<p> Every year millions of students drop out of school. Research indicates that student engagement is a major indicator of whether a student will or will not complete high school (Jackson, 2015). A student&rsquo;s decision to drop out is not an instantaneous event, but one that occurs because of a developmental process of withdrawal (Finn, 1989). Student engagement is a student&rsquo;s feelings of connectedness, belongingness, and valuing of school, developed early in a student&rsquo;s academic career (Voelkl, 1997). Increased student engagement offers students a chance to increase their achievement in school. One measure of student engagement is increased participation in school (Finn, 1989). Staff members who take the time to build relationships foster a greater sense of connectedness to the school for the student. A greater sense of connectedness may increase the levels of participation in the school thus resulting in greater achievement. The current study found that the engagement levels of at-risk middle school students in grades six through eight with and without disabilities increased after a staff-led mentoring program. The current study used the Identification with School Questionnaire (Voelkl, 1996) to measure student engagement. In addition, the current study analyzed the staff-mentor perceptions of the mentoring program and found that the staff-mentors valued the relationships with the students, that they wanted to meet periodically to collaborate on ways to better reach the students, and that most of the staff contacted parents as a natural part of the mentoring process. </p><p>

<p> The path to expertise has been quantified on several occasions (Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-R&ouml;mer, 1993; Ericsson 2001; Ericsson &amp; Charness, 1994; Ericsson 2008) as well as explored through qualitative retrospective methods (Bloom 1985; Kreiner, Phillips, &amp; Orlick 1993; Hayman et. al. 2014). However, little research has investigated the experience of elite performers as they attempt to maximize their performance over time. The purpose of this study was to examine how elite golfers think about, structure, and experience practice intended to maximize performance throughout a long career.</p><p> The researcher utilized a phenomenological approach to explore the lived experience of five PGA Tour players as they reflected on their practice experience thus far. The central themes found were: a) tailoring practice, b) <i> achieving balance, c) staying engaged, d) being proactive</i>. The core thematic findings spring from two results: 1. The most effective practice for elite golfers are highly individualized, and 2. effective practice for these players is reached when they proactively tailor their approach to pursue appropriate balance and achieve consistent engagement. These findings may benefit golfers, golf coaches, and applied sport psychology practitioners. Theoretical implications and possibilities for future research are discussed. </p><p>

<p> The aim of this survey research pilot study was to determine if there is a relationship that exists between a teacher&rsquo;s perceptions about their disciplinary style and early life exposure to adverse experiences. The method consisted of two brief questionnaires (the Adverse Childhood Experience questionnaire and the Behavior and Instruction Management Scale) which was completed electronically by 2,149 teachers (response rate 16.51%) practicing within the state of Maine. The Behavior and Instruction Management Scale (BIMS) is a validated measure of teacher beliefs about their behavioral and instructional management practices in their classrooms and the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) questionnaire is a validated measure of early life exposure to adverse experiences. Previous research using the ACE questionnaire indicated a strong correlation between a high number of adverse experiences in childhood and increased risk of developing later negative health conditions, including depression, obesity and heart disease. Moreover, early adverse experiences can lead to more extreme beliefs in parenting practices including discipline. This current survey research pilot-study determined the percentage of teacher who endorsed high levels of adverse childhood experiences and a possible connection between high levels of early adverse experiences and classroom behavior management. </p><p> In this study 14.5% of teachers reported experiencing at least 4 of the 10 categories of adverse childhood experiences, which is over double the expected rate based on the original study. The results of this survey research design were correlated using Spearman&rsquo;s rho and found a very weak and statistically nonsignificant correlation of <i>r</i> = .010, <i> p</i> = .007, between a teacher&rsquo;s ACE score and their BIMS score. The significance of this study and implications for future policy and research are discussed.</p><p>

Fan Mei Tai. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-159). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

The current research applies Regulatory Focus Theory (Higgins, 1997) and a new framework for knowledge accessibility called Relevance of a Representation (Eitam & Higgins, 2010) to examine how the strength of promotion ideal goals (i.e. one's hopes and aspirations) and the strength of prevention ought goals (i.e. duties and responsibilities) can predict the accessibility of one's knowledge representations. It is proposed that strong promotion ideal goals will lead to the activation of knowledge representations presented as the potential for gain/non-gain, whereas strong prevention ought goals will lead to the activation of knowledge representations presented as the potential for non-loss/loss. Three studies examining these proposals are reported. Study 1a measured the chronic strength of participants' promotion ideal goals and prevention ought goals using an established questionnaire. Studies 1b and 2 experimentally manipulated the momentary strength of participants' promotion ideal goals or prevention ought goals by having participants write a brief essay that primed their ideals or their oughts. In all three studies, participants completed a synonym task. Half the synonym problems were presented as the potential to gain points for correct answers and not to gain points for incorrect answers; the other half were presented as the potential not to lose points for correct answers and to lose points for incorrect answers. Following the synonym task, participants completed a lexical decision task measuring accessibility (i.e. were asked to identify as quickly as possible whether a string of letters formed a word or not). Some of the letter strings were the target words from the synonym task and the other strings were not. Response latencies on the lexical decision task were used as a measure of accessibility. As predicted, all three studies found that, for participants with stronger promotion ideal goals, knowledge representations framed as the potential for gain/non-gain were more accessible than those framed as the potential for non-loss/loss. The relation between stronger prevention ought goals and knowledge accessibility was more complex. Study 1b found that both gain/non-gain and non-loss/loss framed synonyms were more accessible when the participants' had stronger prevention ought goals. Study 2, however, found that when participants were given feedback indicating that they were significantly exceeding the synonym task goal, then only non-loss/loss framed synonyms, as predicted, were more accessible. Implications of these findings for memory and learning processes are discussed.

