The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between instructional environment and student engagement during reading instruction. Environment is composed of three key elements: teacher attributes, instructional methods, and the physical classroom setting (Blair, Rupley, & Nichols, 2007; De Naeghel, Van Keer, Vansteenkiste, & Rosseel, 2012; Guthrie, Hoa, Wigfield, Tonks, & Perencevich, 2006; Housand & Reis, 2008). This study examined a first, second, and third grade classroom in one East Tennessee school. Qualitative data was collected using a combination of instructional observation and teacher interviews in order to examine existing practices for successfully engaging young readers. Teachers for each of the classrooms were interviewed; following the interview, each teacher’s classroom was observed three times to examine the teacher’s attributes and most frequently used instructional methods, the physical classroom setting, and the expressed level of engagement of the student body in the classroom. The findings indicate that environment in terms of teacher attributes, instructional methods, and physical classroom setting affects student reading engagement; classrooms with high levels of organization, novel reading areas, and opportunity for students to select reading material were found particularly effective for reading engagement.

Participants will discuss how they could use the lab concept in courses outside of the sciences to encourage and improve student engagement. The questions participants will be able to answer after attending the session will be: (1) How can I use a "lab" in my classes? and (2) How could use a lab improve student engagement?

Abstract is available to download.

abstract: Colleges and universities have continued to refine their understanding of engagement, affinity, and retention. At Arizona State University (ASU), the goal has been to continually retain first-year students at a 90%+ retention rate. At ASU, two key aspects of the first-year experience have been employed to foster retention. First, ASU has grouped on-campus students so they lived in residential colleges, housing students with others in the same college, to aid retention of first-year students. Second, ASU has required first-year students to take a 101 class, an orientation to ASU resources (library, advising, etc.) and its community (student organizations, clubs, etc.). The residential college living experience has afforded students opportunities to intentionally engage in campus events, connect with other students, and develop a vision for success. The 101 class has provided students with opportunities to learn about resources and community that have enriched their first-year experiences. Together, these two key approaches have offered students pathways to building initial engagement at the institution. The current research study was conducted to examine the ways in which students became engaged during their initial semester at ASU. Student participants in this study all lived in the W. P. Carey (WPC) Residential College Community in Hassayampa Academic Village (HAV) and were enrolled in WPC 101—Student Success in Business. WPC 101 was focused on helping students navigate college and learn about campus resources. In the study, the researcher infused three Engagement Workshops into the WPC 101 curriculum alongside pre-existing assignments to afford students learning opportunities for a richer, deeper exploration and reflection on their first-semester experience. Students participated in a pre- and post-intervention survey, contributed written narratives and reflections, and six students completed individual interviews. Results of the study, particularly the qualitative results, indicated (a) quality of relationships, (b) ASU community, and (c) campus environment emerged as variables that served as the ‘roots of engagement’ for these first-semester students Thus, the current work extended previous research on engagement by identifying the initial developmental aspects of engagement among first-semester, university students. The discussion included detailed explanations of the results, limitations, implications for research and practice, lessons learned, and conclusions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2019

The purpose of this study was to apply a mixed-methods approach using an exploratory case study design to identify the impacts of a physical activity intervention program on student engagement in an elementary school setting. This exploratory case study research examined teachers’ perceptions of student engagement prior to and following implementation of a classroom-based physical activity intervention program, ABC for Fitness. Participants completed the Teacher Assessment of Student Engagement survey of student engagement and behavior, participated in an ABC for Fitness workshop, semi-structured interviews, a question and answer session, a mid-point check-in, and completed daily written behavior incident logs. Results indicated three main findings: 1) intervention teachers’ ratings and perceptions of student engagement improved; 2) intervention teachers’ attitudes towards students improved; and, 3) intervention teachers’ level of engagement in the classroom improved following implementation of the ABC for Fitness program. The demonstration of the ABC for Fitness program on student engagement levels during the three week intervention examination of its long-term effectiveness. With so much of the public educational discussion revolving around student engagement and student success, a detailed look into a classroom-based physical activity program would be a cost-effective approach to student engagement which is linked to student success.

In recent years attention has been concentrated on the experiences of traditional college students, with very little research or attention on the experiences of transfer students. The purpose of this causal comparative mixed-methods study was to describe the experiences of transfer students who engage in the experiential learning activities of service learning and/or internship activities at a four-year public Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in the Inland Empire. Relationships were found between transfer students who participated in service learning and/or internship activities and those transfer students who did not participate in those activities on the following: level of satisfaction with their educational experience, current job/career, and sense of connectedness to the university, and beliefs about how much the university contributed to their acquisition of job- or work-related knowledge and skills. Predominant concepts regarding transfer students' beliefs about what the university could do to help them be successful, were the implementation of a transfer student orientation and creating a transfer student center.

