There is in effect at the present time a Florida State-Wide Ninth-Grade Testing Program. This program consists of two tests; one is the School Ability Test (SAT) and the other consists of five parts of the Iowa Tests of Educational Development (ITED). The SAT is an attempt to provide a measure of a student's ability to achieve successfully in a school program. This test provides two part scores, verbal and quantitative, and a total score which is the sum of the part scores. The quantitative section of the test is designed to give "measure of ability in certain quantitative skills of number manipulation and problem solving." Items on this test are of two kinds; one involves problem solving and the other involves numerical computation. When the SAT is mentioned in this paper, it is the quantitative section that is referred to. / Advisor: Raymond E. Schultz, Professor Directing Paper. / Typescript. / "Feb., 1960." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 29).

"Science and healthful living go hand in hand. Science has furnished us the knowledge to improve our health and is adding to this knowledge daily. Countless numbers of men and women have spent and are spending their entire lives in furthering this knowledge. That scientific knowledge alone has not cured all of our ills is easily established. There is a shortage of hospital beds, doctors and nurses are overworked, and still many people for one reason or another are suffering from a lack of medical treatment. Of course, there are many ills which do not respond to the treatments known today, but many more could be prevented by applying the knowledge we have. In a large measure, it is the responsibility of the school to bring this knowledge to growing boys and girls, as well as adults, and to help them to apply it in their daily lives. We cannot evade this responsibility nor can we cease to look for better ways and means of doing it. There is a challenge here for all school people--a challenge which must be met"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August, 1950." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts under Plan II." / Advisor: Mode L. Stone, Major Professor. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 36-37).

"It is the purpose of this paper to analyze the problems included in a directed reading program, to secure information regarding materials available, and to formulate plans. In order to carry out these plans it will be necessary to explore instructional material, locate information on children (cumulative records), to interview teachers experienced in directed reading, and to examine professional literature in the field of reading"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "December, 1949." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts under Plan II." / Advisor: Mildred E. Swearingen, Professor Directing paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 47-48).

"Out of genuine desire to prepare oneself to handle, in a more effective way, the teaching of eighth grade mathematics, there comes to mind such questions as these: 1. What are the needs or tasks or problems of eighth grade pupils to which arithmetic can make a contribution? 2. What content is available in the state adopted textbooks? 3. How well is this material adapted to school needs of pupils of this age? 4. What reliable tests can be found? 5. What materials and plans of a general nature can be found or developed which, if revised later to fit the specific classroom situation, may prove of help in improving the teaching of mathematics?"--Introduction. / "August, 1952." / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: W. Edwards, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 33).

"Much learning today is based on how well people read. Some retardation among high school students is caused by poor reading habits. Realizing that reading ability is one of the major problems of education, the author decided to perform an experiment in the field of reading. The basis of the experiment was to determine the possibility of using certain materials already present in the Port St. Joe High School and certain methods of instruction for improving reading rate without loss of comprehension. The methods of instruction were designed by the author who was also the experimenter. The materials and methods that were used in the program were designed to decrease the number and time of eye fixations in reading lines on a printed page. Ability to cover a wider span in one eye fixation and decrease the number of eye fixations in reading a printed line is directly related to increased reading rate"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August, 1952." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: Marian Black, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 21).

The 2021 “Community Health Needs Assessment” of Hawkins County, Tennessee conducted by regional hospital system, Ballad Health, identified mental health and substance abuse among the top 3 health priorities for the county. With input from community stakeholders, 5 ETSU medical students organized a 3-part intervention targeting 6th grade students (n=43) testing the hypothesis that individuals with competent coping skills and mental health awareness are less likely to turn to substances to manage life stressors. Lesson plans were crafted using Kolb’s experiential learning model and pre/post surveys collected at each session assessing participant awareness, self-efficacy, perceived stress, and feedback. Results indicated statistically significant improvements in student awareness of positive and negative coping skills and self-efficacy, along with favorable responses from students regarding lesson style. Continuation of the study with longitudinal assessments is needed to prove the hypothesis and indicate effectiveness of the intervention as a tool for reducing substance use in the region.

