Muitas pesquisas estão sendo realizadas na área de ensino de Matemática que apontam a necessidade e os benefícios educacionais no estudo e no ensino de conceitos estatísticos. Neste contexto, este trabalho traz a proposta e a análise de uma atividade para estudantes do Ensino Fundamental. O principal objetivo deste trabalho foi planejar e aplicar uma sequência didática, envolvendo o uso do programa R-Commander, que, supostamente, estimule os alunos no interesse e compreensão dos conceitos estatísticos. Em termos metodológicos, a pesquisa empregada se classifica como estudo de caso, realizada em uma escola estadual de Porto Alegre (RS) com uma turma do nono ano do Ensino Fundamental. Esta proposta se enquadra no cenário de investigação descrito por Skovsmose (2001) e nos moldes da Modelagem Matemática. Nos aspectos teóricos, a análise dos dados coletados foi baseada nas três competências consideradas necessárias no ensino de Estatística: Literácia, Pensamento e Raciocínio Estatístico. A partir dos resultados obtidos, foi possível observar que a Modelagem Matemática aliada ao uso do R-Commander foi uma combinação favorável para uma boa abordagem do ensino de Estatística. / Many researches are being conducted in the area of teaching mathematics that point to the need and the educational gains in the study and teaching of statistical concepts. In this context, this work proposes and analyses activity for elementary school students. The main objective of this work was to plan and implement an instructional sequence, involving the use of R-Commander program that would stimulate students interest and understanding of statistical concepts. In methodological terms, the applied research is classified as a case study conducted at a state school in Porto Alegre (RS) with a class of ninth year of elementary school. This proposal fits in the research scenario described by Skovsmose (2001) and in a manner of modeling Mathematics. The data analysis was based on the principles of Statistics Education. From the results obtained, it may be noted that the mathematical modeling combined with the use of R-Commander was a favorable combination for a good approach to teaching Statistics.

O aprendizado de Estatística vem se tornando cada vez mais importante para o sucesso de empresas que competem em cenário globalizado e tem destacado os profissionais que, de fato, possuem este conhecimento. Em especial na administração, a estatística auxilia nas tomadas de decisão e é usada como ferramenta em diversas áreas como Finanças, Marketing e Produção, contudo, é utilizada também em outros cursos. Sabe-se, porém, que existe certa dificuldade no aprendizado desta disciplina, seja porque a atitude perante a Estatística é negativa, ou mesmo porque existem diferenças de estilo de aprendizagem. Tanto aluno como professor têm a necessidade de conhecer melhor as variáveis que contribuem para o aprendizado efetivo. Com o objetivo de identificar como variáveis demográficas, estilos de aprendizagem dos alunos e a atitude perante estatística influenciam o desempenho dos alunos, este estudo analisou os as características, estilos, atitudes e desempenho dos alunos de Estatística aplicada da FEARP-USP. Foi utilizado o índice de estilos de aprendizagem de Felder e Soloman e a escala de atitudes de Schau. Os resultados desta análise reforçam os estudos que sugerem que as atitudes positivas influenciam no desempenho do aluno. Não foi conclusiva a associação entre gênero, idade e vínculo trabalhistas com desempenho, uma vez que as disciplinas apresentaram resultados diferentes. Com relação ao estilo de aprendizagem, nota-se que os estilos dos alunos são similares, com diferença apenas na dimensão sequencial global. / The learning of Statistics has become increasingly important to the success of companies which compete in global scenarios and has highlighted the professionals who, in fact, have this knowledge. In particular for the business administration, statistics assists in the decisionmaking process and is used as a important tool in several areas, such as Finance, Marketing and Manufacturing Process, such as used also in other subjects. It is known, however, that there are some difficulties in learning this discipline, because attitude towards Statistics is negative or, even because there are differences of learning styles between students. Both student and teacher have the need to better aknowledge the variables that contribute to an effective learning. This project aims to identify how demographic variables, styles of learning, attitude towards statistics are related to the performance of the students, this master thesis analyzes the students of Statistic subjects of the Business Administration and accounting courses of FEARP-USP. The index of learning styles proposed by Felder and Soloman and the attitude scale proposed by Schau directs this work. The results confirm former studies that suggest the positives attitudes causes influence in students performance. It was not possible to conclude about gender, age and labor relationship with performance, because the subjects presents different results. Relating to learning styles, the students styles are similar, but only sequential-global dimension.

