The evolving nature of education emphasizes the importance of fostering 21st-century skills. To align with the requirements of the contemporary era, Uzbekistan introduced its new competency based National Curriculum, highlighting the development of 21st century skills. Despite the National Curriculum's emphasis on contemporary skills, a gap persists due to the exam-focused education system in Uzbekistan, with university entrance exams largely dictating classroom practices. This qualitative study, through students’ lenses and experiences, aims to explore how preparation for these exams, particularly in English, aligns with the goals of National Curriculum. Washback, defined as the influence of tests on teaching and learning, has been utilized as the study’s conceptual framework. Reflexive thematic analysis has been employed as the method for data analysis. The participants include first-year public university students in Uzbekistan. The findings revealed a multifaceted, complex and context-specific nature of washback. Key observations include a negative washback effect of high stakes public university entrance exams, leading to the prioritization of exam subjects at the expense of holistic education, a misalignment between English instruction and the curriculum, high-stakes entrance exam induced stress, and broader educational context factors, such as lack of teacher qualification and competence, low teacher salary, contributing to poor quality education. The study also highlights the crucial role of private tutoring in preparing for higher education and the emergence of unethical practices in schools. While the exams fostered certain 21st-century skills in students, an overemphasis on rote memorization limits deeper cognitive competencies. Positive washback is observed in lyceum education and among students preparing for the IELTS exam - an alternative pathway to fulfill the English language requirement for public HE, advocating for measurement-driven instruction and comprehensive language skill development. The study concludes that positive changes in Uzbekistan’s public university admission system could be achieved through a more holistic assessment of students’ skills and competencies and measurement-driven approach to education. The study recommends incorporating students' school performance as an admission criterion, offering a more comprehensive assessment of their abilities and knowledge.

This study was designed to examine the ideal and actual teaching practices of sixth through eighth grade teachers in the Rankin County School District whose students take the Mississippi Curriculum Test in an effort to raise student achievement whose students take the Mississippi Curriculum Test. It was also designed to examine whether ideal or actual teaching practices align with constructivist or behaviorist teaching practices. Eighty nine sixth, seventh, and eighth grade teachers whose students took the Mississippi Curriculum in the Spring 2006 semester participated in the study. Teachers responded to two surveys whose questions were identical but from two different frames of reference: one with high stakes testing and one without high stakes testing. Teachers also responded to a third survey that asked for their perceptions of the Mississippi Curriculum Test. A two-way Measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), supported by a tukey post hoc comparison on the scale scores of the questionnaires were used to determine if there was a statistically significant difference between teachers? ideal and actual teaching practices to improve student achievement on the Mississippi Curriculum Test. Further findings from the study did conclude that there was a statistically significant difference in teachers use of behaviorist and constructivist instructional practices. Data obtained from the study indicated that there are significant differences in teachers actual and ideal instructional practices in relation to their behaviorist and constructivist instructional practices. Data obtained from the participants indicated that they use favor constructivist practices to raise student achievement on the Mississippi Curriculum Test.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The goal of this study was to better understand the perspective of administrators on accountability and high stakes testing - what effect it has, if any, on his/her ability to serve as building administrator. Through a series of in-depth interviews and analysis of the perception of principals that lead schools that are on various levels of No Child Left Behind sanctions, this study will help the reader to understand how high stakes testing and accountability have impacted the leadership of the school principal. As presented by Allen (2008) are we focusing curriculum on preparation for high-stakes testing versus the philosophy of letting the high stakes testing evaluate the effectiveness of what is being taught as a method for supporting learning? From budgeting and organizational structure, to local curriculum and classroom instruction, efforts from external sources to ensure "accountability" in public schools have impacted virtually every aspect of school operations in America. No Child Left Behind is the initiative most often associated with the current accountability movement. While this study did not aim to measure the effectiveness of initiatives like No Child Left Behind, it did aim to analyze how these measures have impacted the role of the building principal. This study used a semi-structured interviews with eleven elementary school principals who lead schools on a sampling of the No Child Left Behind sanction continuum. In addition to interviews, pertinent documents and artifacts will be analyzed. The constant comparative method (Glaser & Stauss, 1967) will be used to analyze the data in terms of the study's two theoretical frameworks: Turbulence Theory (Gross, 1998) and Multiple Ethical Paradigm. / Educational Administration

