What are the socioeconomic implications of the time allocation decisions made by low-income adolescents? The way adolescents allocate their time between schooling, labor and leisure has important implications for their education attainment, college aspirations, job opportunities and future earnings. This study focuses on adolescents and young adults in urban areas of Brazil that, due to household income constraints, family or peer pressures enter the labor market at an early age, stop studying, and/or start engaging into risky behaviors, such as drug use or sexual activities. The key policy question in this context is then: what incentives could prove an efficient tool to change the time allocation patterns and behaviors that make adolescents drop out of school, fall pregnant (or impregnate) or consume drugs? This dissertation uses data from the Young Agent Project (YAP) a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program targeting exclusively adolescents in Brazil to examine this issue. This program targets adolescents aged 15 to 17 and its goals are to improve the socioeconomic and educational outcomes of youth in Brazil. The research in the dissertation seeks to determine whether the program has indeed influenced or not the time allocation decisions of low-income youth in Brazil, thus improving their socioeconomic and educational outcomes. The research addresses this issue in three different levels of analysis: 1) whether the YAP has affected schooling outcomes, youth labor decisions and risky behaviors, by gender, ethnicity or region, 2) whether transferring cash directly to the adolescent is more efficient than transferring to the parents, on improving schooling, labor and risky behavior outcomes, and 3) Whether the number of hours per week dedicated to the YAP's after school program is a strong predictor of better outcomes. The data used is the 2006 Projeto Agente Jovem dataset, which is a matched non-experimental, with a treatment group and a constructed control group. This dataset is representative of the recipients of the YAP across regions, states, genders and racial composition, which was administered to 2,210 households with adolescents aged 16 to 20 at least one year after having finished the program. For the analysis, this study used econometric techniques such as Propensity Score Matching (Average Treatment Effect on the Treated, Nearest Neighbor with Replacement) and performed robustness checks with a sensitivity analysis by comparing the treatment effects obtained from linear regression and Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting.

The objective of this dissertation is to present empirical evidence and analysis of three key issues in the Mexican education system: 1) school accountability, as reflected in a particular state innovation pursued by the state of Colima in 2009 to identify and address the problems of low-performing schools, 2) age delay and the effects of a national reform introduced in 2006-2007 that modified the first grade entry-age across all Mexican states, and 3) the educational disadvantages of indigenous peoples in México and their consequences, as determined from recent data which allows identification of this population. First, the dissertation evaluates the impact of a targeted state-sponsored intervention program known as Programa de Atención Específica para la Mejora del Logro Educativo (PAE) designed to provide low-performing schools with remedial resources in Colima, México. The research analyzes the effect of this compensatory program in terms of standardized test scores among 108 participating schools having the lowest learning outcomes in 2009. The results of this "natural experiment" confirm that intervention in the form of the PAE program had a positive impact on average test scores in poorly performing Colima schools. By exploiting PAE's eligibility rules, a regression discontinuity method is used to estimate the impact on subsequent learning outcomes. Schools that participated in the program and a valid comparison group were followed for three years in order to compare their performance. The fact that the program was halted after only one year meant that the only realized interventions were those related to the program's preparation, which revolved around notifying schools as low-performing, identifying a school's main academic problems and devising a development plan to address those challenges. Yet, after only one year, test scores in PAE schools increased by 0.13 standard deviations vis-à-vis non-PAE schools and in fact, after three years, differences between the two groups of schools were no longer significant. Second, the dissertation explores the impact of exogenous variation in the age at which students enter school on education outcomes. Prior to the 2006-2007 school year, the cut-off day for