<p> This phenomenological research study explored the contributing factors experienced by Black males that epitomized their academic success in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) area of study. During this investigative project, eleven Black male students were interviewed to determine how they were able to successfully navigate and complete a STEM degree. The data was collected through a qualitative inquiry, which involved interviewing students and collecting the data and organizing their perspectives into common themes. The principal findings in this study suggest that Black males can excel when primary influential people establish high expectations and believe and encourage Black males to succeed by providing the essential educational support models requisite to warrant success; the Black male maintains and affirms a self-assured self-worth in himself; the Black male is exposed to these fields and professions early on in their educational quest to enable them to witness first hand powerful and productive opportunities and pathways to academic success; exposure to other Black successful male role models who can mentor and show positive proof that with effort, these fields can become a reality; increase in academic motivation and recommendations from educators and counselors who direct and guide students into and away from these rigorous career fields. An analysis of the students' individual stories gave a revealing look into the pathways of their consciousness, emotional growth, and perspectives about being a successful STEM major. This kind of insight can be a constructive diagnostic tool for students, educators, counselors, and administrators who want to motivate and influence future students to major in STEM fields of study.</p>

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Curriculum and Instruction / Rosemary Talab / The purpose of this case study was to explore the online learning environment through the experiences of the individual learner and to gain more insight into the elements of Business online courses, as framed by the Keller ARCS Model of Motivation. This study explored the following three Research Questions: 1. How do undergraduate first-year Business students perceive online course elements as being motivational? 2. How do the online courses that Business students perceive as being motivational use the Keller ARCS Motivational Model? 3 How do exemplary online Business faculty use the Keller ARCS Motivational Model in online instruction? The population was students enrolled in first-year for-credit online classes taken during the Fall 2010 semester in a Midwestern community college. A sample of required Business online sections was purposively selected in order to investigate Business student motivation. The participants in this study were 18 first-year Business students enrolled in Business courses. Based on student interviews, the instructors of the three courses that were most often nominated by students as being most motivational were interviewed. Interviews of students and instructors were conducted at the end of the Fall 2010 semester. Seven themes were identified for Research Question 1: 116 units for theme “Course Communication,” 83 units for theme “Course Requirements,” 71 units for theme “Grades,” 60 units for theme “Course Organization,” 50 units for the theme “Learning Online,” 48 units or the theme “Course Element Availability,” and 46 units for the theme “Track Course Progress.” For Research Question 2, the ARCS model categories were used as a framework for understanding and interpreting student motivation: “Attention,” “Relevance,” “Confidence,” and “Satisfaction.” The components of the Keller ARCS themes were then analyzed according to the components that students perceived as being most motivational. The ARCS Themes found were: 31 units for theme “Satisfaction,” 25 units for theme “Relevance,” 24 units were found for theme “Confidence,” and 20 units were found for theme “Attention.” The significant theme findings were: The Satisfaction theme was found to include practice prior to graded activities. The Relevance theme was found to include the use of “choices” as a key motivational component to what was perceived as being relevant. The Confidence theme was found to include a progression in difficulty of activities and access to review and practice new material. The Attention theme was found to include variability of instruction and course elements. To answer Research Question 3, faculty interviews focused specifically on the Keller ARCS Motivational Model and components. The ARCS themes found were: 36 units for theme “Confidence,” 25 units for theme “Relevance,” 24 units for theme “Satisfaction,” and 22 units for theme “Attention.” The significant findings from the themes were: The Confidence theme was found to include providing key information upfront to students. The design of the course must allow for student success and become progressively more difficult for students. Also, the time and effort required to complete activities should be provided to students. The Relevance theme was found to include the use of “choices” and to relate the course to the student’s situation as key motivational components. The Satisfaction theme was found to include negative consequences that are handled within the course, and practice that offers immediate feedback. The Attention theme was found to include students asking students questions within the course. Recommendations for further studies included a qualitative study to uncover how online Business students are motivated in their second and later years and a study to understand student motivation through various settings and technologies used in learning management system course elements.