The purpose of this qualitative case study was to provide insight into affective learning during seventh-grade students' early experiences of improvising and spontaneously creating melodies in jazz style. As data collection progressed, the instructor's focus of engaging students to learn improvisation through anxiety-based affective strategies became the transforming factor of this qualitative study. Subsequently, the overarching research question evolved into: What is the nature of affective teaching and learning during students' early experiences of improvising and spontaneously creating melodies in jazz style, where the instructor intentionally incorporates affective learning experiences using Wisconsin's Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance model? Supplementary research questions included: (a) How does the teacher navigate teaching and learning experiences that target anxiety during the process of learning to improvise in the jazz band rehearsal? (b) How do the students engage with the instructor's targeted teaching strategies in the jazz band setting? (c) How do the students perceive the implementation of teaching and learning experiences created by the teacher? The seventh-grade jazz band director and six seventh-grade jazz students (three girls and three boys with one set of triplets) from a Midwest middle school music program participated. Data collection occurred during the 2011 - 2012 school year. Data included three semi-structured interviews, rehearsal observations over four months, and the instructor's Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance (CMP) teaching plan. Using MacIntyre, Potter, and Burns' (2012) socio-educational model for music motivation, an adaptation of Robert Gardner's socio-educational model of motivation in second language acquisition, I applied the model's categories--(a) anxiety, (b) integrativeness, (c) attitudes toward the learning situation, (d) motivation, and (e) perceived competence--to my data. Because MacIntyre, et al. (2012) identified anxiety as an outcome that significantly and negatively predicted perceived competence through their quantitative study, I analyzed the instructor's teaching and learning strategies that targeted anxiety and the students' perceptions of their own anxiety while learning to solo improvise. The findings in this study revealed how an instructor integrated anxiety-inducing experiences in a manner that positively influenced student motivation. The progression began with game-like solo improvisation experiences and developed into unanticipated improvised solos assigned by the instructor. By incorporating teaching and learning strategies that incrementally increased anxiety within the learning situation context, anxiety as a negative outcome (MacIntyre's et al., 2012) transformed into positive experiences. The students gradually became comfortable with the emotion of anxiety, began to take risks and, ultimately, developed more interest to continue learning and improvising.

The distance learning environment is one that involves a complex array of factors that influence a learner’s perspective of presence, satisfaction, and learning. This study was designed to investigate Lee College freshmen and sophomore students’ perceptions of social presence. The purpose of the study was to (a) determine whether or not differences in perceptions of social presence exist among participants who differ in gender, age, and total level of education and (b) investigate whether or not there was a relationship between the participants’ perceptions of social presence and their online course activities in WEBCT®. This study was conducted using a questionnaire. The data were collected from a convenience sample of 252 freshmen and sophomore level students at Lee College in Baytown, Texas. A response rate of 62% resulted in a final sample of 156. The content validity of the questionnaire was established via expert opinion, and the internal consistency and reliability of the instrument was calculated using Cronbach’s α. Data screening techniques were employed as the first step in the data analysis process. Frequency counts, central tendencies, and standard deviations were used in the descriptive analysis of the data obtained via the questionnaire. Correlations and one-way ANOVAS were employed to answer research question 1 regarding the participants’ perceptions of social presence and their personal characteristics (i.e., gender, age, and their total number of college credits earned). Six conclusions were generated regarding the participants’ perceptions of social presence and their gender, age, and total number of college credits earned. Principal factor analysis with Varimax rotation revealed six constructs for research question 2 regarding the online course activities in WEBCT®. Differences in the participants’ perceptions of social presence in the six constructs for the online course activities in WEBCT® were obtained. A stepwise regression analysis was conducted to obtain additional information regarding the amount of explained variance added by each of the respective predictors. Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess reliability of the data. Twelve conclusions were generated for research question 2 regarding the participants’ perceptions of social presence and the online course activities. Specific human resource development practices were suggested.

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The purpose of this research was to examine instructor verbal immediacy behaviors in virtual classrooms and their effects on student motivation and affective learning. Undergraduate students were divided into two treatment samples. Each group was asked to imagine they were enrolled in an online course and were reading the course homepage. Two different homepages were constructed using verbal immediate vs. nonimmediate items similar to those described by Witt & Wheeler (2001). Semantic differential-type instruments similar to that used by Richmond ( 1990) were administered to evaluate participants' state motivation and affective learning. Although no reliable effects on state motivation were discovered, the results suggest a possible interaction effect between sex and immediacy with regard to affective learning.

