This research project explores the Tri-mentoring Program’s impact on enhancing the student experience, specifically for the new emerging population of racialized and first generation undergraduate students in a Canadian urban university. The study examines how the TMP model attempts to address these students’ unique challenges by creating a holistic student experience, that acknowledges and addresses their lived experiences; encourages them to retain their racial/cultural identities (and values) and external community commitments and beliefs; and facilitates them becoming more empowered and engaged on campus. This research also contributes to the production of knowledge in the area of student engagement. This study introduces and validates the voices and lived experiences of racialized students into the literature, which will be valuable in the future development of new models of student engagement where power is shared and indigenous knowledge and epistemologies are valued- leading to a more engaged and successful student experience.

Today’s students are struggling to achieve a pass level at secondary education and have difficulties in learning core subjects such as English. By increasing the size of classes, reducing the number of teachers and constantly reviewing the curriculum, the students are finding it more difficult to achieve a pass grade in foreign languages. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to acquire a broader knowledge of how, and whether, Earl W Stevick’s seven learning categories are applied in Swedish education. The findings of this study indicated that some of the secondary school teachers provide occasionally for all different learning categories, but were unable to accommodate all styles regularly. Moreover, university lecturers were unfamiliar with Stevick’s learning categories. Thus, his theories were not part of the formal university curriculum. However, as only one secondary school and seven universities were included in the study, no generalization for the Swedish educational system could be made, and a more extensive research study is encouraged.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 131 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 132-143).

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.

The study set out to investigate the degree of implementation of a communicative learner-centred curriculum and textbooks in the Greek secondaiy school English language classroom. The aims of the research were: a) to investigate the Greek English language teachers' actual teaching practices and the degree to which they are in accordance with the philosophy and principles of the curriculum, and b) to examine the extent to which certain factors (i.e. teachers' understanding of, and attitudes towards, the communicative learner centred approach, teachers' non- involvement in the innovation process, teachers' opinions of the textbooks, lack of systematic teacher training) may be associated with the teachers' classroom behaviour. For the first part of the research, classroom observations of 14 Greek English language teachers, working in schools within and around the Athens area, were carried out. An observation scheme was developed focusing on the teachers' implementation of activities. The aim of the scheme is to describe the roles the teachers adopt in the classroom. 'reacher roles were also investigated through an analysis of the teachers' linguistic behaviour. Transcripts of the 14 observed lessons were analysed in terms of teachers' error correcting practices (amount and types of learner errors corrected by teachers and the error treatments used) and their questioning practices (amount and types of questions asked by the teachers). For this latter focus a question typology derived from the data was developed. Teachers' attitudes towards, and understanding of, the communicative learner-centred approach were investigated via a Likert type attitude scale developed for the purposes of this study and a questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 28 closed-type items eliciting teachers' opinions of the textbooks and the teachers' guides, and reports of their teaching practices. The questionnaire and attitude scale was completed by an additional 87 teachers working in public secondary schools within and around the Athens area. Finally, as a means of achieving methodological triangulation, interviews with the observed teachers were carried out. The interviews focused on the teachers' knowledge of, and attitudes towards, the approach they have been asked to use. The thesis is divided into 10 chapters. Chapter 1 sets the context of the study, its main objectives and research questions. Chapters 2 and 3 contain reviews of the literature relevant to the communicative approach and the implementation of curriculum innovations. The research questions, model of the study and a detailed account of the development of the research instruments employed in the study are provided in chapter 4. Chapters 5 to 9 deal with the implementation of the research instruments and the results of the data analysis. More specifically, chapter 5 deals with the analysis and findings of the teachers' error correcting practices, and chapter 6 with the findings of teachers' questioning practices . The results of the observation scheme analysis are dealt with in chapter 7. Chapter 8 focuses on the results of the attitude scale and questionnaire completed by the 14 teachers and chapter 9 on the results of the interviews. A summary of the study's main results, a critique of the various research methods employed in the study, as well as implications of the study's findings for practice are presented in chapter 10. The findings of the classroom observations revealed a disparity between the principles of the curnculum and textbooks and their implementation in the classroom. The teachers tended to front the classroom and perform a restricted range of roles, overwhelmingly favouring the roles of transmitter, controller of students' language and evaluator. The analysis of teachers' linguistic behaviour corroborated these findings. The results of the attitude scale, questionnaire and interviews revealed that teachers, due to their lack of training, had a very limited understanding of the main principles of the approach they had been asked to implement. The teachers tended to translate innovatoiy concepts to conform to their existing theories of language and language teaching/learning. The study has aimed to contribute to two areas where language teaching research is largely lacking: a) classroom implementation of a communicative approach in a foreign language teaching context and b) the investigation of language teachers' attitudes and their importance in understanding language teachers' classroom behaviour. Based on the findings of the study, recommendations for would-be curriculum developers working in contexts similar to the Greek one are provided in the concluding chapter of the thesis.

