Building upon previous research on the importance of students' motivation for their learning and academic success, this study sought to examine how students' motivation in the classroom may impact the way their teachers' treat them. Specifically, data from 423 middle school students and their 21 teachers were used to examine the extent to which student engagement and disaffection (individually and in combination) in the fall predicted changes in teachers' provision of motivational support from fall to spring of the same school year. The study also examined whether these relationships might differ by student grade or gender, and whether the effects of each component of motivation can be buffered or boosted by the level of the other component. Overall, results provided partial support for study hypotheses. As expected, engagement and disaffection (as reported both by students and by teachers) individually predicted changes in teacher motivational support over the school year, such that engaged students were more likely to gain teacher support across the school year whereas disaffected students were more likely to lose teacher support. Assessing the unique effects of engagement and disaffection suggested partial support for their combined predictive utility, although less support was found for teacher-reports than student-reports. Across time, student-reported disaffection demonstrated unique effects on changes in teacher support but student-reported engagement did not. For teacher-reports of engagement and disaffection, neither component of motivation predicted changes in teacher support above and beyond the other component. Across reporters, mean-level gender differences in the constructs of interest were consistent with expectations based on previous research suggesting that girls tend to be more motivated than boys in school; however, despite these significant differences in mean-levels, there were few gender differences in the strength of the reciprocal effects of student motivation on teacher support. Of the 12 tests for gender differences in the links between student motivation and teacher support, only two were found, and both cases demonstrated significant gender effects of the same form, such that engagement and disaffection demonstrated significant reciprocal effects for both genders; however, the effects were significantly stronger for boys. As expected, examination of mean-level differences in engagement and disaffection as a function of grade suggested that student motivation and teacher support decline as students progress through middle school. In general, significant reciprocal effects of student motivation on teacher support across time were found for students of all grades for both student- and teacher reports; however there were some grade-level differences in the strength of those associations. Results indicated that engagement and disaffection were more important predictors of changes in teacher support over the school year for older students (8th graders) than for younger students (6th or 7th graders). Finally, the expected interaction between engagement and disaffection was only partially supported and only for teacher-reports. Specifically, as predicted, the relationship between teacher-reported engagement and teacher support was stronger for students who were low in disaffection, suggesting low disaffection boosted the positive effects of engagement. At the same time, and contrary to expectations, instead of the relationship between disaffection and teacher support being weaker for students perceived as highly engaged, these relations were actually stronger such that disaffection was a stronger predictor of losses in teacher support for highly engaged students than for their equally disaffected but less engaged peers. Implications for educational interventions and daily classroom practices are discussed. This study, by utilizing a two time-point design, a diverse at-risk student population, and measures from both student and teacher perspectives, attempted to make a contribution to the sparse but potentially important research literature on how student's motivation can shape their experiences with teachers in the classroom.

The present study investigated the perceptions and attitudes of two groups each of ESL teachers and students in the United States regarding World Englishes (WE) pronunciations before and after watching a video on WE accents. Data gathered via online surveys were analyzed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The results show that the perceptions of the teachers in the study ranged from somewhat negative to mildly positive, both pre- and post-video, which is consistent with Brown's (1993) findings that teachers' perceptions changed little if at all after being briefly exposed to WE stimuli. The education of the teachers in this study did not seem to influence their responses, either. Both groups of teachers responded almost identically even though the Midwest (MW) teachers' education ranged from no TESOL training to MA TESOL and all the teachers in the Northwest (NW) had MA TESOL degrees. These teachers' exposure to WE topics also varied greatly from teacher to teacher. Although the results of the study could not establish a correlation between lack of WE exposure and lack of WE classroom implementation, the teacher responses were, again, consistent with the literature in that the advantages of WE implementation are often appreciated only after extensive training on the matter. Student results were slightly more encouraging than their teachers', as students were generally more enthusiastic about WE before and after stimuli. A majority of students surveyed expressed they would like their teachers to incorporate more WE materials into their lessons and, after watching the video, all but one student indicated they would take an Accents of the World class as they considered it "important to learn about the ways people in other parts of the world speak English."

With the recent adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards in Oregon, there is a great need for teachers to be trained to effectively implement the three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in their teaching. Time and location are the largest constraining factors that affect teacher participation in professional development trainings. To address this constraint, Tryon Creek State Park offered a NGSS professional development training opportunity for teachers that was integrated within a field trip that they took their students on. Before the field trip, teachers were introduced to the NGSS through a set of NGSS pre-field trip materials which informed them about the NGSS and how aspects of it would be integrated into their students' field trip. Teachers accompanied their students on a two-hour long field trip at Tryon Creek State Park where teachers observed nature guides model NGSS-aligned activities for the students. My research aimed to answer the following question: How will an informal science education program at Tryon Creek State Park affect K-2 teachers' awareness of the Next Generation Science Standards? Outcomes were measured through a pre/post retrospective survey and follow-up interviews. On the survey teachers reported little awareness of the three dimensions of the NGSS and very few of the teachers increased their understanding after the treatment. On the other hand, most had a high level of awareness and confidence in teaching factual information supporting the NGSS prior to treatment, resulting in a ceiling effect. Interviews suggested that few teachers read the materials sent in advance of the field trip, but teachers who did read the materials indicated increases in understanding of the NGSS. During the field trip several of the nature guides were effective in modeling science and engineering practices. These findings suggest that this method of professional development is promising, but needs further refinement.