school entry in Mexico had been September 1st. Since then, however, pupils aged 6 by as late as December 31 could start public school. Data related to this cut-off transition are reviewed and analyzed using a regression discontinuity method so as to estimate the causal effect of delayed school enrollment on math test scores. A two-stage least square (TSLS) estimator is used wherein the source of identification is the variation in 1st grade entry ages which resulted solely from differences in dates of birth. The results indicate that older students scored higher than younger students. The reform impacted the discrepancy between those regulated by the new cut-off dates and those regulated by the old cut-off date(s) by 0.30 s.d. (comparing the 1998-1999 cohort which entered school before the reform with the 2002-2003 cohort, which entered afterwards). The results also suggest age effects on education outcomes that are stronger for recent generations than for generations entering first grade prior to the reform. Because math scores have increased by 0.95 s.d. since the first administration of ENLACE in 2006, this result suggests that, at a minimum, moving the cut-off date by four months to December 31 did not have an adverse effect on mean math test scores. Finally, a sobering analysis of the educational outcomes of indigenous populations is conducted using data from Encuesta Nacional Ingresos y Gastos de los Hogares, ENIGH) which, for the first time in 2008 and then 2010 identified indigenous populations. The research finds that although the percentage of families in extreme poverty residing in municipalities where indigenous populations are concentrated dropped between 1992 and 2010, the gap in poverty rates between the municipalities where indigenous people concentrate and others remains huge, with extreme poverty in the former equal to 51.9% in 2010 and in the latter 16.9%. Because rates of return to education are estimated in this dissertation to be high in Mexico (around 10%, including those for indigenous populations), education is found to be essential in reducing the gulf in poverty levels by ethnicity. But the study shows that gaps in educational outcomes between indigenous and non-indigenous populations remain wide, whether in terms of average educational attainment, participation in Kindergarten, the percentage of students who are overage, and the average student achievement as measured by a variety of tests.

Diagnostic paradigms are becoming an alternative to normative approaches in educational assessment. One of the principal objectives of diagnostic assessment is to determine skill proficiency for tasks that demand the use of specific cognitive processes. Ideally, diagnostic assessments should include accurate information about the skills required to correctly answer each item in a test, as well as any additional evidence about the interaction between those cognitive constructs. Nevertheless, little research in the field has focused on the types of interactions (i.e., the condensation rules) among skills in models for cognitive diagnosis. The present study introduces a Bayesian approach to determine the underlying interaction among the skills measured by a given item when comparing among models with conjunctive, disjunctive, and compensatory condensation rules. Following the reparameterization framework proposed by DeCarlo (2011), the present study includes transformations for disjunctive and compensatory models. Next, a methodology that compares between pairs of models with different condensation rules is presented; parameters in the model and their distribution were defined considering former Bayesian approaches proposed in the literature. Simulation studies and empirical studies were performed to test the capacity of the model to correctly identify the underlying condensation rule. Overall, results from the simulation study showed that the correct condensation rule is correctly identified across conditions. The results showed that the correct condensation rule identification depends on the item parameter values used to generate the data and the use of informative prior distributions for the model parameters. Latent class sizes parameters for the skills and their respective hyperparameters also showed a good recovery in the simulation study. The recovery of the item parameters presented limitations, so some guidelines to improve their estimation are presented in the results and discussion sections. The empirical studies highlighted the usefulness of this approach in determining the interaction among skills using real items from a mathematics test and a language test. Despite the differences in their area of knowledge and Q-matrix structure, results indicated that both tests are composed in a higher proportion of conjunctive items that demand the mastery of all skills.