This dissertation assesses the effectiveness of the Ugandan Universal Secondary Education policy. It seeks to ascertain whether and to what extent offering free-tuition education at eligible public and private secondary schools has affected gross enrollment rates at the lower secondary school level in Uganda between 2007 and 2015. Using a synthetic control method as well as a linear probability model, I explore the impact of the USE policy on lower secondary school enrollment both at the country and household levels since the policy implementation in 2007 up to 2015. To carry out the analysis, I merge several sources of administrative data, including World Bank education indicators, UNESCO Institute of Statistics data on school participation, Uganda National Bureau of Statistics' annual statistical abstracts and Uganda’s Ministry of Education and Sports’ annual reports into a country-panel dataset for the period of 1992-2015 and use the latter for the synthetic control approach. The linear probability model exploits the data from the 2013 Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS). The synthetic control analysis shows no effect of the USE policy at the country level. Instead, the results indicate that during my study period, lower secondary school enrollment rates growth in Uganda was reduced by a yearly average of 8 percentage points compared to its synthetic version. The micro-analysis, however, shows that the receipt of a government subsidy to enroll in lower secondary school had a positive and statistically significant effect ranging from .5 to 9.4 percentage points.

Although inclusive practices demonstrate positive academic and social outcomes for all students (Hehir et al., 2016; Newman, 2006) and are necessitated by an increasingly diverse student body in U.S. schools (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2017), teachers who have graduated from inclusive teacher preparation programs frequently find themselves teaching within contexts which make it challenging for them to sustain their inclusive commitments over several years of teaching practice (Rood, 2018; Rood & Ashby, 2020). This study explored how, when, and under what conditions early and mid-career in-service educators who attended inclusive education preservice programs are, and are not, able to sustain their work. Informed by Disability Studies in Education (DSE) and an ecological approach to conceptualizing teacher agency (Priestley et al., 2017), this study built on research that suggested enacting inclusivity is a stance towards decision making rather than solely a set of skills and practices. This study investigated the perspectives of four in-service New York City inclusive educators to determine their beliefs and commitments to inclusivity, their efforts towards implementing inclusivity, and their prior experience in inclusive teacher education programs through in-depth, semi-structured interviews and document review. Data were analyzed using qualitative analytic open coding. Findings suggested that having previously developed a sense of self-efficacy in curriculum planning and beliefs about how inclusive curriculum should be constructed through their inclusive preservice education supported participants in achieving agency in curriculum designing. Participants demonstrated how in making inclusive curricular adaptations, they redesigned the pacing, structure, and content of curricula to reflect a commitment to their previously learned inclusive beliefs in accessible instruction for individualized learners and social justice. Furthermore, participants described relying on their relationships with like-minded colleagues to support how they maneuvered structural barriers (e.g., a school’s organizational set-up of teacher observation) and cultural barriers (e.g., the culture of performativity based on high-stakes testing) to enacting inclusivity (Priestley et al., 2017). The ability to cultivate collective efficacy and rely on relationships to support inclusive action reflected the relationship-building practices that participants described developing in their preservice programs. Participants believed that having attended inclusive preservice education programs provided them with foundational skills, knowledge, and decision-making practices that supported their ability to maneuver around constraints on practice to enact inclusive teaching while in the field.

Item response theory has improved the area of educational and psychological measurement significantly. However, the effectiveness of the applications of item response theory is dependent on the adequacy of techniques of parameter estimation. When item parameters are precalibrated and treated as known, the ability estimation is relatively straightforward. Currently, several competing estimators of the ability parameters in item response models are available. These are: Maximum Likelihood estimator (ML), the Bayesian Modal estimator (BM), the Expected A Posterior estimator (EAP), and the Mean of the likelihood function (abbreviated as "MM" to differentiate from ML, above). The primary purpose of the study was to examine and compare the properties of the above ability estimators when item parameters were precalibrated and treated as known. In particular, the properties of the ability estimators, such as distribution, bias, and accuracy were investigated. The secondary purpose of this study was to investigate the asymptotic properties of the ML ability estimator with respect to accuracy, bias, and the asymptotic normal distribution. In addition, the effects of test lengths and ability levels were studied in the three-parameter item response model. Simulated data were generated under various test lengths and ability levels in the three-parameter models. In order to accomplish the purpose of this study analyses such as: (1) accuracy of the ability estimators; (2) bias of the ability estimators; (3) distributional property of the ability estimators; and (4) the asymptotic properties of the ML ability estimators were carried out. The results of this study indicate that the ML ability estimator tends to be better than the MM, BM, and EAP ability estimators in the three-parameter item response model. This is particularly true in the proficiency test data set based on the three-parameter item response model. In general, the ML, BM, MM, and EAP ability estimators are normally distributed except when the true ability levels are at both of the extremes and tests are short (n $\le$ 40). The ML ability estimator is asymptotically normally distributed with tests longer than 20 items and when true ability is in the range ($-$1, 1).

