This study explored the potential benefits and barriers of using quick response (QR) codes as a means by which to provide audio materials to middle-school students learning Spanish as a foreign language. Eleven teachers of Spanish to middle-school students created transmedia materials containing QR codes linking to audio resources. Students accessed the audio tracks by scanning the QR code with an application on a smartphone while completing a homework task. The teachers assigned two tasks in a systems approach model: first a formative, and then a revised summative trial. After each attempt, the Spanish teachers shared their experiences of creating and using the transmedia materials by participating in interviews. Data was collected by means of a needs analysis survey, recordings and transcription of the two interviews, and by obtaining copies of the transmedia materials. The data analysis included a content analysis of the coded interviews, the results of which were triangulated with the responses collected in the needs analysis survey and an examination of the teacher-created materials. Several benefits to using audio QR codes were identified as a result of the analyses. These include the minimal amount of time and expertise required for teachers to create the transmedia materials, an increased student exposure to audio-only materials to aid listening comprehension, and the way in which the use of this technique allowed for transformative learning activities and a conservation of instructional minutes in the classroom. Some barriers were also noted, the largest being that device ownership and Internet access were not universal among students. Additionally, parental restrictions on smartphone use and some school administration polices regarding personal devices made the practice of using mobile technology for homework tasks difficult in certain cases. Implications include the possibility that training pre-service and in-service teachers in the use of transmedia materials that link to audio-only content may help decrease students’ cognitive load and lead to an increase in foreign language learners’ listening comprehension skills. Further study in the use of transmedia materials and mobile technology to support foreign language learning is recommended.

<p> With an increased focus on school accountability and school improvement, efforts to quickly improve or turnaround low performing schools are on the rise. School turnaround is a complex concept with a myriad of social, political, and economic aspects (CPRE, 2013, p. 8). While each school is different, there are generally several practices and changes, that if addressed will result in quick improvements among most low performing schools. This dissertation addressed perceptions of district and school leaders, the importance of climate and culture in the turnaround process, and the support needed to sustain the positive efforts in the turnaround process. The overarching research question that guided this study was, what leadership practices do school leaders and district leaders believe are vital to the turnaround process? </p><p>

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<p> Nationally, law enforcement agencies are under tremendous scrutiny in reference to racial profiling. A gap exists in knowledge of Black law enforcement officers&rsquo; in Missouri perceptions of racial profiling. Missouri has experienced a disproportionate number of traffic stops of Black motorists for the last 11 years. A review of the literature revealed that police officers have an identity formed through practices of the organization. This notion was further explained by examining social-identity theory and the key concepts of Black law enforcement officers, racial profiling, and occupational socialization. This qualitative bounded case study used semistructured interviews with rural Black law enforcement officers from three counties in Missouri, conducted three focus groups with community members, and performed an artifact review of law enforcement agencies&rsquo; policies. The following themes emerged: racial profiling is not tolerated, law enforcement officers are held accountable for their behavior, Black law enforcement officers joined agencies because they wanted the ability to help others, Blacks are racially profiled more than others, racial profiling had been experienced, confidence existed in law enforcement agencies to not racially profile, and Blacks were perceived as bad people. These results allow law enforcement agencies and law enforcement training academies to address selection and training needs of officers. The results also aid policymakers to expand the collection of data around profiling as well as aid community leaders in understanding the dynamics of racial profiling. </p><p>

The purpose of this research was to generate an understanding of the impact of Title I funding on high-poverty schools. Although the Title I policy was designed to provide supplemental funding to high poverty schools, research has uncovered that the highest poverty schools are not always the schools that receive the supplemental funds. This study was motivation by two research questions: (1) How do teachers and administrators in two schools in a Central Florida school district describe their experiences of working within high-poverty schools in years with and without Title I funding; and (2) How do the cases of these two schools help us understand the impact of the Title I funding allocation processes on the working of schools in one school district in Central Florida? Through a qualitative research approach these research questions were answered. Interviews were conducted across two school sites to explore the experiences of teachers and administrators within two high-poverty schools in years with and without Title I funding. The findings revealed that the loss of support that Title I funding provided caused a negative impact on the morale of teachers and students. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education. / Summer Semester 2018. / May 11, 2018. / equitable education, equity in schools, funding in schools, high-poverty schools, students living in poverty, Title I / Includes bibliographical references. / Ayesha Khurshid, Professor Directing Dissertation; Steve McDowell, University Representative; Robert Schwartz, Committee Member; Stephanie Zuilkowski, Committee Member.

