In the last few years educational computer games have gained attention as a tool for facilitating learning in different sectors of society including but not limited to military, health, and education. However, advances in computer game technology continue to outpace research on its effectiveness. Few empirical studies have investigated the effects of educational games in the context of formal K-12 settings. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a series of mathematics computer games on mathematics achievement and motivation of high school students. In addition, the role of prior mathematics knowledge, computer skill, and English language skill of the participants on their mathematics achievement and motivation when they played the games were investigated. A total of 193 students and 10 teachers from an urban high school in the southeast of the United States of the America participated in this study. The teachers were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Students' mathematics achievement was measured using school district benchmark exams and a game performance test generated by the developers of the mathematics games. A mathematics motivation questionnaire based on Keller's (1987a) ARCS model of motivational design measured students' mathematics motivation. Multivariate Analysis of Co-Variance (MANCOVA) was conducted to analyze the data. In addition, interviews were conducted to cross validate the results of the quantitative data. The MANCOVA results indicated significant improvement of the mathematics achievement of the experimental versus control group. No significant improvement was found in the motivation of the experimental versus control group. However, a significant improvement was found on the motivation scores of the students who played the games in their school lab and classrooms compared to the ones who played the games only in the school labs. In addition, the findings indicated that prior mathematics knowledge, computer skill and English language skill did not play significant roles in achievement and motivation of the experimental group. Teachers' interviews revealed that these individual differences had indeed played significant roles in game-playing at the beginning of using the games, but the impacts gradually diminished as the students gained the required game-playing skills. The overall results indicated that the mathematics games used in this study were effective teaching and learning tools to improve the mathematics skills of the students. Using the games in mathematics education was suggested by the teachers as an appropriate alternative way of teaching, as one of the teachers stated: "This is definitely the way that we have to go to teach mathematics in the future." Mathematics games should be integrated with classroom activities if teachers want to increase mathematics class motivation. Teachers' helps and supports are vital in using the games effectively in a population with different prior mathematics knowledge, computer skills, and English language skills.

Significant environmental impacts such as climate change, reduction in biodiversity, increasing food scarcity, impacts on water supply and availability, and exacerbation of human health problems are occurring and are expected to increase. Despite these environmental challenges the teaching of California’s environmental literacy standards, the California Environmental Principles and Concepts (CA EP&Cs), in the K-12 public education system is infrequent and inadequate. The purpose of this study was to use a mixed methods approach to examine relationships between environmental identity (EI), personal environmental education teacher efficacy (PEETE), and peak stage of concern (SOC) for implementing CA EP&Cs for K-12 in-service teachers participating in regional 3-year California Environmental Literacy Projects (CELP). In the last year of CELP, a survey was given to 72 of the participating teachers to probe their EI, PEETE, and peak SOC for implementing CA EP&Cs. Eighteen months after the conclusion of CELP, five participating teachers engaged in a follow-up interview providing further insight about the relationships between EI, PEETE, and peak SOC for implementing CA EP&Cs. The findings from quantitative analysis of the survey and the qualitative analysis of the follow-up interviews indicate that participating teachers had high levels of EI and PEETE, and that there is a moderately large correlation between EI and PEETE within the sample of teachers surveyed. These high levels of EI and PEETE did not translate into impact level peak SOC in the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) for most teachers. This finding demonstrates that environmental literacy professional development providers, site and district administrators, and teachers will have to overcome significant challenges to be able to increase the environmental literacy for students in California’s educational system. For environmental literacy professional development providers, it is suggested to surface teachers’ individual challenges to implementing CA EP&Cs and provide explicit recommendations to overcome these challenges. For district and site administrators, it is suggested that the CA EP&Cs be prioritized as important standards that are taught, and that student access to outdoor field experiences be valued and funded. For teachers, it is suggested to prioritize the teaching of CA EP&Cs and to integrate environmental literacy into the teaching of the various content areas where appropriate. Further details and additional suggestions are outlined in this research study.