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Curriculum and Instruction / Dean A. Zollman / The work described here represents an effort to design, construct, and test an interactive online multimedia learning environment that can provide physics instruction to students in their homes. The system was designed with one-on-one human tutoring in mind as the mode of instruction. The system uses an original combination of a video-based tutor that incorporates natural language processing video-centered lessons and additional illustrative multimedia. Our Synthetic Interview (SI) tutor provides pre-recorded video answers from expert physics instructors in response to students’ typed natural language questions. Our lessons cover Newton’s laws and provide a context for the tutoring interaction to occur, connect physics ideas to real-world behavior of mechanical systems, and allow for quantitative testing of physics. Additional multimedia can be used to supplement the SI tutors’ explanations and illustrate the physics of interest. The system is targeted at students of algebra-based and concept-based physics at the college and high school level. The system logs queries to the SI tutor, responses to lesson questions and several other interactions with the system, tagging those interactions with a username and timestamp. We have provided several groups of students with access to our system under several different conditions ranging from the controlled conditions of our interview facility to the naturalistic conditions of use at home. In total nearly two-hundred students have accessed the system. To gain insight into the ways students might use the system and understand the utility of its various components we analyzed qualitative interview data collected with 22 algebra-based physics students who worked with our system in our interview facility. We also performed a descriptive analysis of data from the system’s log of user interactions. Finally we explored the use of machine learning to explore the possibility of using automated assessment to augment the interactive capabilities of the system as well as to identify productive and unproductive use patterns. This work establishes a proof-of-concept level demonstration of the feasibility of deploying this type of system. The impact of this work and the possibility of future research efforts are discussed in the context of Internet technologies that are changing rapidly.

The purposes of this study were to: (1) develop a model for identifying learner attitudes that correlate significantly with learners' posttest performance; (2) demonstrate the predictive validity of the model; and (3) examine the relationship between twenty instructional attitudes and learners' acquisition of intellectual skills and verbal information. / To achieve these purposes, attitude measures, based on the model, were administered to two sections of an introductory educational psychology class. Performance tests and the attitude measures were administered at midterm and at the end of the semester. Two sets of hypotheses and twenty research questions were posited to examine the relationship between learner attitudes and performance. Results indicated that the learner attitudes posited by the Instructional Attitude Model were not related to their posttest performance. Although some significant correlations were found, the lack of consistent findings either across the two samples or between midterm and final scores failed to support the research hypotheses and the predictive validity of the model. / However, two patterns emerged from the data. Significant correlations were found predominately on the relevance or confidence scales of the attitude measure and when the attitude and performance measures were administered to Section One students at the end of the semester. The practical and theoretical implications of the research findings are discussed in relation to the proposed model. Limitations of the study are then described followed by suggestions for future research. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-02, Section: A, page: 0491. / Major Professor: John Keller. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.

This study investigated the effects of three types of print-based preinstructional strategies: (a) advance organizer, (b) performance objectives, and (c) viewing focus questions utilized in conjunction with an expository segment of videotaped instruction on the learning performance of undergraduate biology students classified as having Field-dependent or Field-independent cognitive styles. The Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) was used to measure cognitive styles. The sample for the study consisted of 194 undergraduates enrolled in 3 sections of an introductory Biology 103 course. The instructional content used in the study was a sixteen-minute expository videotape entitled "Susumu Tonegawa: Keys to the Immune System." / Procedure. After having been classified as field-dependent or field-independent by means of the GEFT one week prior to the treatments, students were assigned by a stratified random sampling approach to one of three preinstructional strategies or to an alternate (control group) activity. Students participated in the study as intact classes. The print-based preinstructional strategy treatments were administered by means of booklets prior to the presentation of the instruction. An immediate posttest was administered following the instruction. One week after the treatments, an identical delayed posttest was administered. / Method. A 4 x 2 factorial design was used for the study. The initial analysis of data was done using a two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to assess the effects of covariates and the interaction of treatments with cognitive styles. Covariates measured were: (1) gender, (2) GPA, (3) status (i.e., freshman, sophomore, junior, senior), and, (4) prior knowledge test score, and (5) scores on the first examination for the Biology 103 course. No effects were found for any of the covariates. No effect was found for cognitive style or for the interaction treatments and cognitive styles. Subsequent data analyses were done using a one-way analysis of variance (ANCOVA) and Duncan's Multiple Range Test. / Results. Statistically significant effects were found at $\alpha$ =.05 relating to the effect of preinstructional strategies upon the immediate and delayed posttest performance of both field-dependent and field-independent students. Two preinstructional strategies resulted in statistically significant higher immediate and delayed posttest scores. They were (a) performance objectives, and, (b) viewing focus questions. / Conclusions. This study supports the use of performance objectives and viewing focus questions as effective preinstructional strategies. No evidence was found for aptitude-treatment interactions. