published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This study examines evidence that supports the assertion of social presence (sp) theory impacting the community of inquiry for cognitive learning in distance education (DE). This study tested the validity of social presence assertions with respect to developing deep meaningful learning (dml) from the perspective of students engaged in distance education Master’s studies. This study employed a convenient sample of students enrolled at the graduate level; due to limited participation generalizations cannot be made to any population. The mixed method study involved both a quantitative online survey with 36 questions and qualitative follow-up telephone interviews conducted with 4 participants. A target population of 290 participants was obtained resulting in 25 returned surveys. Findings concluded no significant relationship exists between social presence and deep meaningful learning, cognitive learning and building a community of inquiry for deep meaningful learning. Findings strongly suggest social presence acts as a hindrance to deep meaningful learning. The results of the study justify further investigation and future studies are strongly recommended. / 2011-06

CEGEPs (Colleges d'enseignement general et professionnel) were designed with the aim of developing intellectual abilities in young adults. The purpose of this study was to describe the cognitive and affective abilities of CEGEP students at the beginning and end of CEGEP and to measure the change in these abilities. Comparing student cognitive and affective abilities at the beginning of, during and at the end of CEGEP, according to known measures of student development, would establish what changes occur during the college years, and would thereby promote a more thorough understanding of the students which CEGEPs serve. The cognitive development of CEGEP students was assessed by examining the three broad areas of development most focused on at the college level: reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. Affective development was studied by examining the moral reasoning and ego development of CEGEP students and students' attitudes toward knowledge and learning. / The research design for the study was an interrupted time series on male and female students in three college programs: Science, Social Science, and Commerce. The experimental sample consisted of 334 students who entered CEGEP in 1985 in these programs. The students were selected at random and administered a series of cognitive and affective measures upon entry to college as part of the college's assessment procedure. The students were retested at the end of the first year of CEGEP and at the end of the second year of CEGEP. Samples were also selected in May 1986 and May 1987 to control for history, selection, maturation, and testing effects. / The findings suggest that students' cognitive and affective abilities increase while attending CEGEP, but that most students do not begin college with the complex intellectual abilities required for academic success. Students in all programs made significant gains in vocabulary, comprehension, writing, critical thinking, moral reasoning, and ego development. Changes also occurred in certain attitudes toward knowledge and learning. Male and female students differed in critical thinking and ego development, but did not differ in vocabulary, comprehension, writing, or moral reasoning. Differences among programs were found in vocabulary, comprehension, critical thinking, and moral reasoning, but were not found in writing or ego development.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using graphic organizers during prereading, reading, and postreading positions of the comprehension and retention of Chinese sixth-grade students who were identified as below-average or above-average readers. Chinese sixth graders from one school were first administered The Michigan Chinese Reading Test to identify reading level. Subjects were then assigned to one of the four treatment groups: traditional Chinese social studies method, graphic preorganizers, graphic organizers as a reading guide, and graphic post organizers.Two practice passages were first used to familiarize the subjects with how graphic organizers were utilized in instruction before reading on experimental passage. The dependent measure, 45 multiple-choice questions based on the experimental passage, was administered twice: the next day after the instructional sessions were concluded and again seven days later.The principal analysis to test the three null hypotheses was a 2 x 4 x 2 ANOVA with repeated measures on the last factor corresponding to the two administrations of the test. Two follow-up analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were used to test for differences in treatment condition sepa-rately for above-average readers and below-average readers, using the average of the immediate and the seven-day delayed tests. One Scheffe test was applied to find the location of significant differences among the four treatment conditions for above-average readers. Finally, four follow-up t-tests were used to test for differences in reading level at each of the four treatment levels.Three conclusions were drawn from the statistical analyses of the data: 1) graphic organizers had a significant effect on comprehension and retention only when above-average readers were required to process the organizers during reading; 2) graphic organizers did not produce significantly better comprehension and recall performance of below-average readers; and 3) the effect of graphic organizers was equal to that of the traditional Chinese social studies method in maintaining comprehension and recall for both above-average readers and below-average readers over a one-week delay. / Department of Elementary Education

A fundamental problem which confronts Science teachers is the difficulty many students experience in the construction, understanding and remembering of concepts. This is more likely to occur when teachers adhere to a Transmission model of teaching and learning, and fail to provide students with opportunities to construct their own learning. Social construction, followed by individual reflective writing, enables students to construct their own understanding of concepts and effectively promotes deep learning. This method of constructing knowledge in the classroom is often overlooked by teachers as they either have no knowledge of it, or do not know how to appropriate it for successful teaching in Science. This study identifies the difficulties which students often experience when writing reflectively and offers solutions which are likely to reduce these difficulties. These solutions, and the use of reflective writing itself, challenge the ideology of the Sydney Genre School, which forms the basis of the attempt to deal with literacy in the NSW Science Syllabus. The findings of this investigation support the concept of literacy as the ability to use oral and written language, reading and listening to construct meaning. The investigation demonstrates how structured discussion, role play and reflective writing can be used to this end. While the Sydney Genre School methodology focuses on the structure of genre as a prerequisite for understanding concepts in Science, the findings of this study demonstrate that students can use their own words to discuss and write reflectively as they construct scientific concepts for themselves. Social construction and reflective writing can contribute to the construction of concepts and the development of metacognition in Science. However, students often experience difficulties when writing reflectively about scientific concepts they are learning. In this investigation, students identified these difficulties as an inability to understand, remember and think about a concept and to plan the sequence of their reflective writing. This study was undertaken in four different classes at junior to senior levels. The difficulties identified by students were successfully addressed by role play and the activities that are integral to it. These include physical or kinaesthetic activity, social construction, the use of drawing, diagrams and text, and the provision of a concrete model of the concept. Through the enactment effect, kinaesthetic activity enables students to automatically remember and visualise concepts, whilst visual stimuli and social construction provide opportunities for students to both visualise and verbalise concepts. In addition, the provision of a concrete model enables most students to visualise and understand abstract concepts to some extent. These activities, embedded in role play, enable students to understand, remember, sequence and think about a concept as they engage in reflective writing. This, in turn, enhances understanding and memory. Role play has hitherto been regarded as a useful teaching technique when dealing with very young students. This study demonstrates that role play can be highly effective when teaching Science at the secondary level. This investigation looks at the activities embedded in role play, and demonstrates how they can be effectively translated from theoretical constructs into classroom practice. Grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Glaser, 1978; 1998; 2002) was selected as the most appropriate methodology for this investigation. The problems of identifying and controlling variables in an educational setting were essentially resolved using this qualitative, interpretative approach. Students from four classes in Years 8, 10 and 11 were investigated. Data were gathered using classroom observations, informal interviews, and formal written interviews, focus group conversations and samples of student writing. / Master of Education (Hons.)

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 88 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 58-65).

Thesis (Ph.D)--Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Potter, Steve; Committee Member: Butera, Robert; Committee Member: DeMarse, Thomas; Committee Member: Jaeger, Dieter; Committee Member: Lee, Robert.

Mémoire (M.Ed.)--Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 1996. / Résumé disponible sur Internet. CaQCU Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 76-86).

Thesis (M.S.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Psychology, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.