School districts struggle to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in reading in first grade. Nine percent of first grade students at the study site were not meeting state performance standards in the area of language arts. Specifically in the area of fluency, 38% of first grade students were not achieving AYP. Because of the close connection between oral fluency and early reading achievement, first grade students need to be more fluent to attain state standards. Based on LaBerge and Samuels theory of automaticity within reading fluency, the purpose of this study was to identify the impact of the Scholastic Guided Reading Program and Harcourt Trophies basal reading program on students reading fluency, as measured by the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills Oral Reading Fluency (DIBELS). Over eight months, the fluency levels of 129 first grade students were assessed three times. Repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed a significant increase in the DIBELS gain scores between the pretest Fall Y2 Word Fluency (WF) scores in relation to the posttest Winter Y2 Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) scores for those students who received Scholastic Guided Reading instruction. Students who received Harcourt basal reading instruction gain scores showed a slight regression in fluency between the pretest Fall Y2 WF and the posttest Winter Y2 ORF. These results suggest that individual leveled reading instruction increases students' fluency skills. Improving reading fluency early is essential; students who become proficient readers have the ability to contribute and participatee in all areas of societal change.

<p>This study explores connections between school discipline policies and educational inequality by examining the implementation of “Progressive Discipline” (PD) in an Ontario school board. By using positive reinforcements, preventions, and early and ongoing interventions, PD has replaced more punitive “zero tolerance” approaches as the official approach to student discipline in provincial public schools. This study poses two broad research questions that are guided by prominent theories of school organization and family-school relations: i) Given prevailing schooling practices, how is PD actually implemented, ii) can PD compensate for student inequalities in exposure to cultural orientations demanded by schools. To address these questions, this study draws on 36 qualitative interviews with key actors in several schools, and has two key findings. First, despite the official shift from zero tolerance to PD, student discipline continues to be managed by schools and individual school-based actors along a continuum, with some becoming more progressive, while others remaining more punitive. Thus, this policy evolution has involved a shift from a tighter to a more “loosely coupled” form of organization. But despite this variation, school-based actors are gradually embracing PD, since more progressive perspectives on student discipline appear to resonate with many educators and administrators. Second, the shift to PD is creating new forms of cultural practices in schools, and these practices are generating considerable variations in the outcomes of discipline processes. Building on these findings, this study concludes that progressive discipline policy has the potential to serve as a mechanism of “cultural mobility” and partially compensate for students’ unequal exposure to the values, behaviours and skill sets that are needed to comply with schools’ standards of behaviour.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

There is great disagreement in the United States about with how evolution education should be dealt, as the acceptance of evolution is controversial among the general public of the United States. Furthermore, although a plethora of research has been conducted to understand which factors influence the understanding and acceptance of evolution among high school and university students -- and the general public -- there are few studies focusing on community college students. In an effort to help fill this gap in the literature, this dissertation investigates the relationship between the acceptance of evolution and academic factors among community college students. Specifically, 867 community college students were surveyed using aspects of validated instruments regarding their attitudes towards evolution and human evolution, understanding of evolution and the nature of science, previous science experience, career goals, and demographic information. The results indicated that the community college students accepted evolution at a higher level than the general public and they accepted human evolution relatively less than evolution in general. Acceptance of evolution and human evolution were highly correlated, and regression analysis revealed they were the best predictors for each other after controlling for all of the factors measured. Understanding of evolution and the nature of science were also highly correlated with the acceptance of evolution and moderately correlated with the acceptance of human evolution. The data also indicate that these community college students did not have a solid understanding of evolution. These findings have implications for the teaching of evolution as they serve to reinforce the importance of understanding both evolution and the nature of science and their relationship to the acceptance of evolution.

The purpose of this study was to measure the construct of transformational leadership among athletic training academicians and clinicians. Additionally, this study sought to determine whether perspectives regarding transformational leadership were the same or different based on full-time vocational roles. Finally, this study introduced a methodology for survey data analysis relatively unknown in athletic training research circles. Participants included athletic training education program directors as well as individuals in leadership roles at the state, district, and national level.

No description available.