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-03, Section: A, page: 0863. / Major Professor: Robert K. Branson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of motivation, prior strategy use, and locus of control when using embedded cognitive strategies for daily work and posttest performance. A secondary purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between the entry behaviors of notetaking, questioning, and use of other sources of information and posttest performance. To conduct the study, a series of analyses were conducted to include stepwise regression, ANOVA, t-tests and Pearson-Product Moment correlations. One hundred-eleven ninth and tenth grade students participated in the study by taking a series of tests to measure entry behaviors, motivation, prior strategy use, and locus of control. Fifty-eight of the students then worked through the treatment of a computer-based problem-solving program designed to teach map skills and to use strategies for solving novel problems posed by the program. Students were asked to record their notes and answer questions to assist in solving the problems posed by the lessons. Their notes and responses to questions were placed in a portfolio at the end of each lesson, for later analysis. The remaining fifty-three students served as a control group and did not participate in the computer-based activities. Upon completion of the computer-based lessons, all students were given a posttest performance test designed to measure their ability to solve novel problems. The results indicated that students using embedded cognitive strategies within the treatment condition performed significantly better than students in the control group. It was indicated also that the entry behavior questioning was correlated significantly with posttest performance. Results suggest that motivation, prior strategy use and use of other sources of information are not significant predictors of performance when using embedded cognitive strategies. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-10, Section: A, page: 3482. / Major Professor: Robert K. Branson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of practice with rate-controlled speech as compared with practice with speech delivered at normal rates on short-term listening comprehension and levels of confidence of advanced Chinese EFL learners. The present study was designed by incorporating an information processing theory of language learning, a concept of confidence, and the compressed speech technology. / A pretest-posttest control group design was adopted in this study. Twenty-four Chinese advanced EFL learners were randomly assigned to either the experimental (compressed) or the control (normal) group. No significant difference in short-term listening ability or in levels of confidence was detected between the two treatment groups on pretests. / A total of twenty hours of practice was given to the subjects, one hour daily for a period of four weeks. A 35-item short-term listening material was used for each practice session. The experimental group first listened to speech extended (20%) to rates between 120 and 145 wpm, and then to speech at normal rates between 150 and 180 wpm, and finally to speech compressed (20%) to rates between 180 and 215 wpm. Contrastively, the subjects in the control group listened to speech presented at normal rates throughout each practice session. / After adjusting for initial differences in both short-term listening and confidence scores on the covariates (pretests), a significant difference was found between mean short-term listening and mean confidence scores on the posttests at the.05 level. / The data provide strong evidence for significant effects of practice with rate-controlled speech on short-term listening comprehension and confidence level in advanced Chinese EFL learners. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-10, Section: A, page: 3461. / Major Professor: John M. Keller. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

This study was designed to explore an expert teacher's model of thinking and teaching as it occurred within the social and cultural context of the classroom. It also sought to compare an expert teacher's model of thinking and teaching with those of instructional systems design to identify the similarities and differences between them. To accomplish these goals, the study focused on the process and relationships among four aspects of teacher thinking: (1) the teacher's experiential world and frame of reference; (2) the teacher's knowledge and beliefs; (3) her planning and interactive teaching, and (4) her reflective thinking. / The study employed a naturalistic approach which combined different methodological techniques. The data were analyzed in the constant comparative style, which allowed categories to emerge from the data. The generated model of the teacher thinking and teaching was then compared to instructional systems design (ISD) models and principles. / The findings of the study suggest that there is an interactive relationship among the teacher's different components of thinking and teaching. While the teacher's preplanning seemed to be a good indicator of what was going to happen in the classroom, the planning occurs during interactive and reflective phases of thinking and teaching. The data also showed that reflection was an integral component of the experienced and competent teacher's thought process and occurred before, during, and after teaching. / The results of comparisons between the teacher's model of thinking and teaching with ISD models suggested that there were fundamental differences between these two models. The separation of instructional planning from implementation and evaluation, the linear or procedural model of teaching and planning, and the concept of reflection or evaluation of effectiveness of instruction after implementation were found to be major sources of differences between the two models. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-10, Section: A, page: 3719. / Major Professor: Marcy P. Dirscoll. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.

