is a particularly suitable medium for teaching as it engages students emotionally. Although the thesis acknowledges that Bradford involved a unique group of schools in the film literacy training and research, it nevertheless argues that film could be useful addition to primary classrooms due to its potential ability to raise standards and engage reluctant young writers.

Lower educational attainment has been linked to worse chronic pain outcomes, but the reasons for this relationship are unclear. This study analyzed the relationship between level of education and pain outcomes in patients with musculoskeletal pain, and potential psychosocial mechanisms to explain this relationship. We hypothesized that patients with lower educational attainment would report greater pain intensity and interference, and that pain catastrophizing, anxiety, and depression would mediate the relationship between educational attainment and pain. A total of 843 participants (63% female, 78% White, Mage=55.13), diagnosed with a musculoskeletal pain condition [knee osteoarthritis (29%), back pain (57%), and fibromyalgia (14%)], completed questionnaires including demographics, Brief Pain Inventory (BPI), Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scales (HADS). Pearson correlations and bootstrapped mediation analyses were conducted to examine the relationships among education, psychosocial, and pain variables. Education was inversely correlated with pain intensity and interference, pain catastrophizing, anxiety, and depression (p < .05). Pain catastrophizing significantly mediated the relationship between education and pain intensity (95%CI [-.05, -.01]), and catastrophizing and depression mediated the effects of education on pain interference (95% CI [-.08, -.01]; 95%CI [-.06, -.01]). Anxiety did not mediate either relationship. These findings indicate that greater pain catastrophizing, and in part depression, partly drive the relationship between lower educational attainment and worse pain outcomes. This work importantly aims to reduce pain disparities and provides direction for psychosocial treatment, suggesting that pain catastrophizing may be a particularly critical target in patients with lower education level. / 2026-02-23T00:00:00Z

The thesis investigates the effects of industrial automation on post-secondary education enrollment. To assess the effects, we build linear regression models to estimate the impact of the surge in the stock of industrial robots on post-secondary enrollment across 50 U.S. states and 41 countries. Drawing upon these estimates and the literature documenting the structural shift in the labor market, we find that recent developments in the fields of automation and robotics have contributed to a shift in demand for post-secondary education, with panel data models that control for both country and time fixed unobservables indicating a significant decline in enrollment for 4-year degree programs internationally.

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