This study documents affective learning during a community-based art museum education program for military and veteran-connected families, which included gallery teaching, art-making, and a final exhibition of participant artwork. A review of literature on public pedagogy, affective learning, museum education, and community-based art education provides the theoretical framework for the study. Narrative ethnography and participant observation were employed by the primary researcher-educator to gather a diverse array of data and construct a holistic narrative of the development of and participant experiences within the art museum program. Data collected includes field notes, personal communications (such as meeting notes and emails), interviews, open-ended survey questions, curriculum artifacts (such as lesson plans and worksheets), and artworks created by military family members. Analysis of the educator goals, participant expressions, and personal interactions informs the final discussion of how affective learning took place within one museum program and how attention to this domain of learning can enrich museum programs for diverse community members.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-23T14:01:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Riziane Costa Prates parte 1.pdf: 2358318 bytes, checksum: cd0defc2e04fa5074b227727cd8a2104 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-26 / The text problematizes the interdiscursivities about curriculum and childhood with teachers and children in a municipal Child Educational Center in the city of Serra - Espírito Santo. It maximizes the emergence of other possible singularities in the curricular practices, from the inventive movements instituted in educational experiments: continuing education, classroom and other spaces; organization plans and immanence, in the expansions produced as an art of the encounter by playing, music and life experiences in the difference as affection assemblages, favoring an inventive learning. Its main theoretical intercessors are: Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari and Michel Foucault in his dialogues with Espinosa. It uses a interdiscursive, cartographic method, in the school daily life, through a micropolitical perspective of analysis, concerning curriculum movements in order to understand the curriculum practices that promote a more beautiful life in early childhood education. Thus, the process proved to be potent and happy, from the partnerships established, the work shared by the teaching staff and the visibility of otherness and minority childhoods. Therefore, writing curricula in early childhood education for affective learning requires going beyond the established. In the imbrications of the instituted and instituting curriculum, it becomes necessary the qualification and empowerment of the collective in school, valuing the children s inventive thoughts, their pulsating and latent rhythms / Problematiza as interdiscursividades sobre currículo e infância, com professoras e crianças, em um Centro Municipal de Educação Infantil na cidade de Serra - Espírito Santo. Potencializa a emergência de outras possíveis singularidades nas práticas curriculares, a partir dos movimentos inventivos instaurados nas experimentações educativas: formações continuadas; sala de aula e outros espaços; planos de organização e imanência; nas expansões produzidas como arte do encontro pelo brincar, pela música e vivências na diferença como agenciamentos de afeto, favorecendo um aprendizado inventivo. Tem como principais intercessores teóricos: Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari e Michel Foucault nas suas interlocuções com Espinosa. Utiliza uma metodologia cartográfica interdiscursiva, no cotidiano escolar, através de uma perspectiva de análise micropolítica, referente aos movimentos do currículo, no sentido de compreender as práticas curriculares que promovem uma vida mais bonita na educação infantil. Diante disso, o processo se mostrou potente e alegre, a partir das parcerias estabelecidas, do trabalho compartilhado por parte do corpo docente e pela visibilidade de alteridades e infâncias minoritárias. Sendo assim, compor currículos na educação infantil, por aprendizados afetivos, requer ir além do estabelecido. Nos imbricamentos do instituído e instituinte curricular, tornam-se necessárias a qualificação e potencialização do coletivo na escola, valorizando o pensamento inventivo das crianças, seus ritmos pulsantes e latentes

Adolescents navigate through escalating academic and social pressures while undergoing major physical and psychological changes. Concerned with behavioral, mental, and emotional challenges of youth, educators seek to expand approaches to promote learning success. Research founded in mindfulness theories has suggested that mindfulness positively and significantly correlates with psychological and physical health, work performance, decision-making ability, and emotional regulation, and may be a factor in learning. Two theoretical viewpoints on mindfulness, Western- and Eastern-based, formed the conceptual framework for this study, which aimed to examine associative relationships between mindfulness and academic achievement, and between mindfulness and affective outcomes for the general population of 14 to 18 year old students. A set of secondary data was composed of 34,375 responses derived from a nationwide survey on attitudes and behaviors of school-age children collected by Search Institute between 2011 and 2013. The data analyses consisted of descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, and binary logistic regression analyses. The results showed that adolescent students whose attitudes and behaviors indicated mindfulness had greater likelihood to report earning high grades (p<.001), effect size small-to-medium, and greater likelihood to convey positive affective outcomes (p<.001), effect size medium-to-large. These findings provide a social change benefit to the community of scholars, educators, and youth service professionals by establishing the suitability of a mindfulness construct as a predictor of cognitive and affective learning outcomes in adolescence.

