<p> The transition process from elementary school to middle school has created numerous obstacles for all stakeholders. Early adolescents encounter emotional and physiological challenges as their bodies mature (Lester, Waters, &amp; Cross, 2013). These challenges have a major impact on the academic achievement of the students (Musoleno &amp; White, 2010). There is a direct connection between a student&rsquo;s successes in middle school and how well the student will do in high school, making the transition process even more important (Andrews &amp; Bishop, 2012). The purpose of this study was to identify predictors which could aid in easing the transition into middle school in order to improve student achievement. Data from the study were examined to evaluate if variance in curriculum, grading practices, and academic programs from Elementary School A, Elementary School B, and Middle School C had an effect on MAP Grade-Level Assessment performance and middle school readiness. The project also involved analysis of what impact other predictors such as student poverty, teacher-assigned grades, and student attendance had on student achievement during the transition process. This causal-comparative study was conducted to analyze the amount of discrepancy between variables of the study and MAP scores. The qualitative results of this study revealed some extreme differences in the percentages of students who raised MAP achievement levels when entering Middle School C from different elementary schools. This could be caused by the differences in curriculum and educational practices among the three schools. The statistical data revealed the other predictors in the study had an impact on student achievement.</p>

<p> A case study was performed using archival data from retained students in three rural Missouri school districts. The data were examined to determine if a correlation existed between grade level retention and improved student achievement in Math and English Language Arts. A t-test was used to determine the impact retention had on student achievement. Scores were collected from the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) data from retained students the year before they were retained, as well as the year following when they were retained. Data were collected from 2006-2014. Data from this study revealed students who were retained showed significant gains in academic achievement in both Math and English Language Arts. By running a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), it was discovered there was a difference in the performance of males and females after being retained. Retention was also revealed to play a significant role in determining the probability of a student dropping out of school. As a result of this research, it is recommended multiple strategies of instructional improvement and modes of student intervention or retention are implemented before a student is considered for grade-level retention. </p>

<p>A new hospital in United Arab Emirates (UAE) plans to adopt health information technology (HIT) and become fully digitalized once operational. The hospital has identified a need to assess basic computer literacy of new employees prior to offering them training on various HIT applications. Lack of research in identifying an accurate assessment method for basic computer literacy among health care professionals led to this explanatory correlational research study, which compared self-assessment scores and a simulated actual computer skills test to find an appropriate tool for assessing computer literacy. The theoretical framework of the study was based on constructivist learning theory and self-efficacy theory. Two sets of data from 182 hospital employees were collected and analyzed. A t test revealed that scores of self-assessment were significantly higher than they were on the actual test, which indicated that hospital employees tend to score higher on self-assessment when compared to actual skills test. A Pearson product moment correlation revealed a statistically weak correlation between the scores, which implied that self-assessment scores were not a reliable indicator of how an individual would perform on the actual test. An actual skill test was found to be the more reliable tool to assess basic computer skills when compared to self-assessment test. The findings of the study also identified areas where employees at the local hospital lacked basic computer skills, which led to the development of the project to fill these gaps by providing training on basic computer skills prior to them getting trained on various HIT applications. The findings of the study will be useful for hospitals in UAE who are in the process of adopting HIT and for health information educators to design appropriate training curricula based on assessment of basic computer literacy.

The Cultural Production of the Modern Program Evaluator in Education is a three-year critical ethnographic investigation of the identity production of program evaluators in education. The methodological approach, grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis and analytic induction, includes: 1) open-ended interviews with 20 program evaluators, 2) of which 3 were expanded into case studies, 3) numerous email exchanges, 4) personal reflections from 16 years as a professional program evaluator, 5) field notes and 6) document analysis. Using Holland et al.’s (1998) social practice theory of self and identity, this dissertation outlines the processes, identifies the cultural tools, and provides a concise political-economic history that depicts how social scientists become program evaluators. The goal of this project was to study identity production through discourses and everyday cultural practices as a way to understand how social scientists come to accept, embody, and become passionate about the figured world of contract program evaluation. This includes drawing upon and contributing to existing meaning structures and systems of privilege. The study includes detailed case studies of program evaluators’ agentic day-to-day responses to a shifting political economic landscape and competing ideological purposes for conducting evaluations. / text

