For my Master of Arts in American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona I have done a comparative analysis of the Docent program's at the Arizona State Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian. A docent program or guided tour program, is part of educational programing at each museum. In order to fully understand and appreciate objects in a museum, especially those in exhibits dealing with Native Americans, requires interpretation. The guided tour is one of the most popular interpretive techniques. In this particular study, I focus on the use of storytelling as an interpretive technique. This study was done in an educational setting through informal observation of the docents, personal interviews and discussion with the docents and Educational Coordinators at each museum, examination of educational training, examination of Native American education techniques, and investigation of storytelling and its relationship to museums and Native peoples.

The purpose of this study was to correct certain deficiencies in performance assessment as currently practiced in social service programs by providing measurement and evaluation specialists with guidelines for designing and developing sound performance assessment instruments tailored to the requirements of social service program evaluations. Such guidelines serve two purposes--as a process for planning and developing consumer performance assessment systems and as a set of criteria for evaluating the utility of performance assessments currently employed in social service programs. / Two activities were conducted to meet these purposes. First, a set of design and construction consumer performance assessment guidelines that embodied the characteristics of the assessment process in social service agencies were developed. As part of the development process, guidelines were revised on the basis of a formative evaluation conducted with experienced evaluators. Second, the consumer performance assessment guidelines were field tested on an assessment instrument used by a state agency. These guidelines were judged by agency personnel to be a valid framework for evaluating existing performance assessment instruments and for developing more valid performance assessments applicable to social service contexts. / The conceptualization of the guidelines was based on a grounded theory approach to the assessment development process and a review of the characteristics and assumptions of performance assessments conducted in educational and social service settings. These field based analyses revealed major differences between the education and social service context with respect to the contextual components of the assessment process, the roles of participants in the testing process, and the utility of assessment results. A review of current testing and program evaluation standards also pointed to the need for consumer performance assessment guidelines for social service programs. / A professionally defined basis for judging performance assessment instruments from the consumer's perspective has not been available to evaluators. By providing a concise set of professional guidelines, this study constitutes a first step in filling that void. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-03, Section: A, page: 0784. / Major Professor: Garrett Foster. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

This study assessed the relationship between teachers' perception of population change and their implementation of population education conditioned by such background factors as sociodemographics, school environment, and population education program facilities. The general hypothesis was that teachers with a positive perception of population change were more inclined to implement population education in their courses. Theoretically, the scope of population education can be explained through a perception-behavior model which was presented as a perception-implementation relationship derived from the results of this study. / A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from the general public secondary schools in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. With a multi-stage purposive sampling design, a sample of 455 teachers were selected to respond to the questionnaire. Data were analyzed utilizing a two-stage least squares method with additional descriptive procedures. / The findings indicated a strong relationship between perception and implementation with r =.316. Using first stage least squares on the seven background variables; exposure, place of residence, and teaching assignment shared a great amount of the variation in perception. These variables, together with educational background and school level, affected implementation. / Teachers who were more exposed to population education program facilities, who lived in rural areas, and who taught geography, civics, economics, and biology had higher perceptions of population change. Together with those having low academic backgrounds and working in the middle schools, they effectively implemented population education. / Although the background variables influenced implementation more than perception in the ordinary (first stage) least squares analysis, the second stage analysis showed that estimated perception was a more powerful predictor than estimated implementation. This suggests a background-perception-implementation model to be recommended for population education programs, research, and evaluation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-03, Section: A, page: 0769. / Major Professor: Byron G. Massialas. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

