abstract: Inner city high schools today are struggling to create and maintain connections between students' values and schools requirements. Schools attempt to develop ways to help students become a vital part of the school community and provide them with resources to be successful both socially and academically. This study examined how an urban high school in the southwest implemented an academic advisory program to build and maintain the student/school relationship along with hoping to provide the resources to help increase student achievement in core academic programs. Research has identified the importance relationships have on academic achievement and the strong bonds that need to be developed with students and those there to support them. Previous attempts to provide students with the academic support through traditional tutoring in after-school programs have not proven to be successful in providing support students need. These after school tutoring programs have multiple challenges including being voluntary and students having other commitments they are involved with. Incorporating academic advisory programs during the school day is an attempt to overcome these challenges that are experienced with other programs. Using math and English course letter grade distribution comparisons were made to determine if changes in academic achievement occurred after implementation of academic advisory, whether participation in the program for more than one year made a difference on student academic achievement, and finally if academic advisory had any different effect on students that are high, middle, or low achieving. This study could not identify and specific correlation between the academic advisory program and academic achievement. When looking at letter grade distribution data from before implementation and after implementation similar growths and declines are seen with no identifiable trends during the program implementation. Consideration needs to be taken for the limitations identified and the school may want to conduct further review by addressing the limitations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Administration and Supervision 2014

Children in care (e.g., foster care) are at risk of a variety of negative developmental outcomes. Of particular concern are their often poor academic outcomes. Indeed, children in care often have below grade-level performance on math and reading, increased rates of school drop out, and learning disabilities. Despite these difficulties, relatively little research has been conducted to try to ameliorate the problem. The present thesis, consisting of three independent randomized controlled trials (RCTs), sought to address the need for improved educational outcomes for children in care. The first RCT was an evaluation of a one-on-one tutoring program, TutorBright. Children in care were randomized to either a tutoring group or a waitlist control group and assessed on their math and reading skills, as well as on other educationally relevant domains (executive functioning, behaviour, and caregiver involvement in school-related activities), pre and post test. ANCOVA via multiple regression revealed that the children in care that had received tutoring, compared to the waitlist control group, made significantly greater gains in reading comprehension (Hedges’ g = 0.34), reading fluency (g = 0.16), and math calculation (g = 0.39). Moreover, executive functioning and self-reported symptoms of PTSD (for older children) were significant moderators of the effects of tutoring. No significant spill-over effects of tutoring were found. The second RCT, building upon previous RCTs by Flynn et al. (2012) and Harper and Schmidt (2016), evaluated whether a shorter version (i.e., 15 weeks) of a one-on-one Direct Instruction tutoring program, Teach Your Children Well (TYCW), was as effective as a longer version of TYCW (i.e., 25 weeks) on improving the math and reading skills for children in care. ANCOVA via multiple regression did not reveal any significant group differences in academic performance for any of the WJ-III subtests. Collapsing across the two intervention conditions, follow-up paired samples t-tests revealed significant improvement in Letter-Word Identification (Cohen’s d = 0.22), Reading Fluency (d = 0.36), Calculation (d = 0.38), Math Fluency (d = 0.47), Applied Problems (d = 0.30), and Broad Reading (d = 0.30) and Broad Math (d = 0.40) composite scores, suggesting that the 15-week and 25-week TYCW programs were equally effective in improving math and reading skills. Moreover, an attribute-treatment interaction analysis revealed that children with higher executive functioning benefited more from the shorter tutoring dosage for Calculation. The third RCT was a small pilot study that aimed to assess whether working-memory training (WMT) can enhance: 1) working memory capacity, in the short and longer term (i.e., immediately following the completion of WMT and 6-months later), 2) symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (i.e., inattention, hyperactivity, and executive functioning) in the short and longer term, and, 3) math and reading skills at 6-months post WMT. The findings from this study suggested that WMT can improve verbal working memory (g = 0.35) as well as visuo-spatial short-term memory (g = 1.10) in the shorter term but not in the longer term. Moreover, WMT did not have a significant impact on improving symptoms of ADHD or math and reading skills. Together, the results of this dissertation indicate that the math and reading skills of children in care can be improved via tutoring. The findings highlight the importance of providing children in care with effective academic supports in order to help them reach their full potential.