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

<p> Developmental education continues to be an area of concern for higher education institutions. Understanding and developing programs to provide support and increase retention, completion, and success rates for developmental education students is vital to increasing degree attainment in the United States. This study explored one developmental education program at a Midwest community college implemented in 2011. A mixed-methods approach was executed to compare completion and success rates two years prior to implementation and two years following implementation, as well as to obtain qualitative information regarding perceptions of the program. Quantitative data analysis revealed increases in developmental education rates for qualifying Connection Program students when viewed holistically; however, varying degrees of program effectiveness were seen in discipline-level results. Qualitative data analysis revealed four emerging themes: 1) Flawed Placement, 2) Positive Intentions, 3) Flawed Execution, and 4) Student Ambiguity. These findings coincided with research in the developmental education field as areas of importance in regard to increasing degree attainment for these students.</p>

The purpose of this study was to investigate the views of British Columbia principals with regard to the formal evaluation of teaching. Four major concepts were addressed a) the purpose of evaluation; b) the process of evaluation; c) the need for further principal training in evaluation; and, d) obstacles to carrying out evaluation. The sex of principals and years of experience as a principal were identified for further analysis because these variables are absent in the literature on formal evaluation. The data consisted of relevant clauses from all 75 British Columbia school district collective agreements and responses to a survey sent to the members of the British Columbia Principals' and Vice-Principals' Association. The achieved sample is 188 principals. The findings of this study show the conduct of formal evaluation is a responsibility willingly accepted by principals and that it is a function they consider they carry out well. Collective agreements say little about the purpose of evaluation. The majority of principals believe the most important purpose of evaluation is teacher growth and development. Female principals indicate a stronger orientation towards teacher growth and development than males but this difference may also be related to principals' different experience levels. Relatively few evaluations are carried out and only a very small proportion result in "less than satisfactory" reports. Evaluations leading to "satisfactory" and "less than satisfactory" reports are characterised in very different terms by principals. Anecdotal responses support the assertion made in the literature that principals believe they already know who their 'weak' teachers are before conducting an evaluation. British Columbia principals consider time as the primary obstacle to carrying out formal evaluation. Evaluation cycles and site management responsibilities are perceived as the major time consumers. Neither size of staff nor percentage of teaching time were identified as significant time barriers by the respondents. Principals do not label themselves as under-trained for the responsibility of formal evaluator of teaching. Moreover, master's specialty and previous training are not linked to further training needs nor to how well principals believe they do evaluation. Three policy recommendations emerge from this study: (1) to re-assess the role of principal as evaluator in the light of their wider responsibilities; (2) to consider extending the role of formal evaluator to educators other than school-based administrators; and (3) to re-assess the value of formal evaluation as currently practised.

