Thesis advisor: Sara Moorman / Between the years 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population in the United States grew by 15.2 million people at a rate faster than any other racial or ethnic group. Despite this population’s increasing size and political power, past researchers find that significant and persistent gaps exist between the test scores of Hispanic and non-Hispanic students. This study examines one solution proposed to close the test score gap: the assignment of students to demographically similar teachers. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999, this study explores how instruction by ethnically and/or linguistically similar teachers affects the reading, math, and general science test scores of Hispanic kindergarten students. Findings suggest that when taught by a Hispanic teacher, students reported as Hispanic are predicted to earn reading test scores higher than those of students in other student-teacher dyads. Linguistic similarities have negligible effects on student outcomes after controlling for individual-, teacher- and school-level factors. Policy implications are described. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Sociology.

Thesis advisor: Audrey A. Friedman / Despite the inherent obstacles posed by increasingly diverse student populations, school leaders worldwide are under mounting pressure to raise student achievement. This study utilizes hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to investigate the relationship between principal priorities and student achievement in reading literacy on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in sixty-four jurisdictions worldwide. Disaggregating the sixty-four systems into three performance levels, the research aims to equip principals across the global landscape with insights into current performance patterns of diverse learners and the leadership behaviors that associate with student achievement. The diverse groups of interest include boys, immigrants, language learners, socio-economically disadvantaged students, and rural pupils. Three conditions of effective leadership organize the priorities of investigation: defining a mission, managing instruction, and developing a climate (Hallinger and Murphy, 1985). The results reveal that across performance levels, diverse learners are underachieving but specific subgroups are faring better than others in some jurisdictions. Commonalities emerge from these jurisdictions and set a roadmap for interpreting the achievement of diverse learners worldwide. The leadership priorities that most frequently associate with student achievement when controlling for background factors vary across systems and across performance levels. The priorities under `defining the school mission' are most frequently statistically significantly associated to student achievement in promising systems and the priorities under `managing the instructional programming' and `developing school climate' are most frequent among high- performers. Overall, however, the associations are weak and ultimately open the possibility of a fourth condition of effective leadership: establishing a community connection. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether variations in student achievement in college courses exist between high school students who took the courses as dual enrollment (DE) courses and academically comparable high school students (AIMS scholars) who took the courses upon matriculation to college. Additionally, the researcher explored whether differences exist in DE course grade for students by course environment (online, face-to-face at a high school, or face-to-face at a college.) The researcher used final course grades as determinants of student achievement. The study focused on DE student and AIMS scholar grades in English 111, Biology 101, Math 163, and History 101 courses that were taken between the 2009-2010 and 2013-2014 school years at a community college in Southwest Virginia. The population consisted of 429 AIMS scholars and 2,015 DE students. For this study 3,639 DE student grades and 706 AIMS student grades were used in calculations. The dependent variables in this study were final course grades; the independent variables were DE participation and course delivery environment. Welch’s t tests were used to examine the variations in final grades for DE and non-DE students; ANOVA procedures were used to examine variations in final course grades for DE courses based on delivery environment.

Teachers at an urban high school in the Southeast have failed to see an increase in classroom achievement or standardized test scores despite efforts to increase passing rates. If achievement rates do not increase, school restructuring will occur. While the site has implemented programs to reduce academic failure, data exists that external barriers may be affecting student achievement. Guided by Bandura's (1986) theory of metacognitive beliefs and self-efficacy as the conceptual framework, this qualitative case study explored teachers' perceptions about the root causes of poor student achievement. This study examines how to identify those causes to help students improve academically, while providing teacher recommendations to reducing the effects of those causes in order to improve student success. Five teachers were selected from the math and science content areas to participate in 1-on-1 interviews to identify external barriers to student success. Thematic coding and member checks allowed for data triangulation to analyze the findings. Seven themes emerged to increase student success by helping close the achievement gap through fostering support between teachers and the families of all students involved: socioeconomic status, ability of goal setting, having encouragement and motivation, seeing another environment, lacking parental support, building relationships with parents, and stress of taking state tests. Developing resources that will help students to overcome issues outside of the school day that leads to increased student academic achievement and graduation rates creates social change.