Many topics in science are notoriously difficult for students to learn. Mechanisms and processes that exist on a scale outside student experience present particular challenges. While instruction often involves visualizations, students typically explain in words, spoken or written. Visualizations have many advantages over verbal explanations, especially for science, so asking students to produce visual rather than verbal explanations should improve their learning. This hypothesis was tested in two domains, a mechanical system and a chemical system. The explanations were analyzed for content, and learning assessed by a post-test. Participants' spatial ability was also assessed as spatial ability often correlates with learning science. For the verbal explaining of a mechanical system, the bicycle tire pump, high spatial participants performed better than low spatial participants. However, low spatial participants performed better and as well as high spatial participants after producing visual explanations. Visual explanations included significantly greater amounts of structural information, as well as other features essential to understanding function, for example a complete explanation of the inlet valve, a crucial but invisible structural component. In the domain of chemical bonding, visual explanations were more effective than verbal explanations, and high spatial ability participants showed greater learning than low spatial ability participants. Visual explanations contained a significantly greater amount of structural information, made reference to specific examples of chemical compounds, and often contained supplementary text. Text added to visual explanations predicted post-test scores, as did the inclusion of invisible features. Many participants who drew identified actual examples of ionic and covalent molecules. Written explanations often used general terms and presentations of definitions. Explanations generated by high spatial ability participants contained greater amounts of function and were more likely to include specific examples. In both domains, text was often spontaneously added to visual explanations. In Experiment 1, added text was equally likely to describe structure or function; in Experiment 2, added text was more likely to describe function. Taken together, the studies provide support for the use of learner-generated visual explanations as a powerful learning tool and suggest that visual explanations are superior because they demand and provide a check for completeness of explanations.

This study examined the various ways in which students who participated in a two-year-long evidence-focused argument curriculum use evidence when engaging in argumentation. The experimental group was compared to groups who received either no such argument curriculum, or one year of an argument curriculum without focus on evidence. A total of 93 students participated in the study; at the end of the two-year period, all students were assessed on various dimensions of their evidence use during an assessment of their argumentation on topics not part of the intervention. One assessment was dialogic, the other an individual argumentive essay. In addition, intervention dialogs of the experimental group were studied at the beginning and end of the second year, to assess change. Both final assessments showed that experimental group students more frequently incorporated evidence - in particular, shared evidence- in their arguments, relative to the comparison groups. Also, students in the experimental group generated more factual questions that would help inform their arguments on the topic. Analysis of experimental students' evidence use during dialogs throughout their second, evidence-focused year of the curriculum showed an increase in meta-level dialog with their peers about the use of evidence. Across the intervention dialogs and both final assessments, however, the functions which evidence served in students' argumentation remained consistent: At most one third of statements invoking evidence sought to weaken a claim of the opponents. The more common function of evidence, occurring in about two thirds of uses, was to support one's own claims. Implications are discussed regarding our understanding of how evidence is used in argument and how sustained practice in argumentation, afforded by the curriculum studied here, affects this use.