This research arose from a deep concern regarding the falling numbers of able pupils who choose to study the physical sciences beyond GCSE. The research investigates the impact of the teaching and learning methodologies used in secondary school science on the attitudes and aspirations of able pupils towards the study of science and whether enabling a more autonomous role in the classroom might be beneficial. The mixed-methods research design had two phases. The first phase surveyed year 9 pupils and their science teachers across three comprehensive schools in Staffordshire. The second phase was an action research study involving the researcher working with the science department in a fourth Staffordshire comprehensive school over the following academic year. The findings of the initial phase of the research indicated that able pupils were disaffected with the science education that they received in school. Evidence from this phase of the research suggested that the didactic nature of teaching and learning in the science classroom was partly responsible for failing to inspire the ablest pupils to further study of science. The action research classroom interventions offered more autonomous learning opportunities for able pupils within science lessons. The impact of the action research on the pupils was a reported preference for the ‘ownership of task’ afforded to them in the classroom and an increased uptake of the option to study science at advanced level. The impact on the science teachers was a greater awareness of the importance of how they teach as distinct from what they teach. It supports a constructivist approach to the learning and development of both pupils and teachers, showing that serious reform of teacher initial and continuing education is needed if progress is to be widespread The implications of this research inform the ongoing debate regarding ‘best provision’ for able pupils in science; but a greater significance is that it also informs a model of ‘best provision’ for the urgent continuing professional development of science teachers. This research is particularly relevant to recent government policy on both science education and on the provision for gifted and talented pupils.

<p> The Study Island computer program is one of many highly used instructional programs in school districts nationwide; however, there is little independent research available that provides information about its impact on student achievement performance. This study used a descriptive comparative research design to compare the mean gain scores of the semester that students received math instruction with Study Island to mean gain scores of the semester that students did not receive math instruction with the program to determine if a significant difference exists between the two semesters. The test scores from a sample of 124 ninth-grade math students from an economically disadvantaged suburban school district in a southeastern state were used. The results concluded that the mean gain scores from pretest to posttest of the semester that students used the Study Island program were significantly higher than that of the semester that students did not use the program.</p>

<p> High school students in the United States for the past century have typically taken science courses in a sequence of biology followed by chemistry and concluding with physics. An alternative sequence, typically referred to as &ldquo;physics first&rdquo; inverts the traditional sequence by having students begin with physics and end with biology. Proponents of physics first cite advances in biological sciences that have dramatically changed the nature of high school biology and the potential benefit to student learning in math that would accompany taking an algebra-based physics course in the early years of high school to support changing the sequence. Using a quasi-experimental, quantitative research design, the purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of science course sequencing on student achievement in math and science at a school district that offered both course sequences. The Texas state end-of-course exams in biology, chemistry, physics, algebra I and geometry were used as the instruments measuring student achievement in math and science at the end of each academic year. Various statistical models were used to analyze these achievement data. The conclusion was, for students in this study, the sequence in which students took biology, chemistry, and physics had little or no impact on performance on the end-of-course assessments in each of these courses. Additionally there was only a minimal effect found with respect to math performance, leading to the conclusion that neither the traditional or &ldquo;physics first&rdquo; science course sequence presented an advantage for student achievement in math or science.</p>

<p> Autobiographical digital storytelling (DST) is a burgeoning multiliteracy practice in in- and out-of-school spaces. Recently, education researchers have explored DST's potential as a robust critical literacy tool for non-dominant youth to tell agentic counter narratives. A less explored area of youth DST practices relates to how authors account for audience (local and macro discourse) when composing digital autobiographies. Using feminist poststructural theory as a heuristic and analytical tool, I investigated the varying discourses youth authors engaged throughout their processes and products related to autobiographical DST. </p><p> The ethnographic data for this dissertation were collected in an English Language Arts high school classroom, African American Literature, over the course of four months across fall semester 2012. The three case study findings chapters illustrate three non-dominant students' approaches to negotiating their subjectivity within the school context across multiple school spaces. The findings from this study complicate notions of agency; namely the case studies demonstrate how diverse youth of color negotiated multiple and competing discourses when narrating stories of the self in relation to a perceived peer audience. More specifically, each case provides a detailed analysis of how Darius, Malcolm, and Gabriel, negotiated local and macro discourses related to Black masculinity, salient intersecting subjectivities for each. </p><p> This study holds theoretical implications in establishing the importance of using poststructural feminist theories in combination with Critical Discourse Analysis of student processes and produced related to autobiographical storytelling by way of detecting the complex power relations youth navigate within the school context. Moreover, this study reports important implications regarding the utility of digital storytelling as a culturally responsive, multimodal, critical literacy practice that affords youth opportunities to draw on personally and culturally meaningful discourses (e.g., hip-hip music) as they compose digital representations in relation to local and macro discourse. Additionally, implications for English Language Arts practice encourage future examination of how youth author's attentiveness to peer audience discourse demonstrate students' facilities in composing narratives in relation to audience.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study is to assist state, district, and high school educational leadership in understanding the influences of the Idaho high school students&rsquo; postsecondary decision-making. The literature review established five categories that influence students&rsquo; postsecondary decision-making: postsecondary and career awareness, postsecondary and career admissions process, academic readiness for postsecondary education and careers, postsecondary monetary cost, and social capital influence for postsecondary education. The theoretical framework for the study was the work of Perna&rsquo;s proposed conceptual model of students&rsquo; college choice. Descriptive quantitative research methods were used to survey 566 high school seniors from south western Idaho during their fall 2014 semester. Participants selected social capital influence for postsecondary education as the greatest influence on their college decision-making. Correlations were run to find if any relationship existed between students&rsquo; postsecondary plans and income, counseling services, and parental educational level. All three categories demonstrated statistical significance, however, none achieved practical significance. Participant responses pertaining to counseling services indicated that many students were not satisfied or were unsure about the services their school counselor provided.</p>