I tested the effects of mastery of an advanced auditory match-to-sample (MTS) instruction on the emission of full echoic responses, and the emergence of advanced listener literacy and speaker-as-own-listener cusps. In two experiments, an advanced auditory MTS instruction was implemented, in which the auditory MTS Flash® instructional program displayed a computer screen containing one button at the top center of the screen and two buttons below it in the bottom corners of the screen. The top button produced the sample word or phrase, and the two buttons located below produced the exemplar and non-exemplar word or phrase. In the advanced auditory match-to-sample instruction, the participant mastered MTS for words or phrases. In Experiment 1, a counterbalanced delayed multiple probe across participants design was implemented to test the effects of mastery of an advanced auditory MTS instruction on the emergence of advanced listener literacy and Naming, and the emission of full echoic responses. In Experiment 2, a time lagged multiple probe across participants design was implemented to test the effects of mastery of the advanced auditory MTS instruction on the emergence of advanced listener literacy and speaker-as-own-listener cusps (i.e., Naming, say-do correspondence, and self-talk). In addition, Experiment 2 investigated the potential sources of the emergence of advanced listener literacy and speaker-as-own-listener cusps using the probe procedure to identify the degree of conditioned reinforcement for voices. Full echoic responses across all participants significantly improved as a function of the advanced auditory MTS instruction. In Experiment 1, two out of four participants achieved full Naming. In Experiment 2, one out of three participants achieved full Naming. Two participants' self-talk and say-do correspondences significantly increased. Mastery of the protocol also resulted in increased reinforcement for choosing to listen to recorded speech.

The purpose of this study was to verify Bandura's theory on the relationship of self-efficacy and performance particularly in mathematics among high school students. A rural school in the Philippines was selected for its homogenous student population, effectively reducing the effects of confounding variables such as race, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, socioeconomic status, and language. It was shown that self-efficacy was a positive but minor predictor of future performance only for male students who previously had higher mathematics grades. The effects were different between genders. It was not a strong predictor for women regardless of previous grades, and men with weaker mathematics skills. On the other hand, mathematics self-efficacy was predicted by previous mathematics achievement for women; and also the number of siblings and parental education for the higher performing women. The use of a second language in the mathematics classroom negatively affected confidence and performance. It was also found that there were differences in terms of academic behavior, peers, and family life between students with high and low self-efficacy. Positive behaviors were found for all female students regardless of self-efficacy levels and fewer were found among men. Negative behaviors were only found among low self-efficacy students. No differences were found in terms of the lives and families of the participants, but the interviews revealed that family members and their experiences of poverty affected educational goals and ambitions. In terms of other dispositional factors, students expressed classroom and test anxieties, concerns of being embarrassed in front of their classmates, and beliefs that mathematics was naturally difficult and not enjoyable. The students who did not talk about any of these themes were better performing and had higher self-efficacy scores.

Three studies examined context effects on solving probability problems. Variants of word problems were written with cover stories which differed with respect to social or temporal schemas, while maintaining formal problem structure and solution procedure. In the first of these studies it was shown that problems depicting schemas in which randomness was inappropriate or unexpected for the social situation were solved less often than problems depicting schemas in which randomness was appropriate. Another set of two studies examined temporal and causal schemas, in which the convention is that events are considered in forward direction. Pairs of conditional probability (CP) problems were written depicting events E1 and E2, such that E1 either occurs before E2 or causes E2. Problems were defined with respect to the order of events expressed in CPs, so that P(E2|E1) represents the CP in schema-consistent, intact order by considering the occurrence of E1 before E2, while P(E1|E2) represents CP in schema-inconsistent, inverted order. Introductory statistics students had greater difficulty encoding CP for events in schema-inconsistent order than CP of events in conventional deterministic order. The differential effects of schematic context on solving probability problems identify specific conditions and sources of bias in human reasoning under uncertainty. In addition, these biases may be influential when evaluating empirical findings in a manner similar to that demonstrated in this paper experimentally, and may have implications for how social scientists are trained in research methodology.

