The aim of my DPhil is to identify educational practices predictive of students' self-regulation development during early childhood. Specifically, I will analyze the Tools of the Mind preschool curriculum (Tools), which emphasizes students' self-regulation cultivation as its paramount aim. Since its development in 1993, Tools has spread to schools in the United States, Canada, and South America. In the face of Tools' proliferation, two questions emerge: does Tools significantly improve children's self-regulation skills? And, if so, then which of its effective elements could be applied across various educational contexts? This dissertation contains two studies. In the first, I will systematically review extant Tools research and then execute a multilevel meta-analysis of the quantitative results. Study one serves three purposes: 1) to identify all studies in the existing Tools evidence base, 2) to estimate an aggregate curricular effect, and 3) to determine how that effect varies across contexts and student characteristics. Thus, study one will assess whether Tools, at the curricular level, improves students' self-regulation. By contrast, study two will involve more granular analyses of the discrete learning activities that collectively comprise Tools. Specifically, study two will analyze child-level self-regulation and teacher-level Tools implementation data for 1145 preschool children in 80 classrooms across six American school districts. I will employ multilevel structural equation models to assess which Tools activities are associated with students' self-regulation growth, which are associated with decline, and which exhibit no association at all. Ultimately, this dissertation features the first Tools meta-analysis as well as the first analysis of specific Tools instructional activities. It is hoped that these analyses will identify educational practices predictive of self-regulation development both within and beyond the Tools curricular context.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-123). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-123). Also available on the Internet.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

The purpose of the study was to determine if instruction with or without the use of integrated technology made a significant difference in the mean scores of second grade children in a unit of instruction concerning multicultural education and if there were any gender bias.The unit for Multicultural Education was created by the researcher. The researcher designed the Multicultural Cognition Assessment I (pretest), Multicultural Cognition Assessment II (posttest), and Child Preference Inventory instruments.The school corporation chosen as the site for the research had two elementary schools in neighboring towns with two sections of second grade each. Each school had a racially homogeneous population (Caucasian) and similar technology available. One class from each school received lessons with technology, and one class was taught without technology. There were 90 students in the study with complete data available for 78 students. After an initial observation, the researcher conducted the study on Wednesdays for six subsequent visits.ResultsA repeated measures analysis with one within-subject factor (pretest, posttest) and two between-subjects factors method (showing the difference between the use of technology and without technology and gender) was used to test Hypothesis I and II. Hypothesis I concerned the method of instruction and resulted in p = .445>.05. Hypothesis II concerned the effect of gender and resulted in p = .075>.05. No significant differences were found. Both hypotheses were accepted. There was no interaction effect between method and gender. There was a significant difference between the overall mean scores in the Pretest and Posttest analysis at p = .007<.05. A one sample t test was applied to determine if the mean of the overall preference was zero on the Child Preference Inventory. The result of the one-tailed t test resulted in t value of 13.32 with p = 0.000, indicating a positive response toward technology. / Department of Elementary Education

This study investigated the efficacy of three different modes of teaching elementary school students identified as severely mentally handicapped. The modes of instruction used were one-to-one instruction, sequential group instruction, and combination concurrent/sequential. The skills trained with these methods were the operation of three recreation and leisure skills: a Spiromatic, a hand held pin ball game, and a radio. The modes of instruction were then compared on the basis of effectiveness, efficiency, and situational generalization.Three children, ages 7 to 11, from an elementary school classroom for students identified as severely and profoundly mentally handicapped were employed as subjects. Each of the three leisure skills were task analyzed and taught with a forward chaining procedure and a least-to-most intrusive form of prompting in the classroom setting.An alternating treatment design was used. The design consisted of three phases: baseline phase, experimental treatment phase, and application phase. During the experimental treatment phase the three treatment conditions were run in a counterbalanced order. The application phase involved applying the most effective training condition to teach the remainder of the three tasks to the participants.Both visual and statistical analyses were used to examine the data obtained. The split middle approach was employed to conduct the visual analysis. Repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance was used for the statistical analysis.Results of the analyses generally suggest that one-to -one instruction was superior in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. This was true for all subjects with the exception of one subject for whom one-to-one and sequential instruction were found to be equivalent in terms of effectiveness. However, the degree to which this method was better did vary among subjects. Situational generalization occurred equally with all three modes examined. / Department of Special Education

Sidman and Tailby (1982) established procedures to analyze the nature of stimulus to stimulus relations established by conditional discriminations. Their research describes specific behavioral tests to determine the establishment of properties that define the relations of equivalence. An equivalence relation requires the demonstration of three conditional relations: reflexivity, symmetry, and transitivity. The equivalence stimulus paradigm provides a method to account for novel responding. The research suggests that equivalence relations provide a more efficient and effective approach to the assessment, analysis, and instruction of skills. The present research examined the effectiveness of the formation of an equivalence class in teaching young children coin value relations. The second aspect of the study was to determine if there was a relationship between equivalence class formation and generalization of the skills established to other settings. Five children, 4- and 5-years old, were selected to participate in the study based on their lack of skills in the area of coin values and purchasing an item with dimes or quarters equaling fifth cents. The experimental task was presented on a Macintosh computer with HyperCard programming. The experimental stimuli consisted of pictures of dimes, quarters, and Hershey candy bars presented in match-to-sample procedures. Two conditional discriminations were taught (if A then B and if B then C.). The formation of an equivalence class was evaluated by if C then A. Generalization across settings was tested after the formation of an equivalence class by having the children purchase a Hershey candy bar with dimes at a play store. A multiple baseline experimentaldesign was used to demonstrate a functional relationship between the formation of an equivalence class and generalization of skills across settings. The present research provides supportive evidence that coin value relations can be taught to young children using equivalence procedures. The study also demonstrated generalization of novel, untaught stimuli across settings, after the formation of an equivalence class. A posttest on generalization across settings was conducted 3 months after the study. Long-term stability of equivalence relations was demonstrated by three of the subjects. / Department of Special Education

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1994. / Includes tables. Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Jean Lythcott. Dissertation Committee: Roger O. Anderson. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-186).

Thesis of (M.A.)--University of Alberta, 2009. / Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on August 25, 2009). "Fall, 2009." At head of title: University of Alberta. A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduates Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, University of Alberta. Includes bibliographical references.