The purpose of this study was to examine the initiation and implementation of microcomputer technology in the educational environment of N. H. Jones Elementary School and to assess its impact on teachers. Microcomputer technology was configured as a teacher workstation. / A conceptual framework was developed to promote microcomputer technology and to monitor and interpret the phenomenon. Elements of the framework were five guidelines of the Innovation-Focused strategy (Fullan, 1985), interventions of the Change Facilitator strategy (Hall & Hord, 1984) and the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) (Hord, Rutherford, Huling-Austin & Hall, 1987). / Five research questions provided direction for the inquiry. The questions were: (1) What concerns did teachers have about microcomputer technology? (2) Were there factors in the school environment that promoted the diffusion and use of microcomputer technology by teachers? (3) Were there perceived barriers that impeded acceptance and use of microcomputer technology by teachers? (4) What levels of use did teachers attain using the innovation microcomputer technology? (5) What teacher-related outcomes are attributed to using microcomputer technology? / Teachers' concerns were identified with the Stages of Concern instrument of the CBAM. Results showed that teachers had Self and Task concerns at the beginning of the study. As teachers increased their involvement with microcomputer technology their concerns shifted toward the Impact concerns, Consequences, Collaboration and Refocusing. Teachers' levels of use of microcomputer technology was assessed with the Level of Use instrument. Results revealed that teachers clustered in Mechanical and Routine user levels. By the end of the study 80% of teachers had reached the Routine Level of Use. / Study Conclusions were: (1) Fear of technology can be alleviated with an implementation strategy that empowers teachers and accepts and works within their point of view, (2) Complexity of an innovation affected the rate at which teachers mastered and used the innovation, and (3) Configuring the innovation into its component parts facilitated successful implementation and alerted the change facilitator to technical assistance needs. / Recommendations for future research include configuring microcomputer technology beyond a teacher workstation, replication of the study using the change model presented and identifying long term impact of microcomputer technology on teachers. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-03, Section: A, page: 0779. / Adviser: Robert G. Stakenas. / Thesis (Ed.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

Students do not always use available help to accomplish their goals in an academic environment. Traditionally, academic help-seeking has been viewed as an act of dependence involving a public interaction between a student and a teacher or peer. Recent advances in technology have led to the re-conceptualization of help-seeking as a private act that supports independent achievement goals. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of two treatments that promote task involvement, task-involving instructions and instructor modeling on help-seeking behavior. Help-seeking behavior was defined as the number of times a student accessed program help while learning to use a programming system. It was hypothesized that students who received either the task-involving instruction treatment, the instructor modeling treatment or a combination of these treatments would seek more program help than students who received traditional instructions without instructor modeling. / Three instructors and a total of 106 technical professionals employed by an information technology company participated in this study. Students were grouped into eight classes that were open for registration by any technical employee through a computer registration system. Employees registered themselves for class dates and locations and classes were assigned to instructors. Two different instructors were assigned to each condition in this study. / The research was conducted as a 2 $\times$ 2 quasi-experimental design with four possible conditions. The treatment effects for help-seeking were analyzed using the two-way analysis of variance procedure. A main effect was supported for the instructor modeling treatment, F(1,102) = 18.32, p $<$.05. The results indicate that students who received the instructor modeling treatment sought more program help than students who did not receive instructor modeling. / This study suggests that instructor modeling may be an appropriate strategy to promote academic help-seeking. Educators should consider the effects of task-involving strategies on the attitudes associated with help-seeking behavior. Teachers can affect these attitudes and enhance the learning experience by modeling the use of program help to answer questions or solve problems. Future research should investigate relationships between increased help-seeking and other indicators of learning and performance. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-11, Section: A, page: 4364. / Major Professor: John M. Keller. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.