Essay 1: Determinants of NCLEX-RN Success Beyond the HESI Exit Exam: Performance in Nursing Courses and Academic Readiness Abstract: Every year, nursing students are not allowed to receive their degrees or sit for NCLEX-RN (national licensure exam) because of their performance in standardized exit exams like the HESI (Health Education Systems, Inc) or ATI (Assessment Technologies Institute). These exits exam have been found to be highly predictive of NCLEX-RN success but not failure. Consequently, some have argued that progression rules in nursing programs should not be based on a single metric but on a broader assessment of student readiness to pass the NCLEX-RN. In this study, I examine whether demographics, pre-college academic readiness measures, and performance in nursing courses improve the correct identification of students who will pass/fail above and beyond the HESI exit exam. I find that their inclusion can improve the identification of those who will fail but not those who will pass. Essay 2: The Impact of Remediation on NCLEX-RN Success: Positive, Neutral, or Negative? Abstract: Nursing programs assign students to NCLEX-RN remediation - based on the results of the HESI exit exam- to improve their probability of passing the NCLEX-RN on the first attempt. Previous correlational studies have found NCLEX-RN remediation based on HESI exit exam scores to be effective. In this study, I use two nationally representative samples to explore the impact of required remediation on passing the NCLEX-RN on the first attempt using regression discontinuity design both as local randomization and as continuity at the cutoff using. As the former, I find some evidence that remediation has a negative impact on passing the NCLEX-RN on the first attempt. As the latter, I find limited evidence of positive treatment effects. Both sets of statistically significant findings, however, are sensitive to bandwidth, kernel functional assumptions and/or sample trimming. Overall, RD evidence suggests that remediation may not have an impact on NCLEX-RN outcomes. Essay 3: Testing a Rule of Thumb: For STEM degree attainment, More Selective is Better Abstract: The supply of STEM workers depends to some degree on the ability of post-secondary institutions to keep those students already interested in STEM engaged and, to a much lesser extent, to generate interest among those initially not interested. The institutional attributes which may exert positive or negative influences on STEM degree attainment are many and students and parents may not be able to assess the status of each factor or a bundle of factors for specific institutions in their college choice sets which may maximize the probability of STEM degree attainment. In this essay, I test the rule of thumb that, for STEM students, attending a highly selective institution instead of a moderately selective institution improves the probability of obtaining a STEM degree at the first attended institution among those interested in STEM among and among those who are not initially interested. Overall, I find that highly selective institutions have a comparative advantage in producing STEM graduates among those already interested in STEM but not among those initially not interested in STEM. These findings hold true also for female students but to a different degree.

Since the 1960s, the advocacy of teaching mathematics so as to be useful is not without hindrance in school curricula, partly due to the lack of appropriate assessment tools. Practical approaches have been accumulating quickly, but researchers showed that they are not satisfactory in testing students’ ability to apply mathematical knowledge, be they “word problems” in school textbooks, national tests, or large-scale international assessments. To understand the causes behind the dissatisfaction, there is a need to reveal (1) the theories that are used in the test designs, and (2) what the actual assessments are in various curricula. This motive leads to the purpose of the current study, which is to identify empirically consistent theories about students’ ability to apply; the results can be organized as a framework to analyze assessment tools such as PISA, as well as various curricular materials. Based on the current theories, a framework of assessment analysis is created in order to study the coverage of modeling steps of public assessment items. This study finds that, though many education systems have claims of introducing modeling and application into their curricula, high-stake assessments mostly involve a small fraction of the steps that are required in a full modeling cycle. It furthers an earlier result that certain textbooks, though claiming the importance of modeling, almost ignored the first and last steps of modeling. It is found in this study that public assessments are even more limited: most test items that are supposed to test students’ knowledge of application involve only one or two steps of modeling. Furthermore, the tool “modeling spectrum” that is used in the analysis does not only reveal how modeling steps are covered, but can also assists educators to improve or create problems with modeling and application.

Professional development (PD) is often viewed as essential to improve classroom practices--as a way to create changes in districts, changes in classrooms, and changes in teachers--which, in turn, strives to improve student learning. Many insist that for a PD initiative to be successful, it needs to create changes in teachers’ classroom practices, who are indeed at the ground level of interpreting, implementing, adapting, and enacting what PD offers. Researchers claim that teacher resistance is the central problem of PD failure (Janas, 1998). Confined to the duality of compliance vs. resistance to PD, teachers either change or do not change according to the grading system that the administrators and researchers impose. A binary view of teachers who meet the expectations and those who do not meet the expectations of the district and PD personnel is, then, inadequate to studying the process of what happens beyond that narrow conception of teachers who participate in district/school-wide PD. V. Richardson (2003) argues that teacher resistance is a symptom of a disconnect between a structural reform agenda and teachers’ concern for teaching students well. Within the context of a locally initiated PD program that included elements of effective PD proposed by a body of research, I examined a select group of participating teachers’ experiences. Based on the classroom practice of a teacher whose students have shown drastic growth on high stakes tests despite social factors, the district had expanded the program as a district-wide initiative. Using care theory, I specifically explored changes in 12 teachers’ beliefs and practices as a result of their PD participation, in addition to identifying factors that facilitated program implementation. The results showed that the “caring teacher” identity mediated classroom practice changes, that teachers selectively used PD based on the feedback from their students rather than changes to their knowledge and beliefs. Based on this reciprocity, teachers’ self-identification as caring teachers defies traditional labeling of participating members as “compliant” or “resistant”; all teachers in the study described how caring about and caring for their students led to program implementation with a varying degree of fidelity.