The objective of this master thesis project was to improve the existing mobile game Entanglement. This game needed better tutoring and feedback, since the players found it hard to grasp how to play the game. The gameplay of the game also needed to be adjusted as it had no clear goal and did not keep the players’ interest. Mobile games has exploded on the app market and the way they are composed differs from the more traditional games on gaming consoles and computers. This thesis has investigated what makes mobile games successful and what trends there are in the mobile gaming market. Focus has been on the tutoring, feedback and gameplay of mobile games. The thesis project resulted in improved feedback to the player as he is playing Entanglement. The tutoring of the game has also been given a real boost although it needs continued work and user testing to get it to work optimally. The gameplay was changed to a level based gameplay, which gave the game a clear goal and easily kept the players interested. Entanglement is still not ready for release, but it has come a long way.

Systems of writing have existed for thousands of years. The history of civilisation and the history of writing are so intertwined that it is hard to separate the one from the other. These systems of writing, however, are not static. They change. One of the latest developments in systems of writing is short electronic messages such as seen on Twitter and in MXit. One novel application which uses these short electronic messages is the Dr Math® project. Dr Math is a mobile online tutoring system where pupils can use MXit on their cell phones and receive help with their mathematics homework from volunteer tutors around the world. These conversations between pupils and tutors are held in MXit lingo or MXit language – this cryptic, abbreviated system 0f ryting w1ch l0ks lyk dis. Project μ (pronounced mu and indicating MXit Understander) investigated how topics could be determined in MXit lingo and Project μ's research outputs spot mathematics topics in conversations between Dr Math tutors and pupils. Once the topics are determined, supporting documentation can be presented to the tutors to assist them in helping pupils with their mathematics homework. Project μ made the following contributions to new knowledge: a statistical and linguistic analysis of MXit lingo provides letter frequencies, word frequencies, message length statistics as well as linguistic bases for new spelling conventions seen in MXit based conversations; a post-stemmer for use with MXit lingo removes suffixes from the ends of words taking into account MXit spelling conventions allowing words such as equashun and equation to be reduced to the same root stem; a list of over ten thousand stop words for MXit lingo appropriate for the domain of mathematics; a misspelling corrector for MXit lingo which corrects words such as acount and equates it to account; and a model for spotting mathematical topics in MXit lingo. The model was instantiated and integrated into the Dr Math tutoring platform. Empirical evidence as to the effectiveness of the μ Topic Spotter and the other contributions is also presented. The empirical evidence includes specific statistical tests with MXit lingo, specific tests of the misspelling corrector, stemmer, and feedback mechanism, and an extensive exercise of content analysis with respect to mathematics topics.

The ubiquity of Web 2.0 technologies has led to a seismic shift in the way educational services are delivered. It comes as no surprise then that e-tutoring—otherwise known as electronic or online tutoring—is quickly supplanting face-to-face tuition for reasons of both cost and convenience. While e-tutoring is an effective form of academic support for many students, its efficacy remains tenuous for those confronted with a digital divide that figures predominantly around geographic barriers, socio-economic status, and educational levels. Premised on diffusion research, this master's dissertation explores the implementation of an e-tutoring service known as Homework Help that has effected relatively low adoption rates. It uses a concurrent mixed-methods approach—including surveys, interviews, and focus groups—to examine the factors that have led to this low adoption rate. The results are presented via two journal articles situated within a larger meta-talk: The first article contrasts the adoption patterns apparent between rural and urban students, while the second article looks at the utility of diffusion research in examining educational technologies, as it explores the use of e-tutoring for applied stream students. The findings of this study suggest that rural and urban, as well as applied and academic student subgroups, differ in terms of their perception and adoption of e-tutoring. Implications for educational policy, especially in regards to rural education, are discussed.

Children living in foster care are a particularly vulnerable group of children that are at high-risk for experiencing a multitude of difficulties, including poor academic performance and achievement. Although the academic underachievement of foster children has been well-documented for decades, very few attempts have been made to address the problem. This thesis is the second study to come out of the RESPs for Kids in Care research project, which represents one of three known randomized controlled trials aimed at providing an academic intervention to foster children with a view of improving their basic skills, increasing their chances of graduating from high school and enrolling in post-secondary education. Sixty-four foster children (aged 6 to 13 years), recruited from nine Children’s Aid Societies in Ontario, Canada, participated in the project and received an individualized direct-instruction tutoring intervention that was delivered by their foster parent(s). The unique contribution of the current study was its investigation of differential gender effects of the tutoring amongst the foster boys and girls, and whether there were any mental health and social-relational spillover effects. A mixed-method approach was used to explore these differential effects and the main hypothesis of the project, that the foster children in the experimental group would demonstrate greater gains in reading and math than the children in the control group, between pre-test and post-test, regardless of gender. The results were promising: the foster children in the experimental group demonstrated significant gains in their basic reading and math skills after receiving the foster-parent delivered one-on-one tutoring; there were differential gender effects across the academic and mental health results; and there was partial support for the notion that an academic tutoring intervention does elicit spill-over effects into the mental health and social-developmental domains of foster children’s lives. Results and implications were discussed.

