Consecutive multielement designs were conducted to examine the effect of academic success and failure on classroom disruptiveness of three low achieving eighth graders: Larry, Jimmy, and Jeff. During 10 days, five conditions of success and of failure were randomly alternated and induced by means of written assignments. At the end of class the teacher told the student his grade without social reinforcement. Following this, the first occurrence of talking, being physical, and being out-of-seat was recorded in his next class during eighty, 10 second observation intervals. Interobserver reliability averaged above 80% across these measures. / Daily grades, known as background variables, received by each student in classes prior to the experimental sessions, were also analyzed. Larry's teachers recorded grades on days he was notified. Jimmy's and Jeff's teachers arranged for grade notifications, if any, according to the experimental sequence. A clear relationship between background variables and experimental effect was not discernible. / A functional relationship between success and failure and disruptive behavior was not demonstrated. Differences between median percentages during success and failure revealed that the notifications only slightly affected subsequent student behavior. Larry's talking behavior was unaffected. For Jimmy, a median percentage of 60% during failure indicated his talking behavior almost doubled that recorded for success of 32%. Jeff's talking behavior escalated during both conditions. Except for Jimmy, Larry's and Jeff's physical behavior appeared to increase slightly following success notifications as indicated by a difference between the medians of 5% and 9%, respectively. Jimmy's median percentages for success and failure of 12% and 19%, showed a slight difference of 7% in his physical behavior during failure. Out-of-seat behavior was minimal for all students. Median percentages for Larry's and Jimmy's out-of-seat behavior following success was zero. Following failure, median percentages were 10% and 4%, respectively. A difference of 1% between Jeff's median percentages was recorded. Debriefing sessions held for each student indicated they were pleased to have been involved in the study. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-03, Section: A, page: 0662. / Major Professor: Andrew Oseroff. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.

<p> Higher achievement scores, skill building, and closing the achievement gap are all anticipated results when providing academic interventions to students. When using Response to Intervention (RtI), a three tiered model where academic interventions are provided systematically to improve student outcomes, teachers would expect academic success from students. However, one middle school is experiencing positive unintended consequences that are lifelong skills students need to succeed. Accountability, self-advocacy and relationship building are all components that have been reported by teachers who are using BOOST, a RtI model created uniquely to fit the needs of a middle school in the Midwest. BOOST stands for Broadening Opportunities to Obtain Superior Thinking; it is a tier two academic intervention program. This qualitative study used focus groups and interviews to gain perceptual data regarding the use of a tier-two academic intervention model.</p><p>

This critical ethnographic study investigated an afterschool Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) space that seeks to develop New Literacies and academic literacies in urban youth between the ages of 13-19. Utilizing a sociocultural lens, which asserts that literacy is a social practice (Gee, 1991), I examined the racial and literate identities of research participants who self-identify as Black and explored the potential of this participatory space to develop their literate identities and to broaden their critical meta-awareness. My findings suggest that prioritizing the Social Dimension of literacy is urgent for Black students in the classroom, that culturally sustaining literacies can have a powerful iterative relationship with academic literacies in the classroom, and that YPAR instruction must more intentionally attend to the role of literacy in youth qualitative inquiry.

No description available.

<p> The purpose of this study is to examine the influences certain factors have on the mathematical motivation beliefs of students in a predominantly African American setting. Mathematical motivation beliefs, for the purpose of this study, are defined as the components mathematical self-efficacy and mathematical value, both represented as dependent variables in the study. 4 independent variables were studied as potential influences regarding mathematical motivation beliefs. The variables included parental influences, teacher influences, mathematical anxiety, and the environment/setting. This research was conducted using 2 high schools in a rural area in East Mississippi. The 1^st high school was predominantly African American and the 2^nd high school was predominantly Caucasian. 4 scales were selected for this research study. The Mathematics Confidence Scale, developed by Dowling (1978), Mathematics Problems Performance Scale (Dowling, 1978), Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitude Scale (Fennema, 1976), and My Class Activities Survey (MCA, Schweinle &amp; Mims, 2009) were all used. Findings revealed that teacher influence predicted the mathematical motivation beliefs of students in a predominantly African American school environment the most. Findings also indicated that math anxiety significantly predicted math value and self-efficacy in both classroom environments. Lastly, findings revealed that mathematical problem solving was significantly predicted by mathematical self-efficacy for students in a predominantly African American environment.</p>

