The purpose of this study was to identity whether the following variables are related to a sense of alienation among international students: age, sex, marital status, length of time in the United States and in Tucson, the place of residence, the participation in campus activities, and their perception of language ability. Alienation is viewed as a sense of powerlessness, meaninglessness, and social estrangement. The instrument for collecting demographic information and measuring the level of participation and alienation were administered to randomly selected international students at a southwestern university. Responses (185) were analyzed to find out the relationship among variables. The analysis identified that the more international students participated in campus activities, the less they felt alienated. Asian students had higher alienation scores than non-Asian students. The results suggest that the needs of different groups among international students should be evaluated separately, especially when designing the language programs. The international students should take the initiative to utilize the resources on campus which could help them adjust to the environment easier.

In 2000, the number of students giving up on school will increase to about 40% or nearly 2,000,000 (The National Dropout Prevention Center, 1989). Unfortunately, these students typically will drop out of society and out of the work force. This study examined 387 eighth graders' general attitudes toward school, ditching school, peer influence in the context of dropping out, educational aspirations, how time is spent, parental involvement, and attitudes toward dropping out of school. The strongest factor that emerged was parental influence. The findings revealed a statistically significant relationship between parental influence and students' educational aspirations. Moreover, chi-square tests for independence revealed significant differences between the levels of parental influence and students' thinking of dropping out and students' believing that they would drop out. These findings suggest that there is a strong positive relationship between parental influence and students' attitude toward dropping out of school and students' educational aspirations.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of variations in the levels of self-focus and general and task-specific self-concepts of ability on performance, effort, and continuing interest. It was hypothesized that in addition to a main effect for self-focus, there would be an interaction among level of self-focus and general and task-specific self-concept of ability. It was further hypothesized that the difference in outcome measures would be greater when task-specific self-concept of ability and self-focus were considered than when general self-concept of ability and self-focus were involved. / A total of 129 ninth and tenth graders from a high school in a small southern city participated in the study. Premeasures of reading and problem solving ability and test anxiety were collected and used as covariates. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of two groups. In the high self-focus group, students were told that performance scores achieved while completing a computer-based lesson and a posttest, would be made available to classmates via the lesson's online management system. This system was said to produce a rank-ordered list based on several performance criteria, and would allow social comparisons of performance. Additionally, a video camera was present during treatment sessions to increase the levels of self-focus among participants. In the low self-focus group, subjects were told that their performances would be more private, and no video camera was used. On task behavior in both groups was recorded as a measure of effort. All students completed a posttest and an interest survey. / The treatment effects for performance, effort, and interest were analyzed using ANCOVA. The results indicate that students in the high self-focus group performed more poorly on the lesson posttest, and expended less effort than students in the low self-focus group. The results obtained were not conclusive, but they suggest that instructional practices that invoke high levels of self-focus may impair some types of performance and the amount of effort expended by learners. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-10, Section: A, page: 3480. / Major Professor: John Keller. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

Researchers in the critical education tradition have documented the importance of women's peers in campus culture reproducing gender inequality in schooling. This dissertation focuses on fraternity little sister programs (groups of women who affiliate with men's social fraternities on college campuses) as organizational elements of campus peer culture. / Using data from open-ended depth interviews with forty Euro-and African-American little sisters, participant observation, interviews with other students and campus officials, and archival data, I show how organizational structure and culture differed by race and how this directly affected the reproduction of gender inequality. The structure of little sister organizations (particularly little sisters' quasi-member status) and their activities facilitated the reproduction of men's domination over women by creating a hierarchy where men ruled and women served. Aspects of fraternity little sister culture such as men's selection criteria, sexual ideologies and fraternity sex culture served to reproduce gender inequality as well. Euro-American women were more likely to be exploited sexually; African-American women faced exploitation in the form of their domestic labor for the fraternity. I examine the strategies of resistance that women used to combat the structural and cultural subordination they experienced as fraternity little sisters. African-American women were more likely to resist domination collectively and had greater success than their Euro-American counterparts, whose individual acts of resistance had little effect on their organizations. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-07, Section: A, page: 2633. / Major Professor: Irene Padavic. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