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of Florida Senate Bill 1720 on student performance in Mathematics. Prior to its enactment, placement testing was mandatory in the State of Florida. The results determined if a student was required to enroll in any developmental courses prior to enrolling in college-level Mathematics courses. For many students, particularly those at the State College level, this extended the number of required courses, lengthening the path to completion for a volume of students. The results over time proved a costly burden on institutions that serve populations of students not prepared to perform at the college-level, as well as a major obstacle for student degree completion. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Low math achievement among elementary school students is a concern because students who lack a strong early foundation in mathematics may experience difficulty learning in future mathematics classes. Students in 2 rural southeastern school districts demonstrated low math achievement in 5th grade and their scores declined from 3rd to 5th grade. In this quantitative study, teacher-related factors that research has shown to predict student achievement were examined using Bandura's theory of self-efficacy and Ball and McDiarmid's emerging theory of subject matter content knowledge. The research question asked whether the teacher factors, years of teaching experience, hours of professional development in math pedagogy, college math courses completed, math teacher preparation courses, and teaching efficacy, predicted student math achievement in the 2 districts. Data were collected from 29 3rd grade teachers and 32 5th grade teachers and analyzed using binary logistic regression. The findings showed that the combination of predictors did not significantly predict math achievement of 5th grade students. However, teachers who had 1 to 9 years of teaching experience were more likely to have students with higher math achievement than those with more than 20 years of experience (OR = 4.96; p = .048). The inconclusive results indicate that additional factors that might influence students' math achievement have to be explored and additional professional development has to be offered, especially for teachers who have been teaching for 2 decades as they might have learned curriculum and pedagogy different from current practice. Positive social change will occur when all elementary teachers are able to facilitate students' learning of mathematics and the students successfully master math concepts.

The U.S. government has stated in federal guidelines that parents must be involved in their children's education in order for student achievement to increase. For more than 5 years, a small rural middle school in Mississippi was designated a low-performing school due to its failure to achieve the required standards for quality distribution index and adequate yearly progress on the Mississippi Curriculum Test, 2nd Edition. The purpose of this study was to examine whether parents' and teachers' perspectives regarding parental involvement and student achievement differed at the school. Epstein's theoretical framework was used as the basis for this quantitative study. Quantitative data from 250 parents and 28 teachers were gathered on the effectiveness of home-school collaboration for 4th through 8th-grade students. A t test was used to determine if there were significant differences in parents' and teachers' perspectives regarding parental involvement and student achievement. There was a statistically significant difference (p < .001) between parents' and teachers' perspectives, whereas the teachers' attitudes were higher regarding their general attitude of parental involvement, parental involvement practices, and parental responsibilities. Based on study findings, a 3-day professional development/training curriculum and materials project was developed to assist teachers at the school with developing strategies for increasing parental involvement and student achievement. This study could possibly contribute to positive social change by increasing teachers' understanding of parents' needs and enhancing their ability to effectively communicate with them, which may lead to more involvement by parents in their children's education and higher achievement by students.

This capstone project was part of a group project completed by five school and district administrators in Hillsborough County, Florida. The project began because of our passion for teachers who are able to establish a culture of care in their classrooms that support students academically but transform their learning through experiences that enable them to be more highly engaged and productive students, regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic status, perceived academic abilities, and backgrounds. My focus in this group project looked at social emotional learning, student behavior, and student achievement in high needs schools. Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and its related activities and lessons were once a foundational piece of the middle school program. Over the years, increased accountability and legislative mandates have made it very challenging to include dedicated time in a student’s daily schedule for SEL lessons and activities. In Hillsborough County Public Schools, a summer program for retained sixth graders served as a launching ground for the re-introduction of SEL activities. The positive impact of the SEL activities were immediate and the SEL lessons, delivered through daily Community Building Sessions (CBS), were received well by teachers and students. How can the overwhelmingly positive results of the use of SEL activities with students in a summer program be replicated during the regular school year? Literature supported the growing need for social emotional learning, positive impacts of SEL on student behavior and academic learning, the importance of positive classroom climates as a school-wide strategy, and the importance of leadership support.