Despite recent efforts to promote scientific argumentation, and to achieve reconceptualized views of the nature of science, including sociocultural accounts, little is known about In-service Secondary Science Teachers’ understanding of the nature of science and cognate aspects. This includes sociocultural aspects and competence in engaging in scientific argumentation about socio-scientific issues. Moreover, there is limited information on how in-service secondary science teachers’ views of the nature of science and their competence in generating scientific argumentation about socio-scientific issues are related, if at all. This also includes their professional skills in applying modern views of scientific argumentation in teaching science. This study of 13 in-service secondary science teachers used a mixed-methods approach. Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis were utilized to analyze data collected using the Scientific Epistemological Views instrument for evaluating teachers’ views of nature of science from a sociocultural perspective. Responses from the socio-scientific issue item – Global Warming – for evaluating teachers’ competence in understanding scientific argumentation were analyzed using a three-point scale rubric. Correlation analysis between five domains of the Scientific Epistemological Views survey and three components of argumentation and interview data were used to determine the relationship between teachers’ understanding of nature of science and competence in generating scientific argumentation. To future explore the evidence showing that these teachers could learn some of the basic modern ideas about scientific argumentation, I designed an online learning module with pre-post questionnaires assessing learning gains. Findings of this study highlighted that this group of teachers had an appreciable prior understanding of certain aspects of nature of science and scientific argumentation. The multi-correlation network diagrams generated from analyzing the in-service secondary science teachers’ responses to the Scientific Epistemological Views survey items highlighted the cohesiveness of their group-based percepts regarding the nature of science. It also showed that there were two content themes in the organization of the network diagrams; i.e., 1) the epistemological bases and 2) methodological aspects of the practices of science. Nevertheless, few science teachers were able to generate a cohesive explanation for the set of informed components of scientific argumentation. It was also found that an informed view of the nature of science did not necessarily indicate informed understanding of scientific argumentation. A further correlation analysis (one-tailed, p < 0.05) between results of the Scientific Epistemological Views survey and components of scientific argumentation showed that the invented and creative and changing and tentative features of science significantly related to Argument and Counterargument, respectively. Close examination of written responses to the Scientific Epistemological Views survey and socio-scientific issues items, as well as interview data from selected in-service secondary science teachers, further supported the above finding. The changing and tentative (CT) feature of science is found to be significantly and positively related to the total score participants received in the Global Warming questionnaire (one-tailed, p < 0.05). Regarding the online learning module about scientific argumentation, pre- and post- surveys of learning outcomes showed good gains from a theoretical perspective after the science teachers completed the online learning module, despite relatively high scores on pre-test items. The learning objectives created by the participants showed that they value students’ use of valid evidence in the process of supporting their claims, though the focus of such process varied. Further, in their reflective evaluation of the learning module, teachers prefer the addition of workshops that could provide them with practical techniques and related resources for facilitating scientific argumentation within their classrooms.