Retrieving information from memory via a test has long been considered primarily a method of evaluating knowledge. However, a growing body of experimental research has demonstrated that taking tests also helps to strengthen memory. In both experimental and naturalistic settings, research has established that, compared to rereading or reviewing, practicing retrieval through test taking leads to poorer performance on immediate tests but superior and more durable long term memory on delayed tests. The interaction between time of test and method of study is called the testing effect. To date, very few attempts have been made to determine what cognitive variables might affect the existence or size of the testing effect, and none have done so using correlational research designs. This dissertation examined the effects of language comprehension, background knowledge, and metacognition on individuals immediate and delayed recall when they studied by review and when they studied by taking a free recall test. A sample of 90 undergraduate students read and studied two passages. They studied one passage by repeated reading, and the other by repeated testing. After studying, they took two short answer comprehension tests on each passage, the first immediately after reading the passage and the second after a week long delay. The independent variables included time of test, method of study, type of question (factual recall or inference), language comprehension, background knowledge, and participants' metacognitive judgments about their learning and future performance. The dependent variable was performance on the comprehension tests. Results indicated that a testing effect was not clearly established. Although there was less forgetting in the repeated test condition than in the repeated review condition, which is consistent with a testing effect, the review condition consistently outperformed the testing condition, which is not consistent with the testing effect. Differences between the results of this study and those from other testing effect research are hypothesized to be due to the detailed nature of the test questions. Regarding the cognitive variables, metacognitive judgments of learning (JOLs) were not consistently predictive of test performance, background knowledge predicted performance on tests in the repeated review but not the repeated test conditions, and language comprehension, which was the best predictor overall, was a significant predictor of performance on the immediate test in the repeated test condition, and the delayed tests in both conditions. Future research should focus on examining the effects of individual differences on the efficacy of studying via retrieval on immediate and delayed recall.

This three-article dissertation extends prior educational leadership research by analyzing the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) using three distinct methodologies: meta-narrative review, three-step latent class analysis, and four-fold cross-validation multilevel factor analysis. The first study employed a meta-narrative review of twenty-five years of quantitative educational leadership research based on SASS, integrating findings from over one hundred studies into a joint framework of instructional leadership and leadership for learning. The second study utilized three-step latent class analysis of the 2007-08 SASS administration and its companion 2008-09 Principal Follow-up Survey to identify two significantly different groups of exiting principals: "Satisfied" exiting principals and "Disaffected" exiting principals. The third study examined how individual teachers and teachers collectively have different perceptions of leadership for learning, using four-fold cross-validation multilevel factor analysis on the 2011-12 SASS administration to discover that individual teachers perceive leadership for learning as a collection of six factors while collectively teachers perceive leadership for learning as a collection of three factors that are non-isomorphic with the individual-level factors. Each of the three dissertation articles discusses implications for both theory and practice from each set of results.

This thesis examines the discourse of careers services in UK university websites. The notion of employability has been presented and promoted by powerful groups, such as governments, organisations, the media, employers, and higher education institutions, as the remedy to the social problem of unemployment. Careers services in UK universities were given the role of ‘expert’ professionals who are there to support and guide students towards developing their employability and skills. This study examined the ideas and messages reproduced and promoted by the careers services, which could affect the students’ understanding of the ‘job market’ and their role in it. The chosen methodology, that is corpus-based critical discourse analysis, combined qualitative and quantitative methods and tools for the analysis of 2.6 million words deriving from 58 UK universities’ websites, and more specifically the careers services sections. In general, this thesis highlights some of the problematic, common-sense ideas that are being promoted by these services and encourages the denaturalisation of the careers services’ discourse. The main argument is that the language used by the careers services in UK universities reproduces and promotes neoliberal ideology. The analysis shows that higher education students are encouraged to develop ‘job-hunting techniques’ and are presented as responsible for their own ‘survival’ in a ‘fiercely competitive job market’. The notion of employability is promoted as the main solution to this highly problematic ‘reality’. The services advertise that they ‘know’ what employers are looking for from prospective employees and claim that they can ‘help’ students with their job search. The close analysis of linguistic data reveals that these services act as the ‘enablers’ of the students’ self-beneficiary action. In addition, besides their role as careers counsellors, the services’ use of language demonstrates their involvement in the therapeutic field. Finally, the language used by post-1992 and Russell Group universities was found to be quite similar. There are, however, some differences that could be viewed as signs of competition between these two university ‘groups’ and a preference of the job market towards a particular ‘group’ of graduates from elite institutions.