Many interacting factors need to be considered when contemplating the optimum conditions for the creation of a learning environment that is compatible with the aims of tertiary teaching and learning. In the current economic climate, the costs of creating learning environments that foster these aims is also a major consideration. Further, in this era of rapid technological development and change, there are increasing numbers of students of divergent age, experience and ability entering the tertiary sector. Teachers at this level are therefore faced with real problems in providing students with interesting and innovative learning environments that influence and encourage the use of a deep approach to learning and the development of real understanding.This longitudinal research project sought, through the development and introduction of various teaching and learning interventions, to influence nursing students' attitudes towards microbiology and consequently their approaches to learning and achievement. The instruments used in the intervention practices were developed as a result of suggestions by students and staff during the course of this study and were fashioned along the lines of two models of student learning developed by Kember and Gow (1989) and Biggs (1993a). The study also attempted to elucidate the major factors affecting student attitudes towards teaching and learning with multiple media and the relationship between students' attitude, achievement and their learning approach.Significant relationships were established in the study between positive attitudes towards microbiology, higher scores for higher level learning approaches and higher academic grades.The major factors that appeared to influence students' attitudes towards microbiology included: (1) students' interest in microbiology; (2) the relevance students perceived microbiology had to nursing; (3) ++ / students' perceptions of the quality of the microbiology unit and learning materials, (4) the nature of the pastoral care provided; (5) the availability of independent study options; (6) students' perceptions of the degree of difficulty of the unit; (7) the credit point values for the unit and (8) students' perceptions of overload.In this study, freedom of choice of learning materials and the factors interest in, and relevance of microbiology to nursing practice appear to be major forces associated with increased use of deep approaches to learning by the different student groups. Perceptions of a heavy workload, overload of information, lack of pastoral care and perceived inadequate credit point value given to the microbiology units demonstrated little effect in increasing the use of surface learning approaches by students. However, when students' ratings for interest and relevance were low, and these factors were present as a group or individually, they were shown to influence an increase in surface approaches with a corresponding decline in use of deep approaches to learning.Overall, the results derived from this study with regard to learning approach and attitude suggest that if interest in microbiology and the perceived relevance of microbiology to nursing is high, these factors will have a greater positive effect on the use of higher level learning approaches than the variables of overload, inappropriate credit point values and nomenclature problems will have in increasing the use of lower level learning approaches by students.Part of this investigation involved the possible identification of learning strategies that were used more often by students who tended to utilise higher level learning approaches in contrast to students who used lower level approaches. Strategies that evolved from the data collected across the quasi-experimental cohort included (1) ++ / discrimination between specific learning materials that best fitted with students' lifestyles and learning preferences; (2) discrimination between specific learning strategies that better suited different subject areas; (3) interrelating microbiology theory with patients' clinical presentations in the hospitals; (4) using self-assessment, working in groups or with a friend; (5) the use of organised and consistent study habits; (6) the use of mnemonics, note taking, rote learning and continual revision of facts to establish a base knowledge of the subject before linking of material across areas could be made; (7) use of graphs, diagrams and flow charts; and (8) the use of more interactive learning materials such as the CAL.

In 1993, the New Zealand Government mandated the requirement that all schools must have in place an ongoing programme of school self-review (Education Review Office, 2000). This thesis identifies the purposes and processes of self-review used in six primary schools in New Zealand. The study also identifies the roles that leaders play in the self-review process and also highlights the impact of teacher research on the process. The research questions are: 1. What are the processes and purposes of self-review in schools and what roles do leaders play in the process? 2. What aspects of teachers' practice have an impact on the self-review process? This research study adopted a qualitative research methodology with semi-structured interviews as the research tool. The qualitative information gathered from the six schools was analysed and written up as a case study. For the purpose of this thesis, self-review is identified as the process of review of all school practices with the intention of improving student achievement. The findings indicated that the main purposes of conducting school self-review were to enhance student achievement, to review school policies and programmes and also to ensure accountability. This study also indicated that through a well-planned process of self-review schools can achieve their goals and fulfill the aims stated in their school charter. Another aspect which participants revealed was that self-reviews result in change and therefore leaders and school staff should have the necessary skills and competencies to deal with and manage such change. This was also identified as an issue of self-review. Participants believed that effective leadership is essential to conduct self-reviews which result in positive outcomes. This study found that the failure to achieve school improvement through self-review, is in part due to the structure of many current self-review programmes. At present, schools perceive self-review as the need to review everything that takes place. This perception may mean that valuable time and money is spent on something that the school does not deem significant. Rather, the findings of this study suggest that concentrating on particular areas for a certain period of time results in a better performance of the whole school. In conclusion, this thesis found that school development and improvement cannot happen without enhancing and focusing on student achievement. For self-review to be successful, it should be carried out in a collaborative school climate of open and honest communication, mutual support and mutual responsibility. For it to be successful, self-review should also be planned, systematic, and ongoing. Data collection for self-review should be done through illuminative, participatory and responsive inquiry methods. Finally, I recommend that further research is needed in the area of self-review and perhaps an exploration of the possible links between a school's decile level and its self-review process.