<p> The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the impact a robotics curriculum might have on the experiences and perceptions of middle school girls in two California classrooms. The research found that middle school girls in two different California classrooms felt that their experiences with robotics were personalized experiences that were positive and rewarding. Additionally, the girls felt that robotics was a curriculum that they could relate to real-life, and it was a curriculum that was relevant to their lives. The research found that girls had perceptions about STEM fields that remained sex-biased, and they perceived that certain occupations were more geared toward woman than men and vice versa. Both teachers provided learning environments that were free from sexist constructs.</p>

<p> Recent education reform efforts utilize standardized tests and current assessments measure binary results: pass or fail. However, innovation, discovery, critical thinking and design all have experimentation, testing, and failure as essential components of their process. The purpose of this investigation was to explore how visual art teachers define, address, and use failure in their classrooms. Structured interviews with six K-12 art teachers were analyzed for common themes that addressed (1) the ways in which students and teachers assess failure in the art classroom; (2) how extrinsic and intrinsic motivation affect success and failure; and (3) how effort and ability affect student success and failure. Art teachers reported a number of factors - both intrinsic and extrinsic - that affected student motivation, effort, confidence and their opinion on the outcome of a project. Future research should consider alternative assessment methods that enable art teachers to document student failure and success as processes as opposed to endpoints.</p>

<p> The percentage of male teachers is at its lowest number in 40 years. The problem is that fewer males are choosing elementary teaching as a career choice. As a result, many elementary students rarely see a male teacher during their formative education years. This issue is a concern for superintendents, college of education deans, recruiters, school administrators, and parents whose children are not being exposed to a diverse teacher workforce that includes male elementary teachers. The purpose of this study was to better define and understand the unique experiences of male elementary teachers in today's classroom. The conceptual framework for the study incorporated Levinson's adult male development theory, Palmer's teaching landscape, and Mezirow's transformative learning theory. This qualitative study investigated the experience of 6 male elementary teachers in 3 different school districts in a southeastern state. This study followed Moustakas's phenomenological method utilizing criterion sampling. Data were collected, analyzed, and coded for preliminary categories and themes. Four themes emerged: (1) male role modeling, (2) readying students, (3) establishing mentoring relationships, and (4) mattering. The findings show that male elementary teachers are a crucial voice for some students, and they fulfill a needed role in the elementary school. This study addresses positive social change by providing a voice for the male elementary teacher, a diminishing but important teaching population, while also illustrating how the male elementary teacher's presence in the classroom can serve as a positive role model, mentor, and diverse elementary learning experience for the children. </p>

<p> The purpose of this dissertation was to document, analyze, understand, and describe how the environmental virtue ethics of undergraduate students were impacted after participating in a service-learning project designed to establish a new university garden. This service-learning project occurred during the fall semester of 2011, on the campus of Lighthouse University, a mid-size Catholic college campus that is located in an urban area of Southern California. The service-learning component was embedded within one environmental ethics course. Over the course of one sixteen-week academic semester, thirty undergraduates, between the ages of 18-23, each volunteered ten hours in this new on-campus garden. In addition to the student volunteer work, one of the complimentary course components required students to attend a speaking engagement hosted by Dr. Vandana Shiva, a world-renowned environmentalist. The action researcher, served as the catalyst, recorder, and facilitator of this service-learning project. In these roles, the action researcher mobilized members of the university, volunteers from the broader community, and local master gardeners to work side by side with the undergraduate students in the garden. After a qualitative analysis was conducted through the procedures of action research, local recommendations were generated in order to assist future garden-based curricular and co-curricular activities.</p>

<p> Commuter students, or students who do not live in institutionally owned or operated housing, have consistently struggled to persist to graduation. Since commuter students make up the collegiate majority, identifying ways to support this student population's academic success is imperative. Because of the positive association between social integration and student persistence, this study examined the relationship between student involvement in extracurricular activities and sense of belonging among commuter students at 4-year institutions set in urban areas. Student involvement and sense of belonging were measured using scales from the fourth edition of the College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CSEQ). A random sample of 712 was drawn from the 2012 administration of the CSEQ. Structural equation modeling, including latent means and multiple group analyses, was used to answer the study's research questions. The findings suggest that commuter student involvement mirrors Astin's theory of student involvement; sense of belonging is heavily influenced by meaningful relationships with faculty and administrators; there is a positive relationship between student involvement and sense of belonging; parental education, race, transfer status, and employment patterns are background characteristics that account for student subgroup differences; and employment patterns impact student involvement, sense of belonging, and the relationship between these variables. These findings can inform institutional practice and direct future research efforts in order to further support the commuter student population.</p>

<p> Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate relationships among learning styles, overall GPA, and major in undergraduate students enrolled in professional programs in the department of Health, Physical Education, and Sport Sciences. Methods: This study compared the learning styles of the students to their overall GPA, using the Computerized Assessment Program- Styles of Learning (CAPSOL&copy;) Form B and self-reported GPA. Results: Participants consisted of 231 Health, Physical Education, and Sport Sciences undergraduate students. Correlation was found between preferred learning styles and actual overall GPA, major and actual overall GPA, and self-reported GPA and actual overall GPA. Conclusion: Health, Physical Education, and Sport Sciences undergraduate students resulted in preferred learning styles of individual, sequential, and bodily kinesthetic.</p>

