The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of providing behavioral objectives prior to instruction on the achievement of students in a one-semester college general chemistry course and to determine the effect of providing behavioral objectives of selected chemistry experiments in the acquisition of achievement associated with laboratory work. The population consisted of 244 students enrolled in 12 sections of General Chemistry 102 at Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy, Nakornayok, Thailand, during the second semester of 1990. Twelve sections were assigned at random to three different treatments and one control group. Students in group I received behavioral objectives for both classroom and laboratory instruction. Students in group II received behavioral objectives for classroom instruction and non-behavioral objectives for laboratory instruction. Students in group III received non-behavioral objectives for classroom instruction and behavioral objectives for laboratory instruction. The control group received non-behavioral objectives for both classroom and laboratory instruction. A list of behavioral objectives at cognitive level was distributed to each student prior to the beginning of each unit during two four-week units of study. A one-way analysis of covariance was used to analyze the achievement test scores. Scheffe's test was used for multiple comparisons. The 0.05 level was used to determine the significance of the results. There was a significant difference in achievement between students in group I and the control group. There was a significant difference in achievement between students in group II and the control group. There was a significant difference in achievement between students in group III and the control group. It was concluded that providing students with behavioral objectives prior to instruction did significantly enhance achievement in chemistry, as compared with providing students with non-behavioral objectives prior to instruction in both classroom and laboratory instruction. This conclusion was limited to the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy, Thailand and any similar situation and groups that may exist. / Graduation date: 1991

The purpose of the study was to examine organizational structural, cultural, pedagogical, and economic (reward system) elements of a traditional research-oriented university for influences on faculty adoption of computer-mediated learning technologies (CMLTs). Emergent driving and restraining societal and organizational influences (Lewin, 1951) on faculty members adoption of CMLTs were examined. Faculty members perceptions of the extent to which university policies and practices were aligned to support the successful design, development, and implementation of CMLTs were explored. <p>A case study of faculty members, who had led CMLT development teams in a provincially funded Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) initiative at one university between 2000 and 2005, was conducted in four stages. In the first stage of the study, focus groups and members checks were held with instructional designers in order to identify potentially information-rich CMLT projects. Findings from this included an examination of the social negotiation process among members of CMLT development teams, and provided the bases for selecting faculty members to invite to participate in the study. Stage Two was a pilot of the faculty interview protocol that resulted in protocol refinement. In Stage Three, seven faculty members and one graduate student participated in interviews and members checks of the results. Faculty members were asked to describe their motivations for adopting CMLTs into teaching praxis, any resultant changes to their scholarship of teaching, the compensation they received for time invested in pedagogical and technological innovation, and the extent to which institutional structures, cultures, and policies had supported or impeded their efforts. Stage Four involved an environmental scan of institutional and provincial documentation of the TEL initiative as an avenue to corroborating interview data.<p>In this study, it was found that faculty motivations for CMLT adoption included individual responses to departmental initiatives, curricular renewal and standardization activities, personal-professional development, integrating research into teaching, enhancing student learning, increasing the flexibility of student access to learning opportunities, and improving communications with students. Participants reported a variety of resultant changes to their scholarship of teaching: (1) a shift away from traditional lectures and toward learner-focused tutorials, small group and peer-to-peer discussions, and independent learning opportunities for students accessing electronic learning resources; (2) a new or renewed interest in using innovative instructional strategies and learning environments; and (3) a new or heightened interest in researching educational effectiveness. Organizational support for CMLT projects included fiscal support from the TEL program, and in some cases, additional funding provided by departments or colleges; project management support from the institution; pedagogical support from instructional designers; technical and aesthetic support from information technologists, media developers, graphic artists, and a medical illustrator. Organizational and cultural impediments to successful completion of projects varied across college settings. Lack of sufficient time to devote to CMLT development projects, balancing competing research, teaching, and administrative responsibilities with project activities, and therefore, coping with a mismatch between tenure and promotion requirements and necessary time commitments to CMLT projects were pervasive. Difficulties in coordinating large development teams, the slow pace of acquiring approvals for new programs, problematic project management models, and colleagues skepticism about and fear of integrating technology into teaching were common themes. <p>This study surfaced implications for organizational change that could better enable faculty efforts to adopt CMLTs. Expanding tenure and promotion criteria to include CMLT development work (Archer, Garrison, & Anderson, 1999; Hagner & Schneebeck, 2001) and revising intellectual property policies for CMLT artifacts to better acknowledge faculty efforts (Hilton & Neal, 2001; Tallman, 2000) could do much to encourage the integration of technology into teaching. Promoting educational effectiveness research studies (Chyung, 2001), and bringing CMLT efforts in from the margins to become a core activity in the scholarship of teaching (Bates, 2001) could erode current skepticism and fear about technologies displacing faculty members (Olcott & Schmidt, 2000). <p>Finally, in this study, theoretical implications for organizational change were posited. Traditional centralized and bureaucratic management styles are not well suited to supporting CMLT initiatives in higher education (Bates, 2001). A more distributed approach to leadership (Knapper, 2006) could better support necessary efforts to innovate, experiment, prototype, evaluate in order to incrementally improve project outcomes (Suter, 2001), create synergies between teaching and research activities, and garner faculty commitment to integrating computer-mediated learning technologies into contemporary teaching praxis.

