Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007. / Title from title screen (site viewed Dec. 5, 2007). PDF text: vi, 206 p. : ill. ; 9 Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3271925. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

The purpose of the study was to determine what changes have occurred in the attitudes and judgments of Indiana public school superintendents regarding early childhood programs and the public school system. This study replicated a 1976 study conducted by Link. The population for the study included all Indiana public school superintendents. The sample was comprised of 1990-91 superintendents who were willing to complete and return the questionnaire.Instrument Used for Collection of DataThe instrument consisted of forty-five (45) items. A Likert type scale was used to record respondents' attitudes and judgment concerning selected issues. One open-ended question allowed for generalized comments.A Chi-Square procedure was used to test the five stated hypotheses. An overall significance level of .05 was used. Individual items were tested at an appropriate level of confidence to ensure the overall .05 level was not exceeded for a decision in regard to the hypothesis. At least one item exceeded the alpha level established for each subgroup of items pertaining to the null hypotheses. All five null hypotheses were therefore rejected at the .05 level of confidence.General Findings1. Indiana public school superintendents in 1990 have altered their judgments and/or attitudes concerning early childhood programs and the public schools when their response to the issues measured by the instrument and the response provided in the Link (1976) study are compared.2. Compared to the respondents of Link (1976), a larger number of Indiana public school superintendents in 1990 are willing to state a position, either favoring agreement or favoring disagreement concerning issues pertinent to early childhood programs and the public schools.3. Compared to the respondents of Link (1976), a larger number of Indiana public school superintendents in 1990 expressed an affirmative response or an attitude favoring agreement with selected statements concerning issues pertinent to early childhood programs and the public schools. / Department of Educational Leadership

This research study had two primary purposes. The first purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness of professional development training sessions with early childhood educators by measuring the emergent literacy skills of their students. The second purpose was to begin to establish concurrent validity for a fairly new skills-based instrument with an established norm-referenced instrument.A pretest-posttest design to assess the children's emergent literacy skills was utilized. After the pretest was conducted with the subjects, ages 3-5 years old, their teachers from the experimental group attended professional development sessions to address emergent literacy strategies for their early childhood classrooms. The teachers in the control group did not participate in the professional development sessions. At the conclusion of the intervention period the children's emergent literacy skills were posttested.The pretest and posttest assessments were conducted following best practice guidelines for early childhood education assessments. The early childhood educators who knew the children well completed the skills-based instrument through an observation process with a rating scale. The primary researcher conducted the norm-referenced instrument with each of the children in a one-on-one situation at the child's early childhood center.The scores of the two instruments were analyzed to evaluate the gains of the children, the significance of independent variables, and to examine the relationship between the two instruments. The data showed that the children in the treatment condition did make significant gains over the control group in the area of Readiness skills, but not in other areas assessed. Additionally, the independent variables of subject's gender and teacher's years of experience were significant for few of the subscales of the assessment tools. This study did begin to establish concurrent validity for the Language Arts Objective Sequence (LOS) with the Test of Early Reading Ability-Third edition (TERA-3). The LOS did possess internal consistency and demonstrated a positive correlation with the TERA-3 at the pretest. Further studies to establish concurrent validity with posttests as well as pretests need to be conducted. / Department of Special Education

No description available.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-166).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on December 26, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2008. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 230-244). Also available online in Scholars' Bank; and in ProQuest, free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (M.Ed.(Educational Psychology))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Education, 2013.

No description available.