In the last twenty years in US science education, professional development has emphasized the need to change science instruction from a direct instruction model to a more participatory and constructivist learning model. The result of these reform efforts has seen an increase in science education professional development that is focused on providing teaching strategies that promote inquiry learning to learn science content. Given these reform efforts and teacher responses to professional development, research seems to indicate that whether teachers actually change their practice may depend on the teachers' basic epistemological beliefs about the nature of science. The person who builds the bridge between teacher beliefs and teacher practice is the designer and facilitator of science teacher professional development. Even though these designers and facilitators of professional development are critical to science teacher change, few have studied how these professionals approach their work and what influence their beliefs have on their professional development activities. Eight developers and designers of science education professional development participated in this study through interviews and the completion of an online questionnaire. To examine the relationship between professional development providers' science beliefs and their design, development, and implementation of professional development experiences for science teachers, this study used the Views on Science Education Questionnaire (VOSE), and interview transcripts as well as analysis of the documents from teacher professional development experiences. Through a basic interpretive qualitative analysis, the predominant themes that emerged from this study suggest that the nature of science is often equated with the practice of science, personal beliefs about the nature of science have a minimal impact on the design of professional development experiences, current reform efforts in science education have a strong influence on the design of professional development, and those providing science education professional development have diverse views about epistemology and the nature of science. The results and conclusions from this study lead to a discussion of implications and recommendations for the planning and design of professional development for science teachers, including the need to making equity and social justice issues an integral part of inquiry and scientific practice.

Figures from the 2010 Census indicate that there are 50.5 million Latinos (16% of the total population) living in the United States (US) today. From 2000 to 2010, the Latino population experienced a very rapid growth rate of 43%, which accounted for over half the total population growth. More and more Latino students are entering our public schools and face the reality that 62 years after the Brown V. Board of Education ruling to integrate schools and equalize educational opportunities, schools are more racially and economically segregated and more unequal than they were more than half a century ago. As a group, Latinos continue to struggle academically and there is a large academic achievement gap between Latino students and White students. Using the lens of Latino Critical race theory, this narrative study was an attempt to understand the educational experience of five Latino students in a two-way immersion program within a racialized public education system in which negative stereotypes, such as lack of intellectual abilities, could create a threatening environment hindering their academic success. This narrative inquiry study sought to understand how, if at all, Latino students in a fifth grade two-way immersion program experienced anxiety about the ways they believe to be perceived in the classroom and school settings by their teachers and other classmates. Finding of this study confirmed the relative success of two-way immersion programs educating Latino students and highlighted the urgent need to conduct more research in bilingual settings trying to understand the role stereotype threat might play in the educational experience of Latino students. The fact that Latino students were still lagging behind their native English-speaking counterparts in the TWI program is a reality that must be researched further to understand the lived experiences of Latino students in bilingual programs.

This thesis explored the introduction of a new physics curriculum in New Zealand secondary schools. It was part of a nationwide overhaul of the whole school curriculum from primary to secondary schools, initiated in the early 1990s. The study of curriculum change is inextricably woven with teacher change, as the teacher is seen as central to any real change in curricula in the classroom. Some theories of teacher change are reviewed here and synthesised into a list of criteria relevant to bringing about effective change in teachers and their practices. A sociocultural perspective emerged as being a useful theoretical approach in analysing and explaining these processes of curriculum change and teacher change because it takes a holistic approach that deals with 'people, places and things' and the discourses involved therein. In particular, Wenger's sociocultural theory was used to study the introduction of a new senior physics curriculum. His terms 'reification' and 'participation' were seen to apply to this research: the curriculum document was taken to be a reified communication artifact, and 'participation' is involved in every stage of its development and implementation. In the context of this theorising, data was procured from in-depth interviews with the three curriculum writers and ten physics teachers in and around a provincial city in New Zealand. The teachers were interviewed three times over a period of three years: before, during and after the first year of implementation; namely 1996 to 1998. The interviews showed that most of these ten physics teachers did not undergo any significant change in their teaching because of the introduction of 'Physics in the New Zealand Curriculum'. The reasons or barriers identified, such as lack of guidelines and clarity, and contentment with their own existing practice, were aligned with factors that have been identified by other researchers as important influences on teachers undergoing change, such as clarity of change and need for change. Three key elements were identified from these issues emerging from the data as necessary conditions or resources for teacher change: knowledge, support and time. In the present study, there was very limited knowledge held by the teachers about 'what', 'how' and 'why' changes were being implemented. Secondly, there was little social and system support for the curriculum change. Finally, teachers had little time to focus on and reflect on the change. A model of curriculum change, incorporating Wenger's notions of 'reification' and 'participation', but extended to include 'dereification' emerged from the data. 'Dereification' highlighted an important stage whereby the curriculum document as an artifact, needed to be incorporated into the plane of lived experiences of teachers. The introduction of the term 'dereification' supported the development of this model of curriculum change incorporating teacher change whereby the model outlined processes of reification and dereification involved in a mandated curriculum change. The model of curriculum change developed here also contained a screen that symbolises the lack of intersubjective linkage between teachers and the designers of the new curriculum. There was no follow-up teachers' guide, not enough explanation of the curriculum document, no direct communication between the writers and the teachers, and insufficient professional development for the teachers using it. The research findings led to three propositions: the curriculum document as a key artifact was not sufficient to effect a curriculum change; the lack of transparency of the curriculum document development was a constraint on teachers' commitment to the curriculum change; and the lack of support for teachers in their dereification of the curriculum document impacted negatively on curriculum change. The key elements of knowledge, support and time identified as crucial for teachers to effect any real change in their practice are critical at different points in the model of curriculum change. It is suggested that using such an interplay between the factors underlying teacher change and the sociocultural analysis of curriculum change, might enable more pro-active intervention at the various stages of the process of a curriculum change to effect a real change.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education