<p>The purpose of the study was to explore what parents expect of schools regarding citizenship and moral education. It was argued that it is important that parents' views are taken into accouint when exploring citizenship and moral education in the schools in order to enhance congruence between values and associated virtues promoted at school and at home.</p>

<p> The behavioral investigation presented here provides initial behavioral insight into novice interactions occurring within a makerspace. Specifically, this dissertation represents an attempt to identify interactions that support nascent maker and computer science identity and skill behaviors. The data and discussions are provided in order to illuminate relations among physicality, identity, and novice behaviors within a makerspace. The discussion builds primarily on the conceptual bases of behaviorism, relational frame theory, behavioral phenomenology, and radical embodied cognition. </p><p> Through the use of a behavioral framework, the findings presented here shed new light on constructivist approaches to learning. <i>Social context matters.</i> The social environment provides the necessary structure for learning to happen at a makerspace. Tools alone cannot provide a makerspace or make learning happen. <i>But, tools are important.</i> Tools provide a hook, a purpose, a context for people to gather and construct knowledge and artifacts. <i>Interactional histories matter.</i> Students&rsquo; lives outside of the makerspace influence what happens in the makerspace. Students&rsquo; susceptibility to reinforcement from maker-initiatives will be determined by how they relate to makerspaces, makers, and CS. If makerspace components are to be used effectively to broaden CS participation, it will be necessary to purposefully design learning trajectories for identity behaviors as well as conceptual skills. </p><p> The novelty of this study and its findings is the identification, disaggregation, and articulation of the novice maker experience using a behavioral lens. The behavioral approach applied here can pragmatically inform instructional design and investigations of how <i>making</i> can support learning trajectories. Ultimately, this dissertation highlights pathways for future behavioral research and better behaviorally informed design of makerspace-inspired instruction that grows computer science identities and skills.</p>

<p> The concept of multiculturalism has traditionally referred to visible racial and ethnic cultural differences among people, and has expanded to include other marginalized and oppressed populations in the United States in the past 25 years. However, in the context of counselor education, there appears to be an incomplete understanding of what constitutes multicultural competence, the characteristics a competent counselor embodies, and how counselor education programs are evaluated for their efficacy in cultivating multicultural competence. The hypothesis guiding the current study was that there are shared characteristics between a mindful counselor and a multiculturally competent counselor such as cultural humility, increased awareness, genuineness, cultural empathy, and a non-judgmental disposition. To explore this further, the researcher used a mixed method research methodology to explore the phenomena of multicultural counseling competence and mindfulness. The qualitative aspect of this study involved the use of a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to correlate the attributes that are shared between these two phenomena, while the quantitative aspect involved using the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale and Everyday Multicultural Competencies / Revised Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy to statistically measure the magnitude of the correlation between mindfulness and multicultural competence. A grounded theory for the cultivation of multicultural counseling competence is presented in the final chapter as a synthetic outcome of this study.</p>

<p> Although school dropout rate remains a significant social and economic concern to our nation and has generated considerable research, little attention by scholars has examined the phenomena of re-engagement in effective school context and its developmental influences on at-risk students expectancy for success and task-value towards graduation. Given the multifaceted interactions of school context and the complex developmental needs of at-risk students, there were dual purposes for this three-phase, two-method qualitative study that addressed the literature concerns.</p><p> The first purpose was to explore and identify policies, programs, and practices perceived as being most effective in re-engaging at-risk students behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively, at ten Model Continuation High Schools in California. Phases one and two collected data on the Model Continuation High Schools (MCHS) to address this purpose.</p><p> In phase one, an inductive document review of the ten MCHS applications including four statement letters was conducted and results identified eleven policies, ten programs, and eleven practices that were effective in re-engaging at-risk students behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively. In phase two, the phenomenological ten-step analysis of semi-structured administrator interviews revealed eight re-engaging implementation strategies perceived to be effective with at-risk students.</p><p> The second purpose was to build upon Eccles' Expectancy-Value Theoretical Framework by gaining insight on effective school context that supported at-risk students' developmentally appropriate expectancy for success and task-value beliefs towards graduation. Phase three conducted a deductive content analysis of eight theoretical based components on the combine data collected in phases one and two to address this second purpose. Results revealed that principles of Eccles&rsquo; Expectancy-Value Model were evident in all identified policies, programs, and practices of the ten MCHS.</p><p> Model Continuation High Schools are exemplary sites with effective school context that have much to share with other continuation high schools looking for successful re-engaging approaches for at-risk students. The research provided results suggesting that MCHS had significant policies, programs, practices and implementation strategies that transform disengaged at-risk students into graduates by developing students' expectancy for success belief and task-value belief towards graduation. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed.</p>