This study examined the impact of classroom climate on students' population attitudes and behavior. The inquiry teaching method--which develops students' critical thinking and ability to use rational examination toward social problems--was assumed to shape an open-classroom climate. The study surveyed a sample of 685 students from 65 West Java public high schools coupled with observations of 35 classrooms. / The major findings showed that classroom climate, as the reflection of using both non-inquiry and the occasional practice of inquiry teaching methods in teaching population matters, affected students' population attitudes significantly but it had no effect on students' population behavior. The latter seems to be influenced largely by variables other than classroom climate. Students' place of residence, the size of family in which students are raised, access to sources of information, students' academic major and their family educational and occupational background affected students' population attitudes and behavior significantly. Access to sources of information about matters related to population had a meaningful effect on students' population attitudes and behavior. The role of persons (parents, relatives, peer groups, community leaders, teachers, and government officials) as the agents of population socialization have been replaced by the mass media, both the electronic and printed media. / The information gathered from classroom observations was in agreement with the results of the quantitative findings. Most social studies teachers used a one-way instructional method, frequently recited teaching materials and provided almost no chance to discuss population issues with students in an open classroom climate. Findings from the observations of 35 classroom activities showed that social studies teachers frequently used non-inquiry teaching method when they taught their students with matters related to population. The inquiry teaching method was occasionally practiced by a few social studies teachers in West Java public high schools. Therefore, if there was an influence of classroom climate on students' population attitudes, it was the effect of using both non-inquiry and the occasional practice of inquiry teaching methods in teaching population matters. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: A, page: 2231. / Major Professor: Byron G. Massialas. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

The purpose of this investigation was to investigate the comparative effectiveness of two instructional methods, one based on the tenets of situated cognition and the other a traditional classroom-based presentation. Two intact classes of fourth graders from the Florida State University School completed instruction in the area of map skills. Statistical analyses of the groups conducted prior to the treatment indicated that there were no significant differences between the groups in terms of race, gender, and prior achievement. / Following the instruction, both groups completed three posttests on map skills, a written assessment and two performance assessments, one of which was designed to assess far transfer of knowledge. The results of the study indicated that the situated cognition group performed significantly better on the performance test than did the traditional instruction group. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups' performances on either the written posttest or the performance measure of far transfer. It was concluded that the situated cognition approach led to better outcomes on a performance assessment of map skills and did not impair performance on either a written assessment or a transfer performance assessment of map skills, and thus should be further investigated in other settings and with other students as the situated cognition learning theory continues to be defined. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: A, page: 2299. / Major Professor: Marcy Perkins Driscoll. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

Through ethnographic interviewing and participant observation, this study examines the motivation of sixteen women of different ethnic backgrounds to attend college and to major in a helping profession. The women, aged nineteen to forty-two, come from low-income rural areas of the southeastern United States. The study is set in a two-year unit of a state university system. / The existing literature appears to establish the motivational factors for white, urban, middle-class males. Researchers know less, however, about the factors influencing working-class people, females, or members of minorities. The dominant view associates academic achievement with the Protestant work ethic and success orientation as measured by grades and test scores. Findings incorporate motivations for enrollment, factors affecting persistence, post-enrollment changes in motivation, and the modifications in achievement anticipated after graduation. / The investigation focused on the importance of the participants' concept of education and the resulting effects on motivation for achievement, on the role of children both as motivators and as impediments to scholastic success, on the impact of menial or manual labor, and on the respondents' attitudes toward men, welfare, and dependency. Findings include the following: (1) in contrast to males in other studies, women in this study rank motivating factors in a different order of importance, (2) different considerations shape their primary motivators, and (3) enrollment motivators for women can become barriers to success in higher education. / Among these participants, social forces leading to the desire to matriculate and to the ability to persevere in higher education differ from those found in traditional participants. Whereas "mainstream" studies noted that mate selection was among women's motivators for attending college, this study found that the desire to escape abusive men was a major motivator for returning women. Some motivators also became pressures that impeded success when the women became students (e.g., need for child care, lack of money). In their drive for upward mobility, these women often were caught between family responsibilities and school or between community and classroom. The study integrates critical theory with constructs from developmental psychology and sociology to explain behaviors in this group. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-05, Section: A, page: 1706. / Major Professor: Rodney F. Allen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