<p> The purpose of this action-research case study was the investigation of possible pedagogical transformations teachers experienced through participation in professional development training of Essential Questions and student learning; specifically student questioning, reading, and math achievement. The research in this study investigated two core focal points: the possible shift in a teacher&rsquo;s transformational practices after participation in professional development on Essential Questions (McTighe &amp; Wiggins, 2013) and whether the implemented transformational practices led to a possible difference in student questioning skills in grades two through eight on the Measure of Questioning Skills, student achievement in STAR Math, and STAR Reading in grades two through eight. The researcher designed and implemented professional development for the faculty during one school year, based on Essential Questioning (McTighe &amp; Wiggins, 2013) utilizing an enhanced digital lesson planner and on-line web forum, each designed by the researcher to support the components of professional development and collect data during the research period.</p><p> The researcher utilized the Measure of Questioning Skills (1993) pre and post-assessments with teachers of grades kindergarten through eight and students in grades two through eight, a qualitative survey of participants comprised of a questionnaire, interview, observation, lesson plans, and discussion boards, as well as classroom observations, teacher interviews, pre and post-survey questions, and reflective journaling to measure possible change in the level of implementation of Essential Questions demonstrated by teachers. Secondary student data included STAR Math and STAR Reading pre and post-assessments from grades two through eight.</p><p> Teacher perceptions reflected positive adoption of Essential Questions into lesson planning and teaching practice. Teacher participants demonstrated transformed practices of lesson planning, room design, and teacher-student interactions. Gathered data revealed a statistically significant increase in student achievement in STAR Math and STAR Reading assessments. Teacher participant Measure of Questioning Skills reflected statistically significant changes, as well. Student Measure of Questioning Skills revealed a significant increase in Stage 1 - Organizing Information questions, categorized as factual and procedural questions and an observable increase in Stage 3 - Extending Information questions, categorized as hypothetical and speculative questions. </p>

<p> The researcher conducted a mixed-methods study at a private, Midwestern, Predominantly White institution in order to determine the relationship between minority student perceptions of higher education and minority student perceptions of their institution. The goal of the study was to determine whether minority student perceptions of the climate and culture of their institution influenced their perception of higher education as a whole. Another objective was to determine whether minority student perceptions connected to minority student retention. To determine the relationship, the researcher surveyed 20 undergraduate, African American students and conducted one-on-one interviews with three of the students between the fall of 2017 and the summer of 2018. </p><p> The researcher analyzed the results of the climate and culture perceptions survey instruments to determine relationships between minority student perceptions of the culture of higher education and minority student perceptions of the culture of their school. Secondly, the researcher analyzed the relationship between minority student perceptions of the climate of higher education and minority student perceptions of the climate of the school. Through quantitative analysis, the researcher determined there was no relationship between minority student perceptions of the culture and climate of higher education broadly, and their perceptions of the culture and climate of their institution. </p><p> Qualitative analyses suggested students believed their perception of school climate and culture mirrored the climate and culture of higher education. Perceptions included facing racism and microaggressions, a lack of support from faculty, and not feeling intentionally included in campus programming all while having a sense of safety on campus. Regardless of whether student perceptions of higher education were positive or negative, each student who did not graduate that year intended to return the following academic year. Individual reasons for intent to return determined the relationship between minority student perceptions of higher education and minority student retention. </p><p> Recommendations from the researcher included exploring mentoring programs geared toward minority students, investigating the benefits of a diversity course for all students, implementing an African American Studies program, conducting research focused on reasons minority students remain at an institution, and the functionality of other groups considered minority in higher education. Exploring the aforementioned suggestions in depth could lead to a better overall understanding of how minority students can receive support and experience more retention in higher education.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of the study was to investigate middle school students' perceptions of teacher feedback, middle school teachers' perceptions of the same feedback, and the extent to which those perceptions matched. While research into feedback practices was rich, few studies investigated middle school students' perceptions and experience with feedback practices. The study aimed to address possible miscommunication between teachers and students which may negatively impact middle school students' learning trajectories. Middle school students and teachers from a Midwestern Independent school participated in the study. Student data was examined in aggregate and by race, gender, grade level, years of experience at the school, and student academic self-ratings. Data was acquired using surveys, focus groups, questionnaires and interviews comparing middle school student and teacher responses to 1) clarity of feedback messages, 2) effectiveness of feedback messages, 3) feedback delivery systems and 4) how feedback is used by middle school students. The study also compared trimester grade point averages of middle school students who participated in a 6-week feedback training session intended to improve feedback engagement. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of data revealed that while there were significant differences in how middle school students and teachers view and interpret teacher feedback, middle school students find teacher feedback to be highly valuable and crave instructive rather than evaluative feedback to help improve their work. The evidence also revealed the advantages and limitations of instructing middle school students on how to be better interpreters and users of teacher feedback. The researcher suggests educators need to incorporate explicit feedback protocols in their classrooms including providing reflection time and opportunities for middle school students to practice becoming better receivers of feedback. The researcher also recommends educators proactively seek middle school student input concerning the type of feedback desired and how to deliver that feedback. </p><p>