<p> This study explored middle-class parents&rsquo; descriptions of their experience of the emotional &ldquo;essence&rdquo; of the conflicts that arose between themselves and their children as parents facilitated the homework process. This study on homework experiences sought to gain a deeper understanding and meaning experienced firsthand from the middle-class parents&rsquo; point of view. The use of phenomenological methods allowed for the deep and thick description necessary to uncover the essence of the middle-class parental perspectives on the parent-child emotional experience embedded in the homework process. The identified themes included <i>creation of a homework routine, emotions of resistance and stress,</i> and <i>parental role construction. </i> The emergent constituents were: <i>paradox of parental role construction, tiers of stress,</i> and <i>desire for family harmony during homework time.</i> The study revealed the following ramifications resulting from the relationships between emergent themes and constituents: the intersections between <i>paradox of parental role construction</i> and <i>desire for family harmony, desire for family harmony</i> and <i>creation of a homework routine, creation of a homework routine </i> and <i>paradox of parental role construction</i> and, finally, <i>desire for family harmony</i> and <i>tiers of stress. </i> These intersections manifested in the following: <i>stress, resistance, confusion,</i> and <i>family tension,</i> respectively. The significance of this study rests in its extension of current research on the experience of homework facilitation among working-class families with elementary-aged children by focusing on learning at home in the middle-class. It identified stress during this period as tiered, that middle-class parents would like training on their role during homework, and that middle-class parents had a cathartic stress-relieving experience when they were given an opportunity to share their &ldquo;homework&rdquo; experiences.</p>

<p> This mixed method study examined the effectiveness of a school-based program that has been integrating trauma-informed education and art therapy for three decades to treat adolescents who have experienced complex trauma, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and toxic stress. To date, no clinical-effectiveness outcomes research or systematic program evaluation had been conducted at Northern California School (pseudonym). This research included 15 former student participants who attended the program over the past 15 years, as well as 28 current and former staff employed over the past 30 years. Research methods include tenets of effectiveness studies, program evaluation, and narrative analysis. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 195 archival clinical files, questionnaires distributed to former students and staff, and in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The results provide demographic characteristics of each sample; for former student participants, this includes ACE scores describing the prevalence of the 10 major types of childhood trauma, and GSE scores describing present-day level of functioning. Results also provide characteristics of treatment, significant correlates of graduating from the program with a high school diploma, and ratings of process and outcome variables as well as various treatment modalities by former students and staff participants. Dialogical narrative analysis was utilized to analyze qualitative data gathered during the in-depth, semi-structured interviews, and the stories of three former students, four art therapists, and the voice of the researcher are presented in the form of short stories to provide an overview of the experience of art therapy in the voices of former students and staff. This research contributes evidence that art therapy is an impactful and effective component of treatment for adolescents with complex trauma and higher ACE scores, and may create lifelong patterns for these individuals of seeking therapeutic support in times of distress.</p>

<p> Using data from the Minnesota Student Survey of over 120,000 eighth, ninth, and eleventh grade students across the state, this study examined the characteristics of students who identified themselves as engaging in bullying behavior (bully only), being the target of bullying (victim only), or both engaging in and being the target of bullying (bully-victims). Scores for these three bully/victim groups were compared to the general student population on fourteen characteristics: perception of safety, perceived fairness, perception of care, family communication, family inclusiveness, internalizing behavior, externalizing behavior, inattentiveness, coping skills, positive self-evaluation, positive feelings toward others, parent abuse, sexual abuse, and family substance abuse. All categories of bullies and victims reported adverse scores on these measures, scoring on average about one-half standard deviation below the mean of all Minnesota students. Bullies and victims were similar on eight of the fourteen measures. Bully-victims consistently reported lower scores compared to the bully only and victim only groups. Gender differences were found with female students reporting more hardship on half of the investigated characteristics; however, gender did not interact with bully/victim status. These findings have important implications for understanding the psychological, behavioral, and physical space which both bullies and victims occupy.</p>