No description available.

Since its introduction in the 1980's, student engagement has been a popular topic in educational research. In the beginning, engagement was thought of as a simple construct; however, it is now believed that student engagement involves four separate, but equally important components (Appleton, 2012; Christenson, Reschly, Appleton, Berman, Spanjers, & Varro, 2008). The components of academic, behavioral, affective and cognitive engagement are each vital to the ongoing educational success of students, and ideally, these would remain high throughout all of the years that students are in school. Unfortunately, research shows that most students' engagement levels continuously decrease from elementary school until high school graduation (or dropout), with the biggest drops occurring when students transition to middle school and high school (Alexander, Entwisle, & Horsey, 1997; Dunleavy & Milton, 2008; Finn, Pannozzo, & Voelkl, 1995; Lopez, 2011; Roeser, Strobel, & Quihuis, 2002; Skinner et al., 2009). Much of the research is currently being done at the middle and high school level to try and re-engage students in their learning (Appleton, 2012; Appleton, Christenson, Kim & Reschley, 2006; Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004). This research study, however, looked at the implications of engagement data collection with fourth grade students. This mixed-methods study had two main goals. The first goal of the study was to determine the benefits of providing teachers with a systematic approach to collecting and following data on students' affective and cognitive engagement levels over time. The second goal of the study was to begin to explore interventions that appeared to increase fourth grade students' affective and cognitive engagement levels. The data analysis showed that students consistently reported lower engagement scores in the areas of teacher and peer relationships at school. It was also found that teachers did not report using student engagement data to make whole class interventions, but teachers did report the desire to track individual student's engagement scores in order to implement individualized interventions, when needed. Three additional findings, as well as suggestions for future research, are also presented. In the end, the study concludes with a more broad view on how this research can be used to impact the field of education. The ideas of teacher awareness, power in schools, and the need to create safe and caring classrooms that include students in the decision making process are all discussed as important components needed to engage students. Final suggestions have also been given for both teachers and administrators on how best to increase student engagement in the school or school district where they are working.

