<p> School Wide Positive Behavior Support (SW-PBS) is a current framework for schools to model their discipline strategies. SW-PBS has a framework built on identifying behaviors and predictors of their occurrence, routines to correct and prevent these problems, and implementation of these routines school wide to collect information to evaluate these strategies. Office discipline referrals were reviewed in the secondary school of Rural District 10 in Missouri from 2004-2013 to determine the significance between implementation of SW-PBS and the number of office discipline referrals. School climate was also studied in Rural District 10 as well as other secondary schools around the state of Missouri. A survey was sent to students, teachers and administrators from Rural District 10 and teachers and administrators from other districts around the state that have implemented SW-PBS for at least two years. The data revealed no statistically significance difference between the number of office discipline referrals before and during implementation of SW-PBS in Rural District 10. Based on the perceptions from the questions on the survey, teachers and administrators in Rural District 10 felt as though the climate and culture of the building overall was better compared to the perceptions of students in Rural District 10. Comparing Rural District 10 to other districts, Rural District 10 teachers and administrators felt as though the climate and culture of their secondary school was better, overall, as compared to other districts around the state of Missouri that have implemented SW-PBS for at least two years.</p>

<p> The Ironman Triathlon is an epic endurance event consisting of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile run. There is paucity in the literature relating to how athletes learn how to negotiate this event. This qualitative study was conducted over a 9 month period, to align with the 2013 Ironman training and racing season. Seven athletes were selected for participation in the study. Utilizing a case study approach, the Ironman athletes' learning pathways were examined through in-depth interviews and audio and video content personally captured by the participants. </p><p> The learning pathways revealed the athletes initially learned through cognitive means, i.e. social interaction, reading, Internet sources, and the observation of others. As athletes traversed the learning pathway, they subsequently operationalized the knowledge they learned and constructively made it meaningful to their respective personal training and racing situations. At the terminal end of the learning pathway, the athletes operationalized the learned content in an experiential learning cycle. During the entire learning pathway, the athletes practiced the learned content, which is best characterized as behavioral learning. The audio and video content provided by the athletes empirically validated the interviews. </p><p> The interviews with the athletes were coded. Some unifying themes emerged from the data independent of cognitive, constructivist, behavioral, or experiential learning theories; e.g. the importance of mental toughness, the understanding of pain during the training and racing process, how success is measured, the importance of training with a power meter, and motivating factors.</p>

<p> Violence among America's youth, both in schools and in their surrounding communities, has become a serious concern as a public health issue with physical, economic, social, and psychological consequences (Cooper, Faccia, Hepworth, &amp; Lutenbacher, 2003). School districts are now required to provide safe learning environments under the guidelines of the NCLB (Greenberg, 2004). The programs available to assist school districts in combating this aggressive behavior can be costly and often times ineffective for long term results. </p><p> The purpose of this qualitative mega-analysis is threefold. The first purpose is to identify the intervention methods used most often as prevention and/or repair strategies for aggressive behavior among school-age students by analyzing prior quantitative research on the topic. The second purpose is to create a qualitative mega-analysis of behavior intervention strategies that is easier to understand for teachers and school districts while adding to current research in the field. The third and final purpose is to help schools minimize costs and give them the tools needed to identify their greatest school and/or district need, detect common situations, and solve their own problems.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Higher Education Administration, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 15, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-12, Section: A, page: 4595. Adviser: John P. Bean.

Thesis (Psy.D.)--Fairleigh Dickinson University, 2005. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-02, Section: B, page: 1161. Chair: Judith Kaufman. Available also in print.