To investigate and describe the literature and characteristics of a population of "beginning" high school choirs, this study developed a 47-item questionnaire and then distributed it to 263 VA high school choral directors who were members of Music Educators National Conference. From the 80% responses, 8 categories covering the characteristics of and literature for beginning high school choirs were compiled and analyzed: (1) demographic information; (2) organization of singers; (3) repertoire selection criteria; (4) literature sources; (5) types of literature performed; (6) program description; (7) developing sequential programs; and (8) recommended repertoire for mixed choirs. / Chi-square and Kendall's tau-b analyses indicated significant relationships between selected characteristics and different levels of high school student enrollment, choral enrollment, and teacher experience; the analyses found only one significant relationship between teacher experience and literature selection. Larger school and choral enrollments had a positive affect on both the number of sequential course offerings and the number of beginning boys and beginning treble choirs. Forty percent of the schools offered 3 levels of choral instruction. Almost half of the schools offered 3 levels of instruction for females, but only one fourth offered 3 levels of instruction for males. Auditions were not required for registration into a beginning high school choir; the beginning mixed choir was the most prevalent. Directors selected repertoire for advanced and beginning choirs by weighing technical and aesthetic criteria equally. Directors valued concerts, choral reading sessions, personal choral libraries, and recordings as literature sources. They programmed Twentieth Century literature most frequently and they most often reported a Twentieth Century piece as having been successfully performed by a beginning high school mixed choir. Few similarities were found when selections recommended by directors were compared with a large published list of recommended high school works by choral experts. Directors reported the 7-period day facilitated sequential choral offerings, and scheduling limited sequential choral offerings. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-08, Section: A, page: 3046. / Major Professor: Judy Kay Bowers. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 206-219). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, School of Education, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

<p> The inclusion of college preparation programs promote and forecast academic success in postsecondary studies among individual at-risk, African American urban high school students. Past research has shown ongoing, college acceptance, performance, and graduation gaps between at-risk, African American urban high school students when compared to affluent, Caucasian suburban high school students. The College Summit program is designed to help close this gap. </p><p> The study compared two models of the College Summit Program in one urban school setting. The study evaluated the effect that pre-college preparation activities had on these dependent variables: completion of postsecondary planning activities, end-of-year GPA, awards of individual scholarships, and acceptance at their initial top-three choice colleges. The evaluation focused on two groups of students, College Summit Program students who received academic credit for the program through calculating a student's grade based on percentage and College Summit Advisory students whose grade was determined as either a pass or fail. In addition, the study focused on a third group of students who were not enrolled in the College Summit Program known as the Non-Program Students (NPS). </p><p> This study analyzed the relationship between the independent variables, College Summit Program Graded Model, College Summit Advisory Pass/Fail Model, and the Non-Program Students (NPS) Model and the dependent variables mentioned previously. <i>Z</i>-tests determined if any of the independent variables predicted college-readiness outcomes of at-risk, African American students. <i>Z</i>-tests for difference in means and proportions determined if any differences in measurement of dependent variables were significant. <i> Z</i>-Tests for difference in means determined significant difference when comparing the CSP model to the CSA model for the dependent variables progression towards completion of postsecondary planning milestones, cumulative grade point averages, individual scholarship awards, and acknowledgements of initial top-three top choice colleges. <i>Z</i>-tests for difference in proportions determined significant difference when comparing the CSP model to the CSA model for the dependent variables full completion of postsecondary milestones and acceptance at the student's initial top-three choice colleges when testing the difference in proportions. </p><p> The study found that the graded College Summit Program is more effective when preparing at-risk, African American urban high school students for college. </p>