There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

Objectives of research done in this study were to determine statistical relationships between the degree of creative teaching potential attributed to student teachers in an elementary education program by teacher educators on a single-item Ratinq Instrument used to express their final evaluative judgment of total student teaching behavior and (1) a multiple-item Rating Schedule for evaluating creative teaching potential, at an intermediate point in the student teaching term, and (2) student's raw scores on a standardized test of general creativity, the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. The sample population for this study was the total enrollment of the elementary education majors at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, who were doing their student teaching during the Spring Quarter, 1968. Three means or instruments were employed to gather data used in this investigation.(a) The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, Fiqural Form A was administered to one hundred thirty elementary education student teachers at the beginning of the Spring Quarter. The TTCT measured the general creativity potential of the sample population. The raw scores were dependent variables in the statistical analysis of data for this study. (b) The Student Teacher Behavior Rating Schedule was developed for the purpose of determining which behavior characteristics, when evaluated by teacher educators at an intermediate point in the student teaching term, were significant indicators of final, over-all ratings of creative teaching potential at the end of the term. The evaluations were translated into data that became dependent variables in the statistical analysis. (c) The single-item Rating Instrument was developed to designate the degree of creative teaching potential displayed by students during their total student teaching experience as determined by supervising teachers. Data derived from this Instrument became independent variables in the statistical analysis of data for this research study. Data collected from the administration of the TTCT, the Rating Schedule, and the Ratinq Instrument were analyzed by the IBM 1620 Computer by using the single correlation and the multiple linear regression programs. Computations provided correlation coefficients, multiple correlation coefficients, F-values, and beta values associated with the best combinations of independent variables in the multiple linear regression equation for predicting each of the criterion variables in the hypotheses. The F statistic and the t-scores were used to test the significance of each of the predictive models. The statistical analysis identified items on the Student Teacher Behavior Rating Schedule which, when used by teacher educators, were able to distinguish students in Set A and B (combined) from the others in the sample population, when Set A consisted of students who were rated as possessing high creative teaching potential by both the classroom critic teachers and the faculty supervising teacher on the single-item Rating Instrument used at the close of the student teaching experience, and when Set B was made up of students who were rated as possessing low creative teaching potential by the same procedure.Results obtained from application of the multiple-item Rating Schedule during the student teaching term were used to identify items that showed agreement at a statistically significant level between evaluations of creative teaching potential made by classroom critic teachers and faculty supervising teachers. Scales, consisting of items usable by each of the two groups of supervising teachers and by combined groups of supervisors for evaluating creative teaching potential in student teachers were identified.The statistical analysis revealed that there was no significant relationship between scores on the TTCT and its measure of general creativity and evaluations by teacher educators of creative teaching potential of student teachers on the single-item Rating Instrument. Statistical analyses supported rejection of each of the null hypotheses formulated to structure research on the first major question posed. It was concluded that there is a statistically significant relationship between the degree of creative teaching potential attributed to student teachers on an elementary education program by teacher educators in their final, over-all evaluative judgment of total student teaching behavior and ratings given the same students by these same teacher educators earlier in the student teaching term on a multiple-item instrument.Additional statistical analyses supported acceptance of the null hypotheses formulated to structure research on the second major question posed. It was concluded that there is not a statistically significant relationship between the degree of creative teaching potential attributed to student teachers on an elementary education program by teacher educators in their final evaluative judgment of total student teaching behavior, and the students' raw scores, either totally and/or in part, on a standardized test of general creativity, the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking.

Educational success eludes many Aboriginal students today. They are not graduating at the same rate as non-Aboriginal students in Canada and in Manitoba. Métis students, although faring a bit better, are still struggling academically, socially and economically. The literature up until now has mainly focused on Aboriginal education and there is limited research on Métis education. Across Canadian society there is a high level of consensus that education is central to individual economic, socio-cultural, and psychological well being, and to the country’s well being. Many factors contribute to their lack of success including racial discrimination and stereotyping of the first peoples of our nation. This qualitative study focuses on student voice and data from six interviews of three male and three female former Métis graduates from a rural Manitoba high school and their perceived impact of school factors related to successful Métis education. This study offers insight for educators and policy makers by highlighting factors that the former students state themselves including elements such as the importance of cultural programming, accessible and caring teachers, parental involvement, and hands-on authentic learning experiences.

This thesis explored two issues. Firstly, how participants would respond,in terms of task persistence and task enjoyment, to differing levels of success, when a task was presented to them with a mastery-focus (Experiments 1-5). Secondly, whether improving at task caused participants to enjoy tasks more than achieving a constant level of success (Experiments 6-10). Experiments 1-3 provided evidence that when participants were given the opportunity to persist with a task for as long as they wanted, they persisted longer after performing poorly. However, despite persisting longer, they did not enjoy the task. Experiments 4-5 adopted the same paradigm as Experiments 1-3, but included a second free-choice persistence phase where participants were unaware their behaviour was being monitored. In Experiments 4 and 5, participants who performed poorly persisted longer initially, but less during the subsequent free-choice phase. Again, those who performed poorly during the initial phase reported that they did not enjoy the task. It was suggested that neither the achievement-goal theories of Nicholls (1984) and Dweck (1986) nor Deci's (1975) theory of intrinsic motivation could adequately account for the persistence behaviours observed in the second persistence phase in Experiments 4 and 5. Instead, it was suggested that participants persisted because of the pleasure derived from solving the problems. Experiments 6-10 examined the role of improvement in task enjoyment. Experiments 6 and 7 were control studies intended to establish wheter the paradigm was appropriate to examine improvement. Experiments 8-9 showed that relative to achieving a consistent level of performance, improvement increased task enjoyment. However, this result was found only when participants did well; when they did poorly at a task, improvemenpt produced less enjoyment(Experiment 10). Both results can be explained if participants' expectations are taken into account as well as their rate of success. The final conclusions chapter discusses the types of achievement targets individuals might set themselves when what constitutes good performance at a task is ambiguous, and relates this analysis to the findings from all ten experiments.

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No description available.