This dissertation work considers communication between people. I look at coordinating dyads (couples in relationships) and people in working relationships to develop an understanding of how people engage in high-stakes, or emotional communication via various communicative media. The approach for this research is to observe and measure people's behavior during interaction and subsequent reporting of that behavior and associated internal experiences. Qualitative and quantitative methods are employed. Quantitative data are analyzed using a range of statistical analyses, including correlations matrices, ANOVAs, and multivariate statistics. Two controlled laboratory experiments were conducted for this research. These experiments involved couples in relationships. Couples were brought into the lab and argued with each other across one of three technological media: face-to-face, telephone, and instant messaging (IM). In one set of couples' experiments, the couples argued for twenty minutes; in the subsequent couples' experiment, couples were encouraged to take as much time as they needed for their arguments. One of the main results from the first experiment is that couples did, indeed, argue when brought into a laboratory setting. One of the important findings for the second experiment is that time did not affect couples' tendency to reach closure during their arguments. This research is a contribution in that it examines how people engage in highly emotional communication using various technological media. In a society with ever-increasing communication needs that require technology, it becomes necessary to study its communicative affordances. Understanding the context of highly emotional interactions between members of couples gives insight into how technology meets (or fails to meet) these communication needs. / Ph. D.

In 2002, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation (U.S. Department of Education, 2002) was signed into law to help children in the United States receive quality education and learn the basic skills needed to be successful (Chadd & Drage, 2006). The central focus of this legislation is the core academic subjects, which are identified in the legislation as English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history and geography. Career and technical education (CTE) is not specifically mentioned in the legislation, which suggests that NCLB and the high-stakes testing associated with the accountability benchmarks could impact the future of CTE. Even though the primary expectation of high-stakes testing is to increase academic achievement in specific areas, many worthwhile school programs could suffer from unintended consequences of this high-stakes testing initiative. One of the strategies that many school districts are using to improve student performance in the core subject areas mentioned in the NCLB legislation is to devote more instructional time to the tested content subjects, such as reading, mathematics, social studies and science. Hence, the development of an unintended consequence of narrowing the curriculum offered to secondary students. As a result more CTE courses may be dropped from high school master schedules, which make the topic of specific concern for educational leaders (Gordon et al., 2007). School administrators and school leaders are concerned about school accreditation and student performance on state mandated tests. Therefore, examining career and technical education student performance on Virginia's Standards of Learning assessments and the graduation rates of CTE students would help to determine the impact of CTE enrollment on student achievement. As such, the impact of CTE on high-stakes testing in the Commonwealth of Virginia was the impetus for this topic of study. This purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the academic performance of CTE completers and non-CTE completers in the Commonwealth of Virginia on the Standards of Learning English and mathematics assessments, as well as cohort graduation rates. This quantitative study used descriptive statistics, such as mean and standard deviation, to determine if their pass rates and graduation rates differ during the 2008, 2009 and 2010 school years. A t-test was used to determine if they differ significantly from each other. Findings indicate that statistically (p<.05), CTE completers had higher mathematics and Grade 11 English reading pass rates from those of non-CTE completers. The CTE completers in this study also demonstrated higher cohort graduation rates. It appears that a concentration of career and technical education makes a positive impact the pass rates of students on the Standards of Learning assessments and cohort graduation rates. / Doctor of Education

The purpose of this study was to investigate how online testing was implemented within a statewide high-stakes testing program in Virginia's public education system. Virginia's state assessments, known as the Standards of Learning (SOL) tests, were first administered to public school students in 1998 as paper-and-pencil, multiple-choice tests where students used a paper test booklet, an optical scan paper answer document, and a #2 pencil to complete each test. In 2000, at the direction of the Governor and General Assembly of the Commonwealth, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) introduced a technology initiative where, upon successful implementation, students would be able to complete their required SOL tests electronically via the Internet. The researcher, an employee of the VDOE with direct involvement in the implementation of online testing, conducted a participant-observer case study and interviewed individuals closely associated with the Virginia Web-based Standards of Learning Technology Initiative. The interview transcripts, project documents, and experiences of the researcher as a participant-observer were used as the primary data sources. Glaser and Strauss's (1967) constant comparative method with suggested procedural additions from Lincoln and Guba (1985) and Maykut and Morehouse (1994), was applied in data analysis. The findings are presented as a monograph with the history and implementation of Virginia's Web-based Standards of Learning Technology Initiative detailed by the participant-observer researcher. The desired outcomes of the researcher's efforts are (a) informing others of Virginia's experiences, including its successes and failures, (b) sharing the lessons learned throughout the implementation of Virginia's Web-based SOL Technology Initiative, and (c) identifying best practices that could be transferable to other state or local organizations attempting similar large-scale initiatives. / Ed. D.