Web-based learning progresses as access to the Internet grows. As learners and educators in virtual learning communities, we strive for ways to measure how well teachers teach and learners learn. While the literature is replete with articles and books discussing online learning from the perspective of social and teaching presence, there are few studies that examine the relationship between cognitive presence and learning effectiveness in an online environment. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between cognitive presence and learning outcome in an asynchronous discussion forum. Thus, this study examined performance in an online course in relation to student interaction and level of cognitive presence in the course. The data were collected from students enrolled in 10 sections of an online class taught at a large public university in the Southeastern United States. The study was mixed-method in nature. It consisted both of qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics with Pearson correlations between the dependent variable (student course module grades) and the independent variables (maximum levels of cognitive presence, number of messages and message lengths). The study resulted in two key theoretical contributions. The first is that maximum level of cognitive presence is a better indicator of student learning than mean level of cognitive presence. The results of the study indicate that students achieved mastery of the subject matter over time. Typically cognitive presence has been measured as a mean score for a course. This strategy is akin to giving the student a pre-test on a body of content at the beginning of the lesson, and a post test at the end, and then averaging these two to determine the student’s grade. Doing so seems to ignore, or at least diminish the fact that learning occurs over time. Student mastery of a content is a better indicator of learning than student progress. Thus, this study suggests that a more appropriate measure of student learning, in terms of cognitive presence, is the maximum level reached by every student, rather than the mean level of all students. The second theoretical contribution is that in on-line learning, a student displaying the cognitive presence “Resolution” stage in a discussion may inhibit others from displaying that stage. When a student has posted a message at the resolution stage during a discussion other students are more likely to respond with messages like “I agree” than they are to restate the resolution stage message. The “I agree” type message would not be coded at the resolution stage, thus the student who posted that message would not be seen to have reached that stage, when in fact, he or she may well have done so. This leads to a faulty perception of the overall level of cognitive presence. It may be difficult to control for this inhibitory effect but some creative structuring of course content and assignments should make it possible. Future studies addressing cognitive presence in online learning environments should take both of these ideas into consideration.

The purpose of the study was to examine organizational structural, cultural, pedagogical, and economic (reward system) elements of a traditional research-oriented university for influences on faculty adoption of computer-mediated learning technologies (CMLTs). Emergent driving and restraining societal and organizational influences (Lewin, 1951) on faculty members adoption of CMLTs were examined. Faculty members perceptions of the extent to which university policies and practices were aligned to support the successful design, development, and implementation of CMLTs were explored. <p>A case study of faculty members, who had led CMLT development teams in a provincially funded Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) initiative at one university between 2000 and 2005, was conducted in four stages. In the first stage of the study, focus groups and members checks were held with instructional designers in order to identify potentially information-rich CMLT projects. Findings from this included an examination of the social negotiation process among members of CMLT development teams, and provided the bases for selecting faculty members to invite to participate in the study. Stage Two was a pilot of the faculty interview protocol that resulted in protocol refinement. In Stage Three, seven faculty members and one graduate student participated in interviews and members checks of the results. Faculty members were asked to describe their motivations for adopting CMLTs into teaching praxis, any resultant changes to their scholarship of teaching, the compensation they received for time invested in pedagogical and technological innovation, and the extent to which institutional structures, cultures, and policies had supported or impeded their efforts. Stage Four involved an environmental scan of institutional and provincial documentation of the TEL initiative as an avenue to corroborating interview data.<p>In this study, it was found that faculty motivations for CMLT adoption included individual responses to departmental initiatives, curricular renewal and standardization activities, personal-professional development, integrating research into teaching, enhancing student learning, increasing the flexibility of student access to learning opportunities, and improving communications with students. Participants reported a variety of resultant changes to their scholarship of teaching: (1) a shift away from traditional lectures and toward learner-focused tutorials, small group and peer-to-peer discussions, and independent learning opportunities for students accessing electronic learning resources; (2) a new or renewed interest in using innovative instructional strategies and learning environments; and (3) a new or heightened interest in researching educational effectiveness. Organizational support for CMLT projects included fiscal support from the TEL program, and in some cases, additional funding provided by departments or colleges; project management support from the institution; pedagogical support from instructional designers; technical and aesthetic support from information technologists, media developers, graphic artists, and a medical illustrator. Organizational and cultural impediments to successful completion of projects varied across college settings. Lack of sufficient time to devote to CMLT development projects, balancing competing research, teaching, and administrative responsibilities with project activities, and therefore, coping with a mismatch between tenure and promotion requirements and necessary time commitments to CMLT projects were pervasive. Difficulties in coordinating large development teams, the slow pace of acquiring approvals for new programs, problematic project management models, and colleagues skepticism about and fear of integrating technology into teaching were common themes. <p>This study surfaced implications for organizational change that could better enable faculty efforts to adopt CMLTs. Expanding tenure and promotion criteria to include CMLT development work (Archer, Garrison, & Anderson, 1999; Hagner & Schneebeck, 2001) and revising intellectual property policies for CMLT artifacts to better acknowledge faculty efforts (Hilton & Neal, 2001; Tallman, 2000) could do much to encourage the integration of technology into teaching. Promoting educational effectiveness research studies (Chyung, 2001), and bringing CMLT efforts in from the margins to become a core activity in the scholarship of teaching (Bates, 2001) could erode current skepticism and fear about technologies displacing faculty members (Olcott & Schmidt, 2000). <p>Finally, in this study, theoretical implications for organizational change were posited. Traditional centralized and bureaucratic management styles are not well suited to supporting CMLT initiatives in higher education (Bates, 2001). A more distributed approach to leadership (Knapper, 2006) could better support necessary efforts to innovate, experiment, prototype, evaluate in order to incrementally improve project outcomes (Suter, 2001), create synergies between teaching and research activities, and garner faculty commitment to integrating computer-mediated learning technologies into contemporary teaching praxis.