This study explored the usefulness of peer tutoring among elementary school-aged nonnative speakers of English (NNS). In this study, the more proficient NNS of English tutored their less proficient NNS peers. I explored the usefulness of peer tutoring in the natural classroom environment of the English as a second language (ESL) students in Grades 4 to 7. The study focuses on how and to what extent the ESL students can assist each other in the academic and language learning of a science study on the human body during peer tutoring sessions. Taking an ethnographic research approach, the study employed a variety of data collection methods such as classroom observations, formal and informal interviews with the participants, tape recording peer tutoring sessions and collecting writing samples of the students' work. Eighteen ESL students, the classroom teacher and the researcher as participant observer were the participants in this study. Seven themes emerged from the data for discussion of the findings of the study. The results of this study demonstrate that with teacher scaffolding, such as modelling strategies, explicit instruction, and contextual hands-on group tasks for experiential learning and sharing, that NNS of English can and do assist their NNS peers during peer tutoring. Further to this, results indicated that the matching of tutors and tutees is complex and requires careful consideration when forming the tutoring dyads. An interesting aspect of the study revealed that discourse and "concepts" were being scaffolded at the same time and that students were able to include description and causal discourse in their writing about topics on the human body. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate

Buddy Reading, a literacy event that pairs two students as they share the reading of a book, was investigated from cultural, textual and social stances. Using a sample of 10 pairs of students from grades one and three, this study explored 1) the influences of school culture and classroom conventions that effected Buddy Reading, 2) the interaction between Grade 1 early readers as they read with more proficient Grade 3 buddies, and 3) student and teacher perceptions of Buddy Reading. Data collection involved four phases and included classroom observation, video recording students as they read together, photographic interviews of students and standard interviews of teachers. Findings indicated that student and teacher perceptions paralleled classroom practice, with the exception of students' perception of the type of decoding skills used. Although half of the proficient readers reported that they encouraged their younger partners to 'sound out words', they usually corrected oral reading errors by 'telling' or 'pronouncing' the word for their buddy. Students did not use scaffolding dialogue as they read with their buddies, and it was concluded that Buddy Reading could not be used as an alternative for reading practice with an adult. Social interaction between students was observed and discussed. School culture, tradition and rituals had a significant effect on the organization of the Buddy Reading Program and classroom practice. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate

No description available.

Since 1968, the federally funded TRIO Student Support Services (SSS) program has assisted students who are either low income, first-generation, or have disabilities with services designed to improve the success of these participants in college. To achieve this goal, the services offered, such as the tutoring services at a participating 2-year college in the southeastern United States, must be effective. Guided by Tinto’s theory of academic integration, the purpose of this retrospective prediction study was to ascertain whether the amount of documented time receiving tutorial services, college placement test scores, race/ethnicity, gender, and age were predictive of student success as measured by grades in 2 levels of remedial math courses and 1 remedial English course. Nonprobability sampling of remedial course tutoring recipients produced samples for Level 1 math n = 43, Level 2 math n = 49, and English n = 25. Ordinal logistic regression analyses indicated that time spent in SSS tutoring during the first 5 weeks of a semester positively predicted grades for all 3 remedial courses. In addition, female gender was negatively correlated with grades for the Level 1 remedial math course, and college placement scores were predictive of success for both remedial math courses. Age and race/ethnicity were not significant predictors of student success for any of the courses. Based on these findings, a recommendation to implement a remedial summer bridge program was developed for the local college to provide recent high school graduates with the opportunity to get a head start on their remedial education and aid them with their transition into higher education. The summer bridge program will influence positive social change by strengthening the services of TRIO SSS at the local college, thus positively affecting the education and lives of students who take part in these services.