This dissertation explores new possibilities for changing Americans' theories about racism and sexism. Popular American rhetorics of discrimination, and learners' naïve models, are focused on individual agents' role in creating bias. These theories do not encompass the systemic and structural aspects of discrimination in American society. When learners can think systemically as well as agentically about bias, they become more likely to support systemic as well as individual remedies. However, shifting from an agentic to a systemic model of discrimination is both cognitively and emotionally challenging. To tackle this difficult task, this dissertation brings together the literature on prejudice reduction and conceptual change to propose using games as an entertainment-based intervention to change players' attribution styles around sexism and racism, as well as their attitudes about the same issues. "Playable model— anomalous data" theory proposes that games can model complex systems of bias, while instantiating learning mechanics that help players confront the limits of their existing models. The web-based game Advance was designed using playable model — anomalous data theory, and was used to investigate three questions. First, can a playable model — anomalous data game change players' likelihood of using systemic explanations for bias, and how does it compare to the effectiveness of a control text? Second, how does the game change players' attitudes as compared to a control text? Finally, are there differences between three different versions of the game that offer players different rewards for investigating the bias in the game system? Advance did not outperform the control text at changing players' likelihood of using systemic attributions for racism and sexism, nor did it outperform the control text in changing players' attitudes. However, significant differences were found between White and non-White player populations in their sensitivity to the different game conditions. White players were unaffected by differences between versions of the game, while non-White players showed differences in play behaviors, in systemic attribution likelihood, and in attitude. Given that White Americans may have more entrenched ideas about discrimination in America, we consider the impacts of the game on non-White player populations as an indicator of what future development of playable model — anomalous data games may be able to achieve.

The purpose of the present study is to test whether symbol grounding for action verbs occurs in entrenched native verb forms, and whether they transfer to novel verb forms that are acquired as explicit translations of existing verbs. The entrenched and novel verbs were referred to here as L1 verbs and L2 verbs respectively, and were used as analogs of meanings in first and second language learning. Symbolic grounding was investigated by observing behavioral data in lexical decision tasks, and scalp electrophysiological signals using 128-channel EEG data. The present study used different kinds of action verbs (e.g., verbs of foot movement, such as kick or jump, and verbs of hand movement, such as swipe or grab) and abstract verbs, such as learn or plan. Previous researchers have provided empirical evidence showing that when action verbs are accessed in reading, there is concomitant activation of primary motor and/or somatosensory cortex. The established relationships of action verbs in L1 and their sensorimotor groundings as a reference were used to determine successful transfer of groundings of L1 words to L2 words. By observing the responses to the L2 words that are acquired through symbolic manipulation without perceptual or bodily experiences and examining, it can be determined if they produce similar neural activations as in those found in L1 words, and we can test whether the symbol-grounding-transfer occurs in part or in whole, given this minimal learning context. The behavioral measure was a lexical decision task where the participants respond to meaningful words (foot-related verbs or hand-related verbs) with two kinds of response modalities (button press with a finger or foot pedal press with a foot). Although either facilitation (foot verb to foot movement and hand verb to hand movement) or interference (Foot verb to hand movement and hand verb to foot movement) effect of action verbs was expected, the results showed that the participants consistently responded faster to the L1 English verbs than to the L2 verbs and responded faster with finger-pressing button box than foot-pressing pedal. However, at the slowest response times condition, the condition of foot-pedal pressing to L2 words, the facilitation effect of Foot related verbs was observed. The response times of foot pedal pressing to L2 Foot-related verbs were significantly faster than both L2 Hand-related verbs (p=.003) and abstract verbs (p=.005) at the paired t-test. This result is consistent with the research hypothesis and provides partial evidence supporting the assumption that the Foot-related action verbs have close link with sensorimotor cortex associated with foot movement and reading those verbs will facilitate corresponding body movement. The three kinds of EEG data analysis methods were used in the current study: Event Related Potential (ERP) component analysis, EEG topographic analysis, and EEG source localization with low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (LORETA). The ERP components were used to examine the effect of language (L1 vs. L2) and lexicality (Word vs. Non-word) in terms of amplitudes and temporal points of ERP components. The EEG topographic analysis and EEG source localization with LORETA are methods for spatiotemporal analysis, which provide information on intracranial neural activations that are sources of scalp electric signals. When ERP components of the montaged electrodes placed on the central area of the scalp (vertex and neighboring 14 electrodes) were examined, the P3 component for L1 (at around 390~400ms) reached its peak earlier that that of L2 (495~505ms). Topographic analysis results that compared topographic maps created by different verb groups provided evidence that different configurations of the neuronal activations were created by the verb groups representing body movements of different body parts. In addition, by means of the source localization analysis with the LORETA, the differential neural activations at sensorimotor cortex were observed when the brain activations elicited by L1 Foot related and Hand related verbs were compared. At both temporal windows, early (126~134ms) and late (318~322ms), the regions of the sensorimotor cortex associated with Hand movement were activated significantly more by the Hand related verbs than Foot related verbs. In order to test Harnad's symbol grounding transfer hypothesis, the neural activations at the sensorimotor cortex elicited by L2 Foot verbs and the L2 Hand verbs were examined in comparison with those of the abstract verbs. Significant larger activations were elicited by both of the action verbs over the abstract verbs. To summarize, the current study provided the neurophysiological evidence on the symbol grounding at L1 word and the symbol grounding transfer at L2 words by exhibiting links between the regions of sensorimotor cortex and L1 and L2 action verbs in terms of differential neural activations elicited by the verb groups.