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of high school principals? regarding the impact of a high stakes accountability system on instructional practices. The study assessed the differences in perception and influencing factors about the impact of a high stakes accountability system between and among high school principals based on campus ratings and selected demographic variables. The data for this quantitative study were obtained from a 59-question survey instrument given to high school principals from 37 school districts selected from Region I of the Texas Education Service Center and 42 school districts selected from Region XX of the Texas Education Service Center. The researcher collected 92 completed surveys, or 72% of the sample. An analysis of the data found that high school principals did indicate perceived changes to some instructional practices. The data showed a perceived increase in the use of problem-solving activities, open response questions, writing assignments, creative/critical thinking questions, peer or cross-age tutoring, interdisciplinary instruction, facilitating/coaching, collaborative/team-teaching, modeling, cooperative learning/group work, computers/educational software, calculators, computers, internet and/or on-line research service, lab equipment, and manipulatives. Principals also indicated a perceived decrease in the use of work sheets, true-false questions; textbook based assignments, lecturing, and the use of textbooks. In addition, the data showed that high school principals' perceived changes to instructional practices were influenced most by two factors: an "interest in avoiding sanctions at my school," and an "interest in helping my students attain TAKS scores that will allow them to graduate." The information obtained from this study can be used by researchers, educators and all stakeholders to ensure implementation of instructional practices leading to student achievement on high-stakes tests.

This study investigated the elementary school teachers¡¦instructional efficacy in Taiwan. Research variable consist of teachers¡¦background variable such as gender ,marriage status ,educational background,years of teaching ,and administratived duty and school environment variables such as school size and school location. A questionnaire was constructed to collect the information concerning the language teachers¡¦instructional efficacy. A total of 350 elementary school language teachers in Pin-Tung County,Taiwan were selected as subjects by means of a stratified random sampling approach. Survey data were statisfically analyzed,and the research hypotheses were tested.The results indicate that the level of overall instructional efficacy of elementary school language teachers was above average and that some domain¡¦s of teachers¡¦instructional efficacy were affected by the factors of teachers¡¦gender and schools¡¦locales.

Instructional evaluation is essential for assessing the effectiveness of learning events. In today's economy, corporations are under great pressure to reduce expenses, and training budgets often feel the effects. The closure of in-house training programs, combined with the reduction of training budgets, could be seen as evidence of training professionals' inability to prove their worth in terms of organizational benefit. To solidify their value to an organization, training departments must assess the effectiveness of their programs and provide evidence that they are supporting the organization's goals. The purpose of this study was to determine how employer-sponsored training is evaluated in the financial services industry by firms affiliated with DALBAR, Inc., using Kirkpatrick's four-level evaluation model as a framework. The total population for this study consisted of all financial services organizations providing education and training. The target population was limited to the financial services organizations that subscribe to the services provided by DALBAR, Inc. Affiliation with DALBAR was considered an indicator of interest in raising standards of excellence within the financial services industry. Therefore, DALBAR affiliation was believed to represent organizations whose training personnel had current knowledge of industry practices and thereby would report higher usage of evaluation than the total population of other entities. Data was collected using a modified survey instrument. Patterns, trends, models and methods of training evaluation among these financial services organizations were examined. Finally, barriers to implementation of training evaluation were identified and explored. Recommendations for practice include increasing training department staff members' knowledge of evaluation theories and techniques, as well striving to make training evaluation a priority for the organization as a whole. Among the recommendations for future research is the execution of a qualitative study to be conducted through in-depth interviews with selected respondents to explore in greater detail the relationships between organizational characteristics and the implementation of higher levels of evaluation.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Utah State University, Dept. of Instructional Technology, 2002. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-145).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 210-220). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Syracuse University, 1968. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 147-154).