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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the programs of health and physical education for girls in the junior high schools of the Class AA type of District One of the University of Texas Interscholastic League.

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Physical education is important to promote physical activity of adolescents with and without disabilities, but many adolescents are not active during physical education classes. Innovative instructional strategies are imperative to change this phenomenon, but it will be challenging to develop effective instructional strategies without thorough understanding of students' physical activity behavior in physical education settings. Two studies were conducted to comprehensively understand physical activity behavior of adolescents with and without disabilities in inclusive physical education classes at middle schools. The first study investigated the utility of the integrative theory to predict students' physical activity intentions and behavior at the intrapersonal level. A total of 577 participants, including 24 adolescents' with disabilities, were recruited from 8 middle schools in Korea. In a prospective design, participants' psychosocial constructs and physical activity data were collected by survey questionnaires and electronic pedometers. A multilevel (design-based) structural equation modeling using maximum likelihood estimation with robust standard error correction found that students' attitudes, subjective norms, and barrier-efficacy significantly predicted students' goal intentions. Students' implementation intentions and task-efficacy were significant predictors of physical activity behavior. In addition, implementation intentions completely mediated the relationship between goal intentions and physical activity behavior. The second study investigated three conceptual models, including process-product model, student mediation model, and ecological model, to predict students' physical activity behavior at the interpersonal and environmental levels. A total of 13 physical educators teaching inclusive physical education and their 503 students, including 22 students with disabilities, were recruited from 8 middle schools in Korea. A series of multilevel (model-based) regressions with maximum likelihood estimation showed that the ecological model was the most effective model in prediction of students' physical activity behavior. Specifically, it was found that teachers' teaching behavior and students' implementation intentions were significant predictors of the students' physical activity behavior when interacted with gender, disability, lesson contents, instructional models, and class locations. In conclusion, findings suggest that intrapersonal, interpersonal, and environmental predictors provide a systematic account in the understanding of students' physical activity behavior in physical education settings. Future studies should consider all three factors simultaneously to effectively develop instructional strategies that promote physical activity of adolescents' with and without disabilities in physical education classes. / Graduation date: 2013

The purpose of this study was to design a peer tutoring program in the middle school setting that help students who are not reaching their full potential.

The purpose of this project was to develop an educational program to assist educators in keeping school children healthy. This program is designed to support professionals who are working to reduce the problem of oobesity in children and adolescents in elementary and middle school setting.

Guided by a motivational framework derived from self-determination theory, a study was conducted to examine the role of academic engagement in helping to explain and ameliorate ethnic differences in school achievement. Building on decades of research that documents both the importance of engagement to learning in European American students as well as its malleability, this study relied on an ethnically diverse sample of 6th and 7th grade students to examine three questions (1) Are achievement differences across ethnic groups due to differences in engagement? (2) Does engagement predict achievement similarly or differently across ethnic groups? and (3) Are the predictors of engagement suggested by the motivational model the same or different for students from different ethnic groups? Participants were 194 African-American, Hispanic/Latino/a, Asian/Pacific Islander, and European American middle school students who provided information about their engagement, self-system processes (SSPs) of relatedness, competence, and autonomy, and their experiences with teachers in school; information about students' cumulative achievement (GPA) was extracted from school records. First, analyses revealed few ethnic differences in achievement (only Asian/Pacific Islander students' levels of achievement were higher than students from other ethnic groups), and no ethnic differences in engagement. In analyses designed to examine if controlling for variations in engagement would cause achievement differences between ethnic groups to disappear, a test of the simple main effects demonstrated that ethnic differences in achievement were found only at the lowest level of engagement (again Asian/Pacific Islander students outperformed all other student groups). However, at medium and high levels of engagement, there were no significant differences in achievement across the four ethnic groups. Second, analyses designed to examine whether engagement predicts achievement differently across ethnic groups, revealed that although engagement was an important predictor of achievement for all students, it was even more important for non-European American (compared to European-American) students. Third, analyses designed to examine whether potential facilitators (SSPs and contextual constructs) predicted students' engagement similarly or differently across ethnic groups revealed no group differences: All predictors were positively and significantly associated with engagement for students from all four ethnic groups. These findings are considered in the context of the study's strengths and limitations and the larger literatures on engagement and achievement in ethnic minority students. A important implication of the current study is that with a more comprehensive understanding of how to support the engagement of students from ethnic minority backgrounds, schools and teachers will be better equipped to address the engagement gap, and in so doing also eliminate the achievement gap.

In an attempt to determine the effectiveness of a pretreatment assessment procedure known as the scatter plot (Touchette, MacDonald, & Langer, 1985), direct observational data was collected by 13 middle school teachers on four "problem" students. After four weeks of data collection, interobserver agreement probes were calculated and a visual analysis of the plotted data was performed to ascertain a possible pattern of problem behavior. Additionally, in an attempt to assess the teachers' perceptions of the scatter plot, the 13 teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire. Although a visual analysis of the plotted data suggested a possible pattern of problem behavior, interobserver agreement probes failed to achieve a desired overall reliability of 90% or higher. Despite a low IOA, results of the questionnaire administered to the 13 teachers generally supported the use of the scatter plot as a means of assessing student behavior. Possible reasons for failing to attain an IOA of 90% or higher include the total number of students in a class, the number of subjects observed per period, the teacher's location in the classroom, and the subjects ability to recognize if the teacher was "looking." Recommendations are provided regarding future research concerning the scatter plot and other more formal approaches to assessing student behavior.

Diploma thesis named Skill of students primary school to set thein personal goals, maps and describes the components which affect child and how do they influence child's choice of his/hers personal goals. The specification of personal goals is one of the activities of cross- section subject personal and social education, which is set by educational program framework. Its scope requires to name particular activities and their praxis. The thesis id divided into theoretical and practical parts. Theoretical part covers elemental components for personal goals specification, which are divdided into internal and external. The thesis also describes the fundamental basics of personal and social education, its methods and forms. In the practical part there is a model lecture covering two lessons. The lecture is a form of action research, and every realization of the lecture is reflected in detail. The purpose of the lecture is to find out the major motives for personal goals specification and what forms of work to chose while facilitating the lecture. The thesis should help to improve and enhance the work of the teacher, my personal development and as an inspiration for the classes where is performed. In the practical part there i salso the analysis of the children's answers and interview with the teacher....

The diploma thesis "Sexual education on primary school from teacher's point of view" defines in the theoretical part the sexual education, it's objectives, it's content and principles. The thesis specifies the actual conception of the sexual education on primary school as per the RVP ZV document. The thesis characterizes the physical and emotional development of a primary school child and describes a child sexual development. The target of the practical part is to prove at what extent in Czech schools the primary school teachers apply sexual education, furthermore what attitude does primary school teachers' have towards this subject. Empiric methods of quantitative questioning and statistic data processing were used in the survey. The aim was to address a significant amout of respondents, teachers. KEYWORDS Sexual education, sexuality, teacher, primary school, current concept