Os impactos do crescimento quantitativo da educação superior brasileira para a sua qualidade têm sido questionados, visto que a qualidade do ensino é importante preditora do crescimento econômico de um país e que o processo de expansão teria possibilitado o estabelecimento de instituições de ensino e cursos com baixa qualidade. Neste contexto, é fundamental conhecer a influência dos recursos disponibilizados à educação superior para a efetividade do processo de ensino-aprendizagem. No entanto, na literatura acadêmica, há evidente escassez de estudos que exploram as relações entre o desempenho discente e o nível de escolaridade e o regime de trabalho docente. Esta pesquisa aborda o ensino de Administração, que apresentou significativa expansão nos últimos 15 anos, compatível com a tendência mundial de crescimento das escolas de negócio. O objetivo é determinar como as características do corpo docente de uma IES influenciam o desempenho dos concluintes de seus cursos de graduação em Administração no Exame Nacional de Desempenho dos Estudantes (ENADE). Assim, para o desenvolvimento deste estudo, foi criado um banco de dados a partir dos Microdados ENADE 2012 e dos Microdados Censo da Educação Superior 2012, disponibilizados pelo Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (INEP). Com base neste, foram desenvolvidos três modelos de regressão múltipla: um modelo geral, contemplando todas as Instituições de Ensino Superior (IES) do banco de dados, um modelo específico para as IES públicas e outro específico para as IES privadas; sendo que a variável dependente empregada nestes modelos foi gerada por meio de uma análise fatorial, que condensou as informações contidas em cinco variáveis que mensuravam objetivamente o desempenho dos concluintes dos cursos de Administração das 1.286 IES do banco de dados no ENADE 2012. Concluiu-se que o nível de escolaridade do corpo docente, a quantidade de docentes por curso e o volume de cursos ofertados pela IES têm impacto significativo para o desempenho discente. Quanto ao regime de dedicação do corpo docente, foram encontradas evidências da capacidade preditiva destas variáveis, especificamente para o desempenho dos concluintes de IES públicas. Espera-se que os resultados alcançados estimulem o desenvolvimento de novos estudos, a fim de consolidar esta linha de pesquisa e ampliar o conhecimento científico, gerando contribuições práticas que promovam a melhoria contínua da qualidade do ensino de Administração no Brasil. / The impacts of Brazilian higher education quantitative growth on its quality have been challenged since educational quality is an important predictor of a country\'s economic growth. It is also known that this expansion process allowed the establishment of low quality educational institutions and courses. In this context, it is fundamental to know how available educational resources influence learning effectiveness in higher education. However, in academic publishing, there is obvious lack of studies that explored the relationship between students\' performance and faculty educational attainment and faculty working arrangements. This research is focused on Management Education in Brazil, which showed substantial expansion over the last 15 years, consistently with the global growth of Management Education. Its main purpose is to investigate the effects of faculty characteristics on graduate students\' performance on the Brazilian national exam (Exame Nacional de Desempenho dos Estudantes - ENADE). Therefore, a database was created, using data extracted from \'Microdados ENADE 2012\' and from \'Microdados Censo da Educação Superior 2012\'. Three multiple regression models were developed: a general model, for all the 1,286 higher education institutions in the database, and two specific models (one for public educational institutions and the other for private educational institutions). The dependent variable was generated through a factor analysis, which compressed the information contained in five variables that objectively measured graduate students\' performance on ENADE 2012. The results provide compelling evidence that faculty educational attainment, number of teachers per course and amount of courses offered by an IES have predictive power over students\' performance on ENADE 2012. It is expected that these findings encourage the development of new studies in order to reinforce this research area and expand the scientific knowledge, generating practical contributions that could promote ongoing improvement of Management Education quality in Brazil.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / A tutoria à uma das atividades docentes que acompanha, media e orienta o aluno na EducaÃÃo a DistÃncia (EaD) semipresencial. Este estudo busca, de modo geral, avaliar a atuaÃÃo do tutor a distÃncia. Especificamente, visa conhecer os saberes que sÃo necessÃrios na formaÃÃo docente para uma atuaÃÃo eficaz; analisar a aplicaÃÃo desses saberes e avaliÃ-los na atuaÃÃo do tutor a distÃncia nos cursos de graduaÃÃo em EaD semipresenciais da Universidade Federal do Cearà (UFC). Realizou-se, para esses propÃsitos, uma revisÃo de literatura contextualizando a EducaÃÃo em trÃs dimensÃes: EducaÃÃo Superior e EducaÃÃo a DistÃncia; formaÃÃo docente: tutoria e elementos formadores com a discussÃo dos saberes nas dimensÃes atitudinais, conceituais e procedimentais conforme as perspectivas pedagÃgica, didÃtica e tecnolÃgica; e a