Peer response groups, in which students give and receive feedback on drafts of essays, embody many features of effective language teaching environments: student-centered activities; the opportunity for students to play a role other than the passive learner; the need for students to negotiate as they discuss meaning. This study examined one L2 writing group as they responded to each others' papers, and searched for links between feedback and revisions made to the papers. This was a case study of three advanced ESL writers in an Intensive English Program over a seven-week period. Qualitative research methods included collecting videotaped, audiotapes, interview, and written data and analyzing them using inductive procedures. / These students talked extensively and exclusively on text-related issues. They demonstrated an awareness of vital concepts in academic writing: the need to consider audience and not make assumptions about readers' cultural understanding; the importance of providing adequate detail in their texts; and the need to use conventional aspects of academic writing. In their creation of the response group activity, the students were critical but offered usable suggestions and respected the author's control. The writers learned how to accept critical comments, and how to justify the text and reject suggestions if they wished. / Analysis of revisions made following peer review revealed large differences in behavior between the students. One who readily accepted suggestions during the talk revised accordingly. One who regularly justified the original text incorporated few suggested changes. One who spent considerable time explaining the text made extensive revisions that could not easily be traced back to the talk. It was concluded that revision habits of these writers were strongly influenced by their interaction behaviors during the text discussions. / The peer feedback activity was revealed to be a forum for developing skills of giving and receiving critical response. Writers learned to trust and use peer feedback in revision, but, equally important, they learned how to make their own decisions about revising. Implications for teachers include the need to assist student writers in practising oral revision in the group in order to practise changes in texts in front of an audience of peers. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-08, Section: A, page: 3031. / Co-Major Professors: E. Platt; F. L. Jenks. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

Students do not always use available help to accomplish their goals in an academic environment. Traditionally, academic help-seeking has been viewed as an act of dependence involving a public interaction between a student and a teacher or peer. Recent advances in technology have led to the re-conceptualization of help-seeking as a private act that supports independent achievement goals. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of two treatments that promote task involvement, task-involving instructions and instructor modeling on help-seeking behavior. Help-seeking behavior was defined as the number of times a student accessed program help while learning to use a programming system. It was hypothesized that students who received either the task-involving instruction treatment, the instructor modeling treatment or a combination of these treatments would seek more program help than students who received traditional instructions without instructor modeling. / Three instructors and a total of 106 technical professionals employed by an information technology company participated in this study. Students were grouped into eight classes that were open for registration by any technical employee through a computer registration system. Employees registered themselves for class dates and locations and classes were assigned to instructors. Two different instructors were assigned to each condition in this study. / The research was conducted as a 2 $\times$ 2 quasi-experimental design with four possible conditions. The treatment effects for help-seeking were analyzed using the two-way analysis of variance procedure. A main effect was supported for the instructor modeling treatment, F(1,102) = 18.32, p $<$.05. The results indicate that students who received the instructor modeling treatment sought more program help than students who did not receive instructor modeling. / This study suggests that instructor modeling may be an appropriate strategy to promote academic help-seeking. Educators should consider the effects of task-involving strategies on the attitudes associated with help-seeking behavior. Teachers can affect these attitudes and enhance the learning experience by modeling the use of program help to answer questions or solve problems. Future research should investigate relationships between increased help-seeking and other indicators of learning and performance. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-11, Section: A, page: 4364. / Major Professor: John M. Keller. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

The need to attract and retain more talented individuals in teaching has become a central issue in educational reform in recent years. A number of state legislatures and school boards developed in the 1980s teacher incentive plans (merit pay or variants like career ladders) that attempted to achieve these key objectives. A growing number of state legislatures and school boards has taken the position that merit pay is a cost-effective method of motivating teachers and excellence in teaching. / Debates about the efficacy of merit pay programs according to instrumental rationality of recruiting and retaining quality teachers, however, have tended to obscure the symbolic importance of these programs. Merit pay programs have expressive facets that have gone largely unrecognized but which should occupy at least as significant a role in judging the effects and the power of such policies on improving educational quality. / This study views merit pay programs as a political ritual in order to explore what expressive symbols these programs dramatize, and what that may mean for public education. The merit pay programs contained in the Florida Educational Reform Act of 1983 and its subsequent amendments are examined as a political ritual in order to illustrate the expressive functions of merit pay programs. The study interprets the meanings and the deeper messages embodied in the Florida teacher incentive programs from both a neo-Durkheimian (functionalist), as well as critical (conflict) theoretical perspectives. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-02, Section: A, page: 0496. / Major Professor: Sande Milton. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