Although language is a medium of learning, most educational institutions typically teach and therefore evaluate language separately from content. In second language contexts, recent attention has been given to language/content integration through content-based language instruction. Yet, questions of integrative evaluation (evaluating language and content as one) remain uncertain and difficult. This inquiry explores difficulties invoked when teachers engage in practices of integrative evaluation of English language learners' writing at an international college for Japanese nationals in Canada. Are these difficulties technical problems? Technical rationality has been critiqued by a number of thinkers. Those interested in action research practices, contrast technical rationality with what they call reflective rationality and argue for contextualizing, rather than simplifying, difficult situations. Some with hermeneutic interests argue for an attunement to, rather than concealment of, difficulties of life in the classroom. Others interested in writing instruction, are critical of conventional approaches to writing pedagogy as reductionistic and deterministic. There are a number of instances of difficulty in teachers' integrative evaluation practices. Prior to agreeing on a prompt, many teachers explore texts as interpretive, social literacy but, in their uncertainty of how to mark such a text, they return to a question for which there is a 'correct' and 'controlled' response. Once the prompt and evaluative criteria are established, discordant orientations to evaluation, literacy, and language/content integration complicate teachers' uncertainty. For example, teachers sometimes acknowledge functional views of language/content integration, yet they are vague and uncertain about how to mark in an integrated way. When teachers read texts prior to judgment, they comment that the texts are difficult to interpret and then impose their own 'straightforward' readings on the texts to reduce and simplify the difficulties. These instances raise serious concerns in practices of evaluation, literacy and language/content integration, especially when technical forms of evaluation are paradoxically aligned with social and integrated texts. A turn to hermeneutics troubles a technical hold and invites further inquiry into tensioned moments of integrative evaluation as difficult, living practices.

This thesis analyzes an alternative public evaluation on students' performance which has affected the educational system of the City of Buenos Aires (Argentina) since 1992. This evaluation program intends to solve some key dilemmas of the evaluation policy: issues on equity, participation, trustworthiness, comparability and authenticity of the evaluated information. The study focuses on the potential, insight and barriers of this evaluation program. The relevance of this program lies in the fact that it was designed to make a contribution to the democratization of educational administration and to resist some authoritarian effects of a surrounding regional and global context of neoliberal educational reforms. This work also aims at capturing the perspectives about the hegemonic and alternative public policies of centralized evaluation, and collaborative leadership in education held by the contemporary Argentine leaders in education. / This research makes a contribution to the fields of Policy Studies and Leadership in Education and the arena of public evaluation policies, while maintaining a pedagogic perspective of the issues under analysis. The main contribution of the study is that it shows that it is possible to try alternative ways to solve the current political necessity to evaluate large amounts of students in order to inform the educational politics and policies, and at the same time, to attach the evaluation to teachers' and student's pedagogic needs, by involving educators and administrators in central places of the evaluation design and implementation. / The political and theoretical perspective adopted is consistent with a critical socio-pedagogy. Methodologically, this research is a case study oriented by a qualitative methodology, which combines two main techniques: documentary exploration and interviews to 19 leaders of different rank within the analyzed Argentine jurisdiction. The interpretation process, in both the document review and the interviews, is led by a threefold analysis: comprehensive, ethnographic and critical.

The study deals with administration of education in KwaZulu where the concern is for efficient and effective use of limited financial, human and material resources. The purpose of this evaluative analysis of educational administration is to determine the degrees of efficiency and effectiveness with which the system of education functions. Therefore, the aims of the study were the following: * To describe the KwaZulu educational system: its origin, character, socio-political context and constraints; * To identify the generic functions of educational administration on the basis of which criteria were formulated for evaluation; * To analyse educational administration in KwaZulu and to evaluate it by means of formulated criteria, and * To formulate recommendations regarding the improvement of educational administration in the area. The conceptual framework of the study derived from the development of administrative theories through time and their implication for, and impact on educational administration. This analysis enabled the investigator to extract criteria for evaluating administration of education in KwaZulu. The evaluative analysis had to be carried out in terms of the organisation of education from the school level to the head office. To deal adequately with the problem being examined, detailed discussion was given of the KwaZulu system of education and the broader context in which it functions. The population of the study comprised three categories of education officers, namely, school principals, circuit inspectors and selected administrators from the head office. The instruments for data collection were questionnaires for school principals and circuit inspectors and interviews for the head office administrators. The study identified the following problem areas: preparation for administrative roles, perceptions of work-related skills, work performance in terms of tasks, the process of administration and related problems, and collaboration among education officers as well as with interested parties. The analysis of data was both quantitative and qualitative. In the light of the findings of the study the investigator offered several recommendations. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1991.