Collection of data through survey-type measurements and analysis contributes rich, meaningful information to the chemical education research enterprise. This dissertation reports two strands of research that each contribute a “snapshot” of the state of chemical education on two different levels. The first uses survey research methods, collecting data from faculty members to learn about postsecondary chemistry education across the United States. The second uses survey instruments of student achievement emotions within the organic chemistry classroom, collecting longitudinal data to learn about the relationships of emotions with achievement over time. Both areas are of interest because chemical education research produces evidence-based instructional practices as well as survey instruments of student characteristics, many of which are ready to be used in classroom, yet there is a recognized disconnect between development of these products and enacted practices. The research in this dissertation improves upon previous methodology in both strands of research included while reporting data with implications for instructional, research, and policy matters. A national survey of postsecondary chemistry faculty uses a stratified sampling procedure to gather information about the state of education in chemistry classrooms. The use of the teacher-centered systemic reform model of educational change enables us to use the data collected in the survey to gather empirical support of the relationship between faculty members’ beliefs about how students learn chemistry more effectively, faculty members’ self-efficacy for instruction and chemistry content, and the instructional practices that they utilize in the course for which they felt they had the most influence. This information is paramount for the developers of evidence-based instructional practices as well as parties interested in determining the methods best suited to the dissemination of these tools. Professional development activities designed to inspire the use of evidence-based instructional tools or techniques must acknowledge the belief systems of faculty members and the need for change in these beliefs prior to the incorporation of new methods. These results present a call for reform efforts on fostering change from its core, i.e., the beliefs of those who ultimately adopt evidence-based instructional practices. Dissemination and design should incorporate training and materials that highlight the process by which faculty members interpret reformed practices within their belief system, and explore belief change in the complex context of education reform. Another example of the use of national survey data is the determination of the niche distribution of classroom response systems, also known as clickers. It is determined in this study that clickers are used more often in large courses taught at the lower level across the United States. This niche is deemed a more suitable situation for the use of clickers than others. This information is important for researchers developing tools intended for use within the classroom. Despite the possibility for use in all contexts, the national population of faculty members will adopt tools in the contexts which are deemed most suitable; the niche markets of educational tools can provide insight in to best development practices also well as direction for the optimization of the experience for the most frequent users of these tools. The other set of studies in this dissertation utilize the control-value theory of achievement emotions in the postsecondary organic chemistry context to explore nuanced relationships of affect with achievement. These studies utilize a longitudinal panel data collection mechanism, enhancing our ability to understand relationships. The control-value theory posits that there are a set of nine achievement emotions, dictated by control and value, which influence achievement. Two of these achievement emotions, anxiety and enjoyment, are determined in one study to fluctuate over the semester of organic chemistry and significantly influence achievement as measured by examination scores. These are supported by their theoretical interpretation as activating emotions, and when experienced, inspire students to take measures that ultimately either increase or reduce their success. A deactivating emotion, boredom, is measured in another study and found to also hold a reciprocal relationship with achievement when measured over time. In both studies, results show that the reciprocal causation model with an exam snowballing effect best fits data among the alternative models. There is a small and significant negative relationship between anxiety and performance contrasted with a positive relationship between enjoyment and performance throughout the semester. Negative relationships were observed between boredom and examination performance across the term. In addition, relationships were observed to be stronger at the beginning of the course term. Future research should consider achievement emotions in light of educational reforms to ensure that innovative curricula or pedagogies are functioning in the classroom as intended.

The dual process theory proposes that evaluative conditioning is a form of learning distinct from Pavlovian conditioning and that it displays different functional characteristics such as not being subject to modulation. However, when assessed online as opposed to post-experimentally, modulation of evaluative conditioning by context change has been found in a contingency reversal procedure. Reversal of evaluative learning was found to be faster when trained in a different context rather than in the original training context. The present study addressed the question whether context change or instructions would affect the rate of reversal of evaluative learning and whether reversal learning would accelerate across repetitions. A picture-picture paradigm was used to expose participants to CS-US pairs and contingency was reversed three times during the experiment. Participants were required to provide online causal judgements and valence ratings after each set of 10 training trials. Context change, but not instructions, displayed a trend in affecting reversal of evaluative learning with participants displaying faster learning on trials immediately subsequent to contingency reversal. Instructions affected the reversal of contingency judgements. There was no evidence of acceleration across repetitions for either measure or manipulation.

The dual process theory proposes that evaluative conditioning is a form of learning distinct from Pavlovian conditioning and that it displays different functional characteristics such as not being subject to modulation. However, when assessed online as opposed to post-experimentally, modulation of evaluative conditioning by context change has been found in a contingency reversal procedure. Reversal of evaluative learning was found to be faster when trained in a different context rather than in the original training context. The present study addressed the question whether context change or instructions would affect the rate of reversal of evaluative learning and whether reversal learning would accelerate across repetitions. A picture-picture paradigm was used to expose participants to CS-US pairs and contingency was reversed three times during the experiment. Participants were required to provide online causal judgements and valence ratings after each set of 10 training trials. Context change, but not instructions, displayed a trend in affecting reversal of evaluative learning with participants displaying faster learning on trials immediately subsequent to contingency reversal. Instructions affected the reversal of contingency judgements. There was no evidence of acceleration across repetitions for either measure or manipulation.