Middle school is discursively positioned as a problem to be solved, largely because middle school students are fixed with a gaze that produces them as at-risk, and in need of advice, guidance, and role models to ensure a healthy and productive adult future. Middle school students, as “early adolescents,” are positioned as youth at a particular stage of development that has fundamental needs, linked to assumptions about their bodily, cognitive, and emotional development. Middle school teachers come to embody the hopes and fears positioned on and through middle school students, and are discursively produced themselves as “bodies of knowledge” who are said to know the bodily needs of middle school students—in turn, positioned to all be rooted in the “nature” of their development. This study seeks to trace and open up the “rhizomatic assemblage” of “middle school,” particularly as it makes certain practices, knowledges, and discourses (un)available or (im)possible to “middle school teachers.” It does so by exploring through a qualitative study of three independent school middle school teachers, along with the auto-biographical “sketches” of the author, ways in which particular bodies come to know and be known as “middle school teachers.” As the bulk of the data was being collected in the 2019–2020 school year, the global COVID-19 pandemic and racial reckoning in the United States that emerged from the murder of George Floyd both provided important new contexts to explore in terms of implications for intersectional, embodied experiences of “middle school” after March 2020. Consequently, the study explores discursive shifts and (in)stabilities across pre-pandemic and “early” pandemic contexts, particularly in remote teaching and calls to embrace and embody anti-racist practice as middle school educators. It is hoped that the exploration of discourses, discursive practices, and embodiment of “middle school” open up space and possibility in middle schools, for middle school teachers and students alike.

Although there has been much research on school mergers, there has not been a strong focus on the way in which heads of departments (hereafter HoDs) in the North West province experience school mergers. This qualitative case study, which used an interpretative paradigm, built on and contributed to understanding successful strategies used by displaced HoDs from middle to primary or secondary schools in performing their roles and responsibilities after the school mergers, the challenges they experienced and how they approached such challenges. Semi-structured interviews and a document analysis with purposive sampling of nine (9) participants, comprising six (6) female HoDs and six (3) male HoDs, were used to collect the requisite data. The study was underpinned by a conceptual framework, to identify and construct my views as a researcher, on the HoDs experiences of school mergers in North West province (Adom, Hussein & Agyem, 2018) as a lens for data analysis. The study findings indicated that there had been a significant change in the roles and responsibilities performed by the displaced HoDs. The HoDs had also demonstrated resistance to the school mergers as they had not been prepared for handling tensions and opposition (Pinheiro, Geschwind & Aarrevaara, 2016). It was also found that the HoDs had different understandings and interpretations of the concept of a school merger, and that the NWDoE had undermined them and had also not prepared them adequately enough for both the school merged and to cope in their new roles. The findings also indicated that the NWDoE had done very little to involve the HoDs in the entire school merger process. In addition, the findings also revealed that generally teaching and administering curriculum was a challenge for some of the expatriate HoDs due content gap in the subject areas allocated to them in their new roles. Accordingly, the study pointed out the need for retraining and workshopping the displaced HoDs, as well as placement in line with their areas of specialisation and proficiency. It was hoped that this might help them to handle the tensions they were experiencing and to decrease their opposition, diminish their resistance and, finally, assist them in performing their hugely changed roles and responsibilities in their new schools. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria 2020. / Education Management and Policy Studies / MEd / Unrestricted

The council of Europe have declared the teaching of controversial issues a matter of educational urgency and therein presenting teachers with the difficult task of teaching these issues to pupils. This paper aims to provide an understanding of which kinds of issues are considered controversial to teach in social science classes in Swedish middle schools. Through the presenting of six interviews with seven middle school teachers, this paper will help to provide insight into some of the issues and challenges middle school teachers face whilst teaching these issues. Teachers are faced with didactic challenges involved with presenting these controversial issues to pupils in order to present a wider range of viewpoints and help give a deeper understanding of the issues presented. This paper will also show how controversial issues in Swedish middle schools are generally the same issues as in society as a whole, that is to say, mostly concerning politics and religion.

This study provides a descriptive profile of substance use behavior and the prevalence of suicide indicators (thought about, considered, and planned) among rural middle school students and examines the association between substance use and suicidal indicators among middle school students participating in the Coordinated School Health Program in a rural state. During April and May 2004, 10,273 middle school students completed the middle school Youth Risk Behavior Survey. This study found that a large percentage of students had initiated substance use behavior, with the greatest number of students having tried cigarettes (40.9% females and 42.7% males), followed by alcohol use (37.2% females and 41.3% males). Additionally, suicidal ideation and behavior were prevalent. Significant associations were found between substance use and suicidal ideation and behavior among middle school students. Prevention programs for adolescent suicide should be implemented during the middle school years and should focus on preventing substance use given its relationship to suicide.