The purpose of this study was to assess the multi-variant area of control and administration of athletic programs as viewed by the faculty. Satisfaction regarding academic environment, locus of control, and financial sources was investigated by both division affiliation (ie., Division I, II, III) and current athletic board service. Also, an examination of perceived knowledge relevant to policy and procedure was conducted across the above variables. / The sample consisted of full-time faculty members' responses from forty-eight institutions equally representing the three divisions as established by the NCAA (ie. Division I, II, & III). Forty faculty members at each institution were systematically selected as well as all current board members at each institution to receive the "Faculty Satisfaction" questionnaire. To compare Division affiliation differences the Kruskal-Wallis One-Way analysis of Variance by Ranks test was used, and, to compare general faculty to the current faculty board members the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney Test was used. All tests were conducted with an Alpha level of.01. The general faculty of Division I was found to be significantly less satisfied than general faculty of Division II in the variable 'Policy and Procedures'. Division III general faculty were more satisfied within all dependent variables than either Division II or I (ie. Policy and Procedures, Financial Resources, and Administrative Input). Current board members from Division I were more satisfied with athletic programming at their institutions across all dependent variables than their general faculty. Division II current board members were more satisfied than their faculty counterparts on two dependent variables, while no difference was found on the variable Administrative Input. Division III comparisons illustrate a lack of significant differences for all variables on satisfaction levels. Also, no significant differences were found in satisfaction levels of current board members according to Division affiliation. / The dependent variable Perceived Knowledge produced the following significantly different pairs; Division III faculty as compared to Division II and I faculty, and Division I faculty as compared to Division I current board. Division III faculty and Division I current board, in both instances, were found to have higher levels of perceived knowledge. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-10, Section: A, page: 3556. / Major Professor: Charles Imwold. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

This study is a case history of the role of the Ministry of Education in the formulation of the National Plan for Educational Development in Costa Rica between 1970 and 1974. It is concerned with both the theoretical role of the state in educational policymaking in a democratic context and the historical development of the welfare state in Costa Rica following the 1948 social revolution. The purpose of the study is to test the inclusionary corporate model (Stepan, 1978) by focusing on the policymaking process within the Ministry of Education. The study borrows from Peterson's (1979) unitary models of policy formation to interpret and explain the series of educational reforms that led to the formulation of the National Plan for Educational Development and its attendant legislation, the General Law of Education / acase@tulane.edu

The role of the state as a potentially significant force in shaping the outcomes of education has been largely ignored in the literature on educational development. Using South Korea as a test case, this study examines the extent to which the state affected the outcomes of education in its interaction with the economy and classes. / The structure of Korean education system is different from those scrutinized by other studies (especially, U.S. and European systems). The Korean state exercised a great degree of control over schooling and actively created a mixture of mass (at the primary and secondary level) and elite schooling (at the tertiary level) and minimized class-based tracking and curricula at each level. This study conducts both historical and quantitative analyses to explain the divergent outcomes of Korean education produced under political economic conditions of active state involvement, lack of class coalitions, and economic constraints. / The historical analysis compares changes of the state educational policies across three regime periods (Rhee, Park, and Chun) differing in state strength and structure, the state-class relationship, chosen political and economic goals of the state, and its industrial policies. The quantitative analysis examines to what extent educational expansion was affected by political, economic, and class forces, by using time-series data from 1961 to 1988. I conclude that the organization of Korean schooling arose out of a web of a strong state involvement, weak class forces, and economic growth. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-12, Section: A, page: 4485. / Major Professor: J. Michael Armer. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.