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This licentiate thesis focuses on the development of the idea process in art education using digital peer feedback. In the school subject visual art, the visual idea process, e.g., when students sketch their ideas, is an important phase in a project. When an idea takes form, there is the possibility for considering the idea in a new way, for others to study and discuss it, and most importantly, for generating new ideas. By digitally sharing their visual idea process and providing feedback, students can become more aware of their own and others' creative processes. Peer feedback in this thesis leans on two theories. The first is self-regulated learning, meaning that students formulate goals and identify needs (both their own and others’) when learning. In the feedback activity, the student is responsible for their own idea and for the visual feedback given to other students. They also receive valuable input when providing feedback. The second feedback theory is social constructivism and the zone of proximal development, i.e., the difference between what students accomplish in learning with the help of others and what students accomplish by themselves. In this study it is shown (by focusing on the social aspects of peer feedback) that when students help others, they develop their own products far more than they might have done if working individually. On two occasions, I observed and investigated how students (an eighth-grade and sixth-grade class) developed and digitally shared visual ideas supported by digital peer feedback. Thematic analysis was used on data gathered on both occasions (i.e. in both iterations of the study) to identify different types of feedback provided by students. In the first iteration, the feedback was in written form, and through analysis, five themes were created that described different types of peer feedback. In the second iteration, feedback was provided using various visual techniques, and through the analysis, four themes were formed. In each iteration of the study, four categories were created to describe the degree of change between the first and final sketches. The results suggest that using digital tools and peer feedback activities in visual art could help improve students’ abilities to develop ideas. The methodological contribution of this research is its new use of peer feedback using visual feedback. With this form of feedback, students stayed within one medium, using a sign system to communicate visual solutions on the sketches of other students. At the same time, they received practical tips and direct advice that they could immediately apply to their sketches. / Den här licentiatuppsatsen fokuserar på att utveckla idéprocessen i bildundervisning med hjälp av digital kamratfeedback. I skolämnet bild är den visuella idéprocessen, till exempel när elever skissar sina idéer, en viktig fas i ett projekt. När en idé får en form blir det möjligt att betrakta den, för andra att studera och granska, och kanske viktigast av allt, att generera nya idéer. Genom att digitalt dela med sig av sin visuella idéprocess och ge feedback kan elever bli mer medvetna om sina egna och andras kreativa processer. Kamratfeedback, peer feedback, i uppsatsen lutar sig mot två teorier. Den ena är själv-reglerat lärande, vilket innebär att formulera mål och identifiera behov i lärandet. I feedbackaktiviteten är eleven ansvarig för den egna idén och för den feedback som ges till andra elever. Eleverna får också värdefull input när de ger feedback. Den andra teorin är socialkonstruktivism och den proximala utvecklingszonen, dvs. skillnaden mellan vad elever åstadkommer i lärandet med hjälp av andra och vad elever åstadkommer på egen hand. Den här studien (som fokuserar på de sociala aspekterna av kamratfeedback) visar att när elever hjälper andra utvecklar de sin idé mycket mer än vad de skulle ha gjort om de hade arbetat individuellt. I två omgångar undersöktes hur elever i åttonde och sjätte klass utvecklar och digitalt delar visuella idéer med stöd av digital kamratfeedback. Inspiration från tematisk analys användes i båda omgångarna för att identifiera olika typer av feedback från eleverna. I den första användes skriftlig feedback, och genom analysen skapades fem teman som beskrev olika typer av elevernas feedback. I den andra omgången gav eleverna varandra feedback i form av olika visuella tekniker, och i analysarbetet skapades fyra teman. I båda omgångarna bedömdes graden av förändring mellan den första och den sista skissen. Fyra kategorier skapades i varje omgång. Resultaten tyder på att det skulle kunna vara fördelaktigt för elevernas förmåga att utveckla idéer med hjälp av digitala teknologier och kamratfeedback-aktiviteter i bild. Den digitala delningen underlättade för eleverna att dela och granska varandras idéarbeten och feedback. Det metodologiska bidraget från denna licentiatuppsats är att kamratfeedback har använts på ett nytt sätt, visuell feedback. Genom att stanna kvar i ämnets visuella språk och kommunicera feedback visuellt återanvändes föremål och former i den ursprungliga skissen.

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Previous research by Vitton & Wasonga (2009) and Strenth (2013) found public school K-12 principals struggling in the moral reasoning and decision-making measures of the second Defining Issues Test ("DIT-2"). In response to these studies, this research sought to collect, to examine, and to compare DIT-2 data for educational leaders at various stages of the principalship track in an effort to determine and/or to isolate the locus of principals' reported underperformance. The moral reasoning and decision-making of regular-education K-12 public school principals and assistant principals in Florida, and current master's degree students in educational leadership programs at a large public Florida university were measured and compared. Research questions were posed: 1) to find the levels of moral reasoning and decision-making reached by acting principals, acting assistant principals, and current master's students in educational leadership programs; 2) to determine if there was a difference between these principals, assistant principals, and master's students in moral reasoning and decision-making; and 3) to see if there was a difference in moral reasoning and decision-making between principals across various years of experience. The DIT-2 was administered anonymously to participants through an online link, and was scored by the University of Alabama's Office for the Study of Ethical Development. Data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistical methods principally to determine the degree to which participants reasoned and made decisions based upon personal interests, upon the maintenance of norms, or upon the basis of more sophisticated principles. Results showed master's students in educational leadership outperforming active principals and assistant principals in moral reasoning and decision-making by more often employing sophisticated principles and by more often avoiding choices associated with personal interests. With regard to principals, the difference was statistically significant on DIT-2 N-2 scores (based on ANOVA and t-test results) and P-scores (based on t-test results, but not based on ANOVA results). Principals not only underperformed master's students in educational leadership statistically significantly, but also underperformed active assistant principals in comparisons of group means on DIT-2 sub-scores. This research confirms the prior works of Strenth (2013) and Vitton & Wasonga (2009), where principals had been found to struggle in measures of moral reasoning and decision-making. These consecutive and consistent findings now require consideration, discussion, and action by the array of K-12 public school stakeholders. In response to the startling findings that K-12 principals are significantly underperforming those still aspiring for the principalship, a substantial, alarmed, and sober re-examination must take place as to what has happened to principals in K-12 public schools, and as to what can and must be done about it.

Evidence-based educational policymaking has become a global phenomenon (Wiseman, 2010). According to the Institute of Education Sciences, evidence-based education is "an integration of the professional wisdom and the best available empirical evidence on making decision about how to deliver instructions" (IES, US Department of Education, 2012). This suggests that best practice requires teachers to ensure that instructional strategies and programs implemented in their classroom have been studied in scientific experiments to determine their effectiveness. The general public, as well as practicing teachers, holds an assumption that educators have knowledge as to what is evidence-based education. However, this is not always the case. The objective of this these include: to document how pre-service teachers access research findings and what types of findings they use in their practice, to identify the purposes of its utilization, to identify the factors that influence research utilization, and to ensure the accessibility of the findings of this study. The population for this study will be pre-service teachers at a large public higher education institution and one state college. In order to meet these objectives I conducted a survey, a pre-service teacher focus group, and an interview with faculty. Research findings will impact pre-service teacher preparation programs and increase our understanding of the link between the researchers and educators.

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