AvaliaÃÃo Educacional, no que diz respeito à avaliaÃÃo do ensino-aprendizagem e à avaliaÃÃo formativa. A natureza da investigaÃÃo caracterizou o estudo como exploratÃrio, transversal e quantitativo, realizado no Instituto Universidade Virtual. A amostra foi aplicada em 175 tutores e 1.957 alunos matriculados em 7 cursos de graduaÃÃo oferecidos no semestre letivo 2011.1, na modalidade EaD semipresencial. Os dados foram obtidos atravÃs de uma escala de avaliaÃÃo do tipo likert com 16 itens e analisados atravÃs do software SPSS versÃo 15.0. O instrumento aplicado apresentou precisÃo de sensibilidade alta e erro padrÃo da medida inferior a 10% da amplitude da escala. A validade de conteÃdo atravÃs da anÃlise fatorial indicou que a escala à unifatorial. A distribuiÃÃo do escore total na escala de avaliaÃÃo foi transformado para a escala de notas [0;10]; apresentou, na amostra, mÃdia 7,7, mediana 8,4 e coeficiente de variaÃÃo 28,2, com a mÃdia populacional variando no intervalo [7,6;7,8] para uma confianÃa de 95%. A distribuiÃÃo das notas à nÃo-normal, conforme teste de normalidade de Kolmorogov-Smirnov, com as notas se concentrando em valores superiores à mÃdia (mediana 8,4). Na anÃlise de regressÃo linear mÃltipla dos saberes, os coeficientes padronizados indicaram que a dimensÃo conceitual apresentou maior peso na composiÃÃo da nota de avaliaÃÃo. A dimensÃo atitudinal ficou em segundo lugar e a dimensÃo procedimental apresentou menor peso. Essa dimensÃo merece ser objeto de estudo e ser investigada com maior profundidade, pois trata do saber didÃtico, do saber-fazer na atuaÃÃo do tutor a distÃncia. A anÃlise dos resultados indicou que os alunos avaliaram a atuaÃÃo dos tutores classificando-a nos nÃveis de regular a bom. / Tutoring is one of the educational act ivities that accompanies, mediates and guides the student at the semipresential Distance Education (D.Ed.). This study intends, in general, to evaluate the performance of the tutor. Specifically, this study intends to know the necessary knowledges in teaching formation for an effective performance; to analyze the application of those knowledges and evaluate them in the performance of the tutor of semipresential courses of D.Ed. in Universidade Federal do Cearà (UFC). Thus, it was accomplished a literature revew about Education in three dimensions: Higher Education and D. Ed.; teaching formation: tutoring and formation with a discussion of the knowledges in its attitudinal, conceptual and procedural dimensions, under pedagogical, didact and technological perspectives; and Educational Assessment concerning to learning evaluation and formative evaluation. The nature of this investigation characterized the study as an exploratory, traverse and quantitative one, achieved in Instituto Universidade Virtual. The sample was applied in 175 tutors and 1.957 students enrolled in 7 undergraduate courses at the first semester of 2011, in the modality of D. Ed. The data were obtained through a likert scale with 16 items and analyzed by the software SPSS version 15.0. The applied scale presented a precision of high sensibility and standard error lower than 10% of the amplitude of the scale. The content validity was accomplished through factorial analysis that indicated that the scale is unifatorial. The distribution of total scale scores was converted into a scale of grades [0;10]; it presented, in the sample, average 7,7, median 8,4 and coefficient of variation 28,2, with the population average varying in the interval [7,6;7,8] for a confidence interval of 95%. The distribution of the grades is nonstandard, according to test of normality of Kolmorogov-Smirnov, with the concentration of the grades in values above the average (median 8,4). In the linear regression analysis of the knowledges, the standard coefficients indicated that the conceptual dimension was stronger in the composition of the grade. The attitudinal dimension came in second place and the procedural presented was weaker. Therefore, this dimension deserves to be more studied and investigated, because is related to didact knowledge, to doing knowledge in the performance of the tutor in D. Ed. The analysis of the results indicated that the students evaluated the performance of the tutors classifying it in levels from regular to good.

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation presents information gathered and analyzed during an evaluation study of the Using Information Technology (UIT) program at East Tennessee State University. The UIT program, which all undergraduate students must complete before graduation, consists of satisfying a computer literacy foundation requirement and a two course UIT-intensive requirement. The foundation requirement is satisfied by completing a two credit hour course or a challenge exam. Students then take two courses that have been designated as UIT-intensive. One of these courses must be completed in the major. The study, which used a responsive evaluation methodology, involved generating a list of evaluation questions based on discussions with key decision makers. Then, multiple data sources including surveys, interviews, document reviews, pre-tests, and focus groups were used to address these questions. The general conclusion of the study was that the UIT program was effective in helping students gain appropriate computer competencies. However, several recommendations have been made that should help to improve the program.