The present study examined the effectiveness of child development and child management training as an approach toward primary and secondary prevention of child abuse and neglect. Volunteer participants with a newborn child participated in 1 - 1 1/2 hour training sessions twice weekly in the privacy of their own home. Child development training consisted of 2 weeks of training in language, motor, self-help skill, and social skill development. Child management sessions (6 weeks) included training in reinforcement, shaping, punishment, rule development, writing behavioral contracts, mistakes of reinforcement, observing, counting, and recording behavior, communication skills, and coping skills. Following a 5 day baseline phase of in-home observation and pretesting, Immediate Contact Group participants began training in their infant's 3rd week of life. Delayed Contact Group participants began training in their infant's 12th week of life following a baseline phase which corresponded to the Immediate Contact Group's baseline, treatment, and post-treatment phases. Multiple outcome measures, matched across time for the two groups, consisted of the Adult/Adolescent Parenting Inventory (an at-risk inventory), a child development inventory, the Comprehensive Index of Marital Satisfaction, generalization observation, parent-infant observation, and role play assessment. Results reveal differential effectiveness dependent upon the outcome measure analyzed. Analysis of role play data strongly suggests that low-risk parents and parents who may be at-risk for child abuse and neglect can learn appropriate child management techniques in a relatively short period of time. Generalization of treatment effects was also demonstrated by improved responses to critical incidents not specifically targeted during training. Results also suggest that parents' knowledge of child / development was significantly improved as a function of brief, but in-depth training. Observation, at-risk, and marital satisfaction data revealed interesting, but, generally, non-significant results. Problems in the use of multiple outcome measures, recommendations for follow-up analysis, and suggestions for future research in primary and secondary prevention of child abuse and neglect are discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-10, Section: A, page: 4359. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

This paper examines the contrasting predictions of the dual-coding and depth-of-processing theories and proposes a resolution of their differences in a more generic two factor model of stimulus trace elaboration. First, the author conducts an analysis of the literature relevant to the two approaches, reviewing three major studies and finding their results inconclusive. Second, he conducts a theoretical analysis of the two positions, contrasting the memory structures and processes they propose and finding few significant differences. Third, he describes a generic two factor stimulus trace elaboration model to more adequately address the variables currently described and explained by the dual and depth theories. The author reviews five additional studies in support of the two factor model. / The characteristics of the two factor model of stimulus trace elaboration are then explored in a 2 x 4 factorial study, involving the free recall and recognition of picture and word stimulus items under four learning strategies: Control, within-item processing, between-item processing, and a mixture of within-item and between-item processing. Separate analyses of variance were performed on the recognition and recall tests. / The results of the study are as follows. First, pictures and words failed to elicit different retention scores, under either the recognition or recall conditions. This finding is inconsistent with both the dual-coding and depth-of-processing positions, but entirely consistent with stimulus trace elaboration theory. Second, there were no differences in the performance of the within-item processing, between-item processing, and mixture groups on the recognition test, although all three surpassed the control group. This finding is entirely consistent with the one factor model of stimulus trace elaboration. Third, there were no differences between the mixture and between-item processing groups, although these groups surpassed both the within-item processing and control conditions, which again were not significantly different from one another. This finding is partially consistent with the two factor model of stimulus trace elaboration. This research provides strong support for the stimulus trace elaboration theory, but only weak support for a two factor variant of that theory. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-02, Section: A, page: 0400. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

The effects of mnemonic verbalizations and formally stated rules on problem solving were investigated in the present study. Sixty eleventh-grade students each performed a computer problem-solving task (the game of NIM) in one of three treatment conditions, each comprising 20 subjects: (1) mnemonic verbalizations in which subjects were brought to verbalize mnemonic rules; (2) formal verbalizations in which subjects verbalized formal statements of rules; and (3) coached no-verbalizations condition in which subjects were orally coached in the use of the rules in detail but had no access to them for verbalization. Results indicated that (a) mnemonic verbalizations enhanced problem-solving better than a coached no-verbalizations strategy; (b) formal statements of rules were potentially more useful than a coached no-verbalizations strategy; (c) it took longer to solve problems with verbalizations than without them. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-02, Section: A, page: 0398. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.