published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

School gardens can have a profound, positive influence on a student's academic achievement, social skills, and attitudinal orientation. Despite these clear benefits, the use of school gardens as an instructional medium is not as prevalent as would be expected. There are several types of obstacles that can prevent teachers from using school gardens, including facets of time, support, and knowledge-based challenges. This multiple case study employs a mixed methods design to uncover factors that influence primary school teachers' decisions to utilize a school garden in their STEM curriculum. The goals of this study were to determine the types of benefits and barriers primary school teachers encountered in the study school district. All of the teacher participants worked within the same school district, had access to established school gardens on their campus, and were supported in their instruction and use of materials by the district's Science and Technology Center (STC). Quantitative data was collected from garden resource and teacher self-efficacy surveys; qualitative data about teacher rationales was extracted from in-depth teacher interviews. Overall analyses determined that aspects of instruction and logistics were the most important factors for a teacher to have in her decision to utilize her school garden. These data are presented and discussed in the context of identifying trends in teachers' use of school gardens as instructional tools so that actions might be taken to remove barriers and increase curriculum opportunities.

The goal of this study was to determine if performance-based tests should be routinely administered to students in computer application courses. The purpose was to determine the most appropriate mode of testing for individuals taking a computer applications course. The study is divided into areas of assessment, personality traits, and computer attitudes.

The effect of an interdisciplinary algebra/science course on students' critical thinking skills was examined. A traditional college algebra course was used as a comparison group. The students in the sample enrolled in college algebra and then half were randomly placed into the interdisciplinary course. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest comparison group design was used. The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal was used to measure the students' critical thinking skills. This instrument consists of an overall critical thinking score as well as five subscores in the areas of Inference, Recognition of Assumptions, Deduction, Interpretation and Evaluation of Arguments. It was found that the students in the interdisciplinary course made greater gains in the overall critical thinking score as well as in four of the five subscores. However, the differences in the gains made in the two courses were not statistically significant. Disregarding course, other factors that were found to be closely related to critical thinking were Composite ACT, grade received in the course, Math ACT and grade point average. It was also found that students whose majors were in the Schools of Arts and Letters or Science and Technology scored higher on critical thinking than students whose majors were in the Schools of Business or Education. Factors found to have no relationship to critical thinking were ethnicity, gender and classification.

Test items supplied with seven textbooks approved for use in Computer Science I and II curricula in Texas public schools were categorized by Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. Eating was done by a panel of ten judges selected from a group of participants at a taxonomy workshop. The selection criterion was demonstration of at least 80 percent competency in item classification. Judges received a small stipend for completing the rating task. Of 2020 possible items, 998 were randomly selected for analysis. Equal percentages of items from each text were then randomly assigned to each rater. All statistical analyses were computed using SPSS/PC+ (version 2.1). In both courses, CLD frequencies decreased through the three lower levels. The percentage of questions falling in these levels was approximately 83 percent for both courses. However, the higher-level course contained almost 10 percent more Knowledge level questions than did the lower course. At the higher taxonomic levels, the decline was roughly five percent per level in CS I but erratic in CS II. Analysis by book also revealed wide differences within each course.

The purpose of this study was to assess whether guided practice is more effective than no guided practice (1) in fifth and sixth grade classrooms, (2) in fifth and sixth grade social studies classrooms and fifth and sixth grade science classrooms, and (3) in science classrooms and social studies classrooms. In this experimental study, all fifth and sixth grade students in a small school district in north Texas were randomly assigned to two experimental groups and two control groups in each grade. Over the course of one month two teachers who had previously been trained in the use of guided practice procedures taught the experimental groups in each grade, using, extensive guided practice. Two other teachers taught the control groups in each grade without the use of guided practice. Students in both groups were administered a pretest before beginning each of two chapters in each textbook, while a posttest was administered after the study of each chapter. The analysis and interpretation of data yielded the conclusions that the use of guided practice in classes can be expected to result in higher student achievement than in classes using little or no guided practice in the following areas: science classes, social studies classes, sixth grade classes in general, fifth grade classes in general, fifth grade science classes, and fifth grade social studies classes. The use of guided practice did not result in significant gains in student achievement in sixth grade science classes and sixth grade social studies classes when compared with classes which used little or no guided practice.

D.Litt. et Phil. (Information Science) / The project involved the design of a multimedia study package for distance teaching in computerised information retrieval. This included external online and CD-ROM informa- tion retrieval, as well as specialized systems such as in-house databases, videotex, teletext and Internet. The target group was information specialists. The findings may also apply to other target groups, provided a thorough situation analysis serves as point of departure. The project was initiated by the growing importance of distance education, the constant developments in the online industry and the need for didactically grounded study packages for teaching computerised information retrieval skills. Such packages should focus on technological knowledge and skills on the higher cognitive, affective and psychomotor levels. A literature study was conducted on four subproblems: the nature of distance education; the characteristics of multimedia study packages; the didactical grounding of such packages (including curriculum development, instructional design and media selection); and the state of the art regarding the 'teaching of computerised information retrieval. This led to the conclusion that the theory of distance education should serve as focal point in the design of a multimedia package, while special attention is also given to Keegan's theory which focuses on the reintegration of the teaching and learning acts. Study packages should be the result of instructional design, which is dependent on curriculum development. The latter includes decisions made on the macro and meso levels of the curriculum and the consideration of technological infrastructures available in the wider society. Provision should also be made for the typical characteristics of multimedia packages for distance teaching, including individual study, irregular contact teaching sessions, active student involvement, opportunities for self-evaluation, enriching and remedial learning events, student support and the recognition of the needs of adult learners (andragogical needs), as well as those of young adults. The mastering of higher order skills should be supported by opportunities for active student involvement including self-evaluation of lower order skills. Provision should also be made 1I1 for the practical application of knowledge and skills, as welI as evaluation skills, by fully exploiting the possibilities offered by interactive teaching. Students should, however, attend interactive sessions welI prepared. This could be ensured by making use of prior self- evaluation as well as tutor evaluation of both subject matter and media literacy. A variety of media and teaching methods can be applied in the mediated teaching of computerised information retrieval. Media selection should be based on media character- istics, performance objectives, subject nature and logistical factors. An eclectic model for instructional design is proposed. A concept design for a multimedia package for distance teaching of computerised information retrieval was developed by applying this eclectic model. The concept design was based on the didactical situation at the University of South Africa. Although the design has focused on the ideal situation, where students have access to computers and attend sporadic contact teaching sessions, suggestions are also made for a differentiated package. These suggestions include a basic study package, a learning contract with the student and his employee, and a package with enriched learning experience.