Previous research on correctional reform has been empirically fragmented and guided by narrow theoretical frameworks. The research has been empirically fragmented because analysis of correctional reform has been "disconnected;" studies have viewed the origins, operations and outcomes of correctional reform as distinct and separate units of analysis. Moreover, singular explanatory frameworks (i.e., critical, organizational) have dominated the research, facilitating a narrow understanding of the origins, operations, and/or outcomes of reform. In essence, theoretical divisiveness and a limited empirical focus have impeded our ability to fully comprehend the meanings and consequences of correctional reform. / This study proposes an integrated and comprehensive approach to the study of correctional reform. The approach incorporates components of several theoretical perspectives (i.e., social context, organizational, professional-ideological) that, collectively, advance understanding of the salient processes involved in correctional reform. Moreover the approach views correctional reform as a comprehensive process, whereby the origins, operations, and outcomes of reform are parts of a connected whole. / The utility of an integrated and comprehensive approach is explored through its application to the origins, operations, and outcomes of a county intermediate punishment system. This illustrative case study, in effect, responds to the calls in the punishment literature for theory integration, and a concrete level of analysis that captures the day to day empirical reality of correctional reform processes. The study concludes with discussion of the theoretical and policy implications of an integrated and comprehensive approach. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-12, Section: A, page: 3999. / Major Professor: Thomas Blomberg. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

The purpose of this writing is to explore the relationship students have with popular media as well as the call to implement a Critical Media Skills course at the high school level. The research was interested in finding what images from popular media students were taking into their personal lives and how implementing a Critical Media Skills course could make positive benefits into their lives. From casual observations, informal student interviews, and the creation of an online survey in which 72 high school students participated I was able to collect data about the extent students were consuming popular media and how they believed that skills teaching them to analyze media would be beneficial. From these findings I was able to build upon Patricia Hill Collins (2009) to develop techniques for a classroom in which critical dialogue would be a focus. This exploratory study takes into account student voices, as well research from others in the field of Education and Media Literacy.

This study describes how some members of the Cherokee Tribe of Northeast Alabama, a state recognized community, reacts to the ways in which Native peoples are represented in the social studies curriculum of DeKalb County, Alabama. Tribal members, ages 30--80 were interviewed about their educational experiences, as well as about their perspectives on the current curriculum. Social studies curricula of this school district, as well as elsewhere in the Alabama public school system, portrays Native peoples in a negative manner, and through the interviews and an extensive analysis of the curriculum, specific examples of these negative portrayals are pinpointed. This study specifically looks at the content, language and illustrations of seven state adopted textbooks, resulting in some specific recommendations on how teachers, as well as administrators, could improve the curriculum.

This study examined the use of constructivist content-area literacy methods in a community college American History survey course. The study was based in a perspective that college classroom culture is a nexus of multiple social interactions through which thinking and understanding are organized and meanings are negotiated and constructed. Interpretations of participant, researcher, and institution-generated data sources revealed several findings. Specifically, in this American History survey course, content-area literacy methods were employed as tools for organizing class participant thinking and for content understanding in a context of shared classroom power. Content-area literacy methods were used by the instructor (the study's author) as a way of reaching out to the class participants in an effort to establish a collegial relationship with them and to teach American History more effectively. I believed that content-area literacy methods would help class participants learn to organize their thinking and understanding and would facilitate their academic success in the course. The class participants interpreted my use of content-area literacy methods in the context of the collegial relationship they had established. Class participants interpreted my use of content-area literacy methods as evidence of my support for their formulation of a personal understanding of American History and their continued academic success. The class participants, in turn, were willing to participate in or support the content-area literacy methods that they believed contributed to their learning and academic success. The findings of this study support theories of literacy, teaching, and learning as socially constructed phenomena and suggest that the study of college literacy must be contextualized in classrooms and institutions of higher learning because content-area teaching and learning are influenced by social interactions between teachers and students. Resistance to such strategies among college and university academics may stem from personal and professional life experiences and beliefs that contribute to the construction, retention and adherence to discipline-specific pedagogical beliefs and practices. This study's findings imply that more research is needed with respect to how teachers and students in higher education build and maintain relationships and how those relationships influence andragogical teaching and learning decisions and outcomes.