231 f. / Submitted by Maria Auxiliadora Lopes (silopes@ufba.br) on 2013-08-22T15:18:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Arturo Cavalcanti Catunda.pdf: 2723253 bytes, checksum: 38250b04e206fdb2415f37491931a4b9 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Auxiliadora Lopes(silopes@ufba.br) on 2013-08-22T17:47:48Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Arturo Cavalcanti Catunda.pdf: 2723253 bytes, checksum: 38250b04e206fdb2415f37491931a4b9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-08-22T17:47:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Arturo Cavalcanti Catunda.pdf: 2723253 bytes, checksum: 38250b04e206fdb2415f37491931a4b9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Este trabalho objetivou investigar de que forma fatores de contexto, entrada e processo estão relacionados à qualidade de cursos superiores. Para tanto, utilizou dados de instituições, cursos e alunos da área de administração, do ano de 2006, extraídos principalmente do Censo da Educação Superior e do Exame Nacional de Desempenho de Estudantes (ENADE). Os principais conceitos utilizados foram o de qualidade – que foi associado às dimensões de efetividade, eficiência, eficácia e equidade – e o de eficácia escolar. A investigação teve como característica ser quantitativa, utilizando-se de funções de produção inspiradas nos trabalhos de Scheerens (2000 e 1990). A partir do referencial teórico, foram propostas três hipóteses que auxiliaram a responder a pergunta de partida: H1) os fatores de contexto, entrada e processo, simultaneamente, contribuem significativamente para a qualidade de cursos superiores; H2) fatores relacionados ao nível socioeconômico dos alunos e ao contexto do município da IES são, nessa ordem, os que mais contribuem com a qualidade de cursos superiores; H3) modelos elaborados com os fatores de contexto, entrada e processo conseguem explicar, ao menos, metade (r2 > 0,5) da variância da qualidade de cursos superiores. O estudo envolveu em sua base de dados 60 variáveis independentes – associadas às dimensões de contexto, entrada e processo – e três independentes – associadas à dimensão eficácia. Ao todo, foram trabalhados dados de 1.465 cursos e 130.270 alunos. Para a investigação das hipóteses, foram adotadas as seguintes técnicas estatísticas: análise descritiva, análise bivariada, análise de classes latentes, regressão logística e modelos de equações estruturadas. A partir da análise de classe latente (LCA), a base de dados foi reduzida para 11 construtos (variáveis independentes) e três variáveis dependentes, o que facilitou a interpretação dos resultados das modelos formados. Com os resultados das regressões logísticas foi possível confirmar parcialmente a primeira e segunda hipóteses. A partir dos modelos de equações estruturais não foi possível confirmar a terceira hipótese. Apesar disso, pode-se verificar que cursos com melhor desempenho no ENADE estão mais associados a: universidades públicas e com alta concorrência; instituições com mais professores do quadro, experientes e mais dedicados à pesquisa; instituições com menos alunos por professor e professor doutor; e a cidades mais desenvolvidas e ricas. Como contribuição, este trabalho ampliou o conhecimento sobre fatores de eficácia escolar no ensino superior brasileiro, servindo de fundamento para discussão de políticas públicas educacionais nesse nível de ensino; introduziu, no Brasil, a LCA como uma técnica estatística com potencialidades para o campo das Ciências Sociais Aplicadas; e difundiu mais a utilização de modelos de equações estruturais como ferramenta para a compreensão de fenômenos sociais complexos. / Salvador

Multi-Layered Predictors of ESE Policy Adoption: A growing number of K-12 public school districts in the United States have begun to embrace the whole-school approach to environmental and sustainability education through the implementation of simultaneous efforts to green their facilities and provide related educational programming. This article explores the breadth of this critical approach in the 200 largest school districts in the country. In examining policy predictors at the district, municipal, and state levels, the study combines National Center for Education Statistics data and information from a systematic web scan of school district and municipal websites. Using logistic regression, the analysis reveals four main findings. First, school districts under mayoral control are more likely to have a policy. Second, the study underscores the interconnectedness of these policies with the sustainability efforts of the municipalities they are located in. Third, school districts located in large cities are more likely to have a policy. Fourth, support from state educational agencies plays a role in advancing a policy. The Case of New York City Public Schools: Within an educational system increasingly focused on test-based accountability, how can a local education authority adopt a holistic environmental and sustainability education (ESE) policy? What local and global factors and actors shape and inform the creation of such a policy? In answering these questions, this article examines the formulation of ESE policy in the New York City Department of Education. Based on an analysis of archival documents and 20 expert interviews, the study draws on the Advocacy Coalition Framework and extends its application by adding global and social movement perspectives. In doing so this study finds that external events enabled the initial enactment of the policy in 2009, while the practice and local pilots of ESE programs substantially informed the reformulation of the policy in 2012. Taking the Expected Path vs. Forging Their Own: ESE Policies at DPS and PWCS: How do similar environmental and sustainability education policies unfold in fundamentally distinct locations? This article compares and contrasts environmental and sustainability education policies in two school districts: Denver Public Schools and Prince William County Public Schools. Although the districts are similar in size and education governance (elected school board), the locale of the school district, public opinion, local sustainability efforts, and the support at the state level for environmental and sustainability education are quite different. Grounded in an extended Advocacy Coalition Framework, the study contextualizes the different global, state and local factors and explores the agency of actors that shape policy change over time. The research finds that the policy at Denver Public Schools is following an expected path influenced by external factors such as the city’s sustainability plan, public opinion, and state support in the form of an Environmental Literacy Plan. In contrast, gubernatorial influence, and joint action of the sustainability team, parents and students forged a pathway to an unexpected policy at Prince William County Public Schools. The study strengthens empirical research of subnational environmental and sustainability policies and shows how different pathways are possible.