<p> The purpose of this action research, mixed methods study was to explore the impact of the AP Program on the high school and college experience of students, both from an academic and a "lived experience" perspective. In addition, the study investigated the costs and values of the AP Program to the institution itself. The study revealed that the AP Program continues to contribute significant value to students' high school educations, generally prepares them well for success at college, and often contributes to the acquisition of important credit and placement accommodations for students when matriculating at college. The study also revealed that, although the Program contributes a great deal of stress to the high school experience, students do not see this as a significant impediment to participation. However, the study also revealed several opportunities for the institution to better prepare students for the rigor of the Program and their use of AP scores in obtaining accommodations at college. Finally, the study demonstrated that while the AP Program contributes important value to the teaching experience, marketing of the institution, and the college admissions success of the school, there are important issues that warrant further consideration and review, not the least of which is the quality of the non-AP curriculum that is offered to students who do not meet the prerequisites of the AP Program.</p>

<p>This dissertation presents the results of an experiment that measured the learning outcomes associated with three different pedagogical approaches to introductory physics labs. These three pedagogical approaches presented students with the same apparatus and covered the same physics content, but used different lab manuals to guide students through distinct cognitive processes in conducting their laboratory investigations. We administered post-tests containing multiple-choice conceptual questions and free-response quantitative problems one week after students completed these laboratory investigations. In addition, we collected data from the laboratory practical exam taken by students at the end of the semester. Using these data sets, we compared the learning outcomes for the three curricula in three dimensions of ability: conceptual understanding, quantitative problem-solving skill, and laboratory skills. </p><p> Our three pedagogical approaches are as follows. Guided labs lead students through their investigations via a combination of Socratic-style questioning and direct instruction, while students record their data and answers to written questions in the manual during the experiment. Traditional labs provide detailed written instructions, which students follow to complete the lab objectives. Open labs provide students with a set of apparatus and a question to be answered, and leave students to devise and execute an experiment to answer the question. In general, we find that students performing Guided labs perform better on some conceptual assessment items, and that students performing Open labs perform significantly better on experimental tasks. Combining a classical test theory analysis of post-test results with in-lab classroom observations allows us to identify individual components of the laboratory manuals and investigations that are likely to have influenced the observed differences in learning outcomes associated with the different pedagogical approaches. Due to the novel nature of this research and the large number of item-level results we produced, we recommend additional research to determine the reproducibility of our results. </p><p> Analyzing the data with item response theory yields additional information about the performance of our students on both conceptual questions and quantitative problems. We find that performing lab activities on a topic does lead to better-than-expected performance on some conceptual questions regardless of pedagogical approach, but that this acquired conceptual understanding is strongly context-dependent. The results also suggest that a single &ldquo;Newtonian reasoning ability&rdquo; is inadequate to explain student response patterns to items from the Force Concept Inventory. We develop a framework for applying polytomous item response theory to the analysis of quantitative free-response problems and for analyzing how features of student solutions are influenced by problem-solving ability. Patterns in how students at different abilities approach our post-test problems are revealed, and we find hints as to how features of a free-response problem influence its item parameters. The item-response theory framework we develop provides a foundation for future development of quantitative free-response research instruments. </p><p> Chapter 1 of the dissertation presents a brief history of physics education research and motivates the present study. Chapter 2 describes our experimental methodology and discusses the treatments applied to students and the instruments used to measure their learning. Chapter 3 provides an introduction to the statistical and analytical methods used in our data analysis. Chapter 4 presents the full data set, analyzed using both classical test theory and item response theory. Chapter 5 contains a discussion of the implications of our results and a data-driven analysis of our experimental methods. Chapter 6 describes the importance of this work to the field and discusses the relevance of our research to curriculum development and to future work in physics education research. </p>

<p> The problem that this correlational quantitative survey research study sought to examine was whether perceived secondary school teacher self-efficacy, in terms of collaboration, was related to the level of implementation of inclusion practices within special education classrooms. The purpose of this study was to contribute to researchers' understanding of how collaboration takes place and whether shared leadership theory, as a means of measuring the amount of collaboration that takes place in an organizational environment, can help to explain these processes so that teacher education inclusion programs can be improved. The theoretical framework that guided this study was Bandura's (1977, 1994) self-efficacy theory. The study aimed to examine possible correlations between teachers' self-efficacy and the level of inclusion practices within teaching teams, perceptions of shared leadership in decision making, and perceptions of the level of stress these different teachers face in their jobs. A sample of 100 teachers were surveyed online using three pre-tested and validated quantitative instruments: the Inclusion Climate Scale, the Teacher Efficacy Scale, and the Collaborative Climate Scale. Regression analysis were used to determine if there was a correlation between the variables. Findings showed that there was no correlation between teachers' self-efficacy and the level of inclusion practices within teaching teams, no difference between general and special education teacher perceptions of shared leadership or decision making, no difference between teacher perceptions of positive inclusion practices, and no statistically significant difference between teacher perceptions of the level of stress they face in their job. Based on the findings from the study, it may be assumed that limitations on sample size and geographic scope of the present study were significant. Future research is needed in order to address these limitations and discover whether the results of the current study can be verified through an adaptation of the methodology or its scope. </p>

<p> Doctors in a Northern California community reported that medical assisting students did not use medical terminology in context, could not think critically, and faltered in decision making and problem solving during their internships in medical offices. The intent of this instrumental case study was to investigate the gap between current methods of lecturing and active-learning projects designed to engage medical assisting students in learning medical terminology, forming critical thinking skills, and developing decision-making techniques. Informed by a constructivist theoretical framework, data were collected regarding the teaching methods of 4 medical instructors through interviews and classroom observations. Documentation from the doctors and nurses whom graduates served upon matriculation was also reviewed. Open coding of data resulted in emerging themes. Findings showed that instructors were unsure how to implement activities to promote critical thinking, active learning in the classroom, and decision-making skills for students. As a result of this research, a 3-day professional development workshop for college instructors was developed, focusing on critical thinking and problem-based learning activities. This study may contribute to positive social change when medical assisting students graduate with the ability to use medical terminology in context, think critically, and provide satisfactory patient care, thus bringing valued expertise to patient care and offsetting the national shortage of labor in this sphere.</p>