<p> The purpose of the study is to evaluate if the effectiveness of a check-in, checkout (CICO) intervention varies based on the function maintaining students' target behaviors as determined by functional analyses prior to the implementation of the intervention. Participants in the study consisted of 6 children enrolled in general education Kindergarten classes across 6 teachers in the Southeastern United States. Upon completion of a functional analysis, participants were determined to fit into functional groups (i.e., combined attention and escape, attention, and escape), then a modified between groups design with a component of a multiple-baseline across participants design was completed. Overall, the current study found that the CICO intervention increased desired behavior as measured by points earned on the daily behavior report card ratings across baseline to intervention phases. All functional groups displayed an increase in average points earned from baseline phase across intervention phases. The results of the current study have implications within the educational systems for selecting interventions within the response to intervention framework, utilizing functional analysis for the CICO intervention, and acceptability of evidence based interventions. Limitations and recommendations for future research are presented.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Lehigh University, 2009. / Adviser: George J. DuPaul.

<p> U.S. and world communities face the challenges of understanding how children grieve and of giving them sufficient social and educational support. Inner-city minority adolescents have not been represented well in the bereavement and attachment literature. The purpose of the quantitative study was to use the attachment theory to understand the impact of parental bereavement on these adolescents. Data were collected using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), the Piers-Harris Children's Self- Concept Scale (2^nd ed.), and school records. MANOVAs were used to analyze the influence of attachment organization, bereavement status, and gender on self-concept and academic and behavioral functioning in school. Results indicated that securely attached adolescents functioned better across all 3 variables than did insecure and unresolved/disorganized adolescents. There were no differences in functioning in the bereaved group according to attachment organization. Results according to gender indicated that although the female participants experienced more academic success and had fewer behavioral difficulties in school, their self-concept was more negative than was that of their male counterparts. There were no differences in functioning in the bereaved group according to gender, but compared to the entire sample, the bereaved females no longer functioned better than males, academically or behaviorally, and there were no longer differences in self-concept. Possible positive social changes from these findings include improvements in school-related student support such as promoting the use of the AAI, linking educational and clinical environments, and assisting schools in developing safe-base classroom environments that could better meet students' needs according to their attachment organization and bereavement status.</p>

<p> The low graduation rate of degree-seeking students at public community colleges is an important crisis facing communities across the United States. College satisfaction and withdrawal cognitions in students have been identified as key factors in college persistence by researchers. However, a review of the literature revealed no study in which a college-persistence intervention based on the personalization principle theory or using tailored messages has been conducted. The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a college-persistence intervention, based on the personalization principle theory and Mashburn's theory, for students at a community college. This study used between-groups experimental research design and employed a nonprobability convenience sample comprising 108 college students at a regionally accredited public community college in the United States. Random assignment to 1 of 3 groups, including 2 experimental groups and 1 no-message control group, was conducted. The 2 experimental groups were the personalization-based tailored instructional messages and generalized instructional messages groups. A one-way MANOVA indicated that there was no significant difference in the college satisfaction and withdrawal cognitions of students in the experimental and control groups. A chi-square test of independence also indicated that there was no significant association between intervention type (personalization-based tailored instructional message, generalized instructional message, and no-message control) and college persistence. This study provides educators with a basis for social change with the debut of a prototype intervention that may be replicated and extended in future research to help students earn a college degree.</p>

<p> This study sought to fill the gap in the literature concerning gifted students and academic motivation by examining the academic motivation in 126 non-gifted (<i>n</i> = 66) and intellectually gifted (<i>n </i> = 60) middle and high school students. The study used archival data to answer the following questions: What is the relationship between motivational variables, test anxiety, and student GPA for both non-gifted and gifted students? Are there differences in motivation across student group and across gender? And does a unique profile of motivation exist for intellectually gifted students? Study results revealed positive relationships between certain aspects of motivation and academic performance within the non-gifted students and the gifted students. Findings indicated that intellectually gifted middle and high school students tend to be more motivated than their non-gifted peers and experience significantly less test anxiety than their non-gifted peers. Gender differences in motivation were found only within the gifted group on intrinsic goal orientation, with gifted female students reporting more intrinsic goal orientation than their male counterparts. While a unique profile of motivation did not arise for intellectually gifted students, the gifted students were more likely to fall within cluster groups with high motivation, high sense of control over academic outcomes and high perception of their ability to successfully complete academic tasks. These students tended to have a higher GPA and experience very little test anxiety when compared to students with low motivation.</p>