The attrition rate of teachers in an urban/suburban school district in a northeastern state caused schools to fail to attain annual yearly progress. To reverse this problem, administrators must understand the importance of their leadership and teacher efficacy and the need to nurture teachers to increase student performance. The purpose of this sequential mixed-methods study was to determine whether a relationship existed between leadership and efficacy. Total-population sampling was used to obtain 19 elementary and middle teachers who completed two surveys to examine the relationship between principals' behaviors (human relations, trust/decision making, instructional leadership, control, and conflict) and teacher efficacy (student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management). Survey data were analyzed using Pearson's product-moment correlations. In addition, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 3 teachers who had 5 or fewer years of teaching experience. These data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Quantitative findings indicated significant relationships between instructional leadership with teacher engagement and conflict with teacher engagement. Themes, based on the integrated model of teacher efficacy, revealed connections with the principal and support, guidance, and structure provided by the principal. Principals must focus on leadership behaviors that may increase teacher efficacy. These endeavors may contribute to positive social change when school leaders support teachers, who, in turn support students in their educational challenges to increase academic performance.

From 2012 to 2015, students' academic performance at a community college in North Carolina fell below North Carolina Community College System baseline benchmarks despite the institution's adoption of several student success initiatives. Building from the established correlation between student academic achievement and academic engagement and the importance of noncognitive competencies in moderating student academic engagement, this qualitative case study investigated the academic experiences of 7 students who were members of the Paying It Forward mentoring program to determine the types of support and resources that students needed to develop and hone intrinsic motivation, sense of belonging, and self-efficacy-the noncognitivenoncognitive competencies proven to most directly moderate academic engagement. The guiding frameworks included a student-engagement framework developed by the Chicago Consortium on School Research, the learner-centered curriculum framework, and the generalized internal/external model. The research questions focused on specific factors that facilitated students' development of intrinsic motivation, sense of belonging, and academic confidence. The findings identified relationships between student academic performance and academic engagement as moderated by these noncognitivenoncognitive competencies and supported previous research concerning the invaluable role of faculty in developing students' sense of belonging. A resulting professional development project may enable faculty to systematically bolster students' academic engagement and performance by directly supporting mastery of these noncognitivenoncognitive competencies. This project may contribute to social change through increased graduation and transfer rates, which would create opportunities for enhanced social capital.

Rapid technological advances have created major societal changes, transformed business sectors, and revolutionized enterprises. In contrast, the curricular structure of medical education has remained unchanged for the last 100 years, and, for the most part, medical education has been reluctant to embrace the use of technology. The prevalent pedagogical model is reliant on rote memorization. The conceptual framework that informed this study was the user-centered framework for meaningful gamification. This framework's components are organismic integration theory, situational relevance, situated motivational affordance, and the universal design for learning. This quantitative study focused on key research questions related to identifying whether significant increases occurred over time in cooperative learning, cognitive level, and personal skills 'the dependent variables' when using a gamified learning method-the independent variable. The validated Student Engagement Survey was used to collect data from second-year medical students in a Southern California medical school, with N = 64. A repeated measures MANOVA with follow-up univariate ANOVAs was used, and statistical results indicated that there were significant differences over time in cooperative learning, cognitive level, and personal skills when using gamified learning methods. This research was conducted over a period of 3 months, divided into 3 Time Periods (TP). For all three variables, significant increases were noticed between TP 1 and TP 2, followed by significant decreases between TP 2 and TP 3. These findings pointed to the fact that more studies are needed to better understand whether certain types of gamification implementations are detrimental to student engagement in medical education, or whether more sound design principles ought to be explored to produce effective gamified learning components that could positively impact student engagement in medical education.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether students' perceptions of the classroom social environment mediate the relations between teacher self-efficacy and student adjustment. Research suggests that early adolescents often experience decreases in engagement and motivation during the middle school years, which can put individuals at risk for academic failure and school dropout (Eccles, Lord, & Midgley, 1991). This occurs due to a mismatch between the individuals' developmental needs and the environment (Eccles et al., 1993). Whether early adolescents remain engaged in school is largely dependent on how they perceive the classroom environment promoted by their teacher (Erikson, 1950; Masten & Coatsworth, 1998; Roeser, Eccles & Sameroff, 2000). Additionally, the type of environment teachers promote is based on their assessments of their own teaching abilities (Ashton & Webb,1986; Guskey, 1988; Hall et al., 1992). Therefore, this study describes a model proposing that the classroom social environment (i.e., teacher support, teacher-promoted social interaction and mutual respect) mediates the relation between teacher self -efficacy and student adjustment (i.e., academic and social self-efficacy, classroom engagement, and disruptive behavior). This model was tested via single-level structural equation model with 358 middle school students from an economically and racially diverse sample. This study utilized a single data point from a larger, longitudinal quantitative study which examined student motivation and adjustment across the transition from elementary school into middle school. The study aimed to determine: (1). What is the impact of teacher self-efficacy on students' perception of the classroom social environment? (2).What is the impact of the classroom social environment on students' academic and social self- efficacy, involved behavior, and disruptive behavior? (3). To what extent does the classroom social environment mediate the relation between teacher self-efficacy and student adjustment (i.e., academic and social self efficacy and involved and disruptive behavior). Findings suggest that teacher self-efficacy had minimal impact on classroom social environment and student adjustment variables, and thus may not play a mediating role between these variables. However, findings did indicate a significant, moderate impact of the classroom social environment on student adjustment. This finding aligns with previous research which suggests when the classroom environment provides opportunities for students to develop their academic and social competencies, and when students feel cared for and supported, school adjustment is enhanced (Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998; Roeser et al., 2000). The overall impact of the classroom social environment on student adjustment in this study highlights the need for school psychologists to advocate for the development of middle school environments that meet early adolescents' developmental and basic needs.