This study was designed to attain the following purposes: To determine the exploratory courses which were being offered in the eighth grade of the five-year high school programs. To determine the course content of these exploratory courses in homemaking. To determine the practices followed in organizing and conducting these courses. To determine the length of the exploratory course in homemaking. To determine what effect the eighth-grade exploratory homemaking course had on enrollment in the vocational course in homemaking. / Master of Science

Although enrollment in advanced mathematics courses is a significant determinant of mathematics achievement, the majority of public school students are not enrolled in advanced mathematics courses in high school. Policy makers are interested in the dynamics of the math course selection process in the eighth grade because it is viewed as a pivotal transitional point when students are confronted with the decision to either enroll in algebra, the first course on the advanced math track, or in regular math. Approximately one third of eighth grade students enroll in algebra, in spite of general availability of the course. Enrollment patterns vary among the four major race/ethnic subgroups - Asian, Hispanic, Black and White. This study constructed and tested a structural equations model that examined the factors influencing math course choice and the course selection process in the eighth grade in public schools. There were three sources of influence in the model: 1) math achievement; 2) school policies and practices; and 3) parents. The model consisted of three exogenous and five endogenous variables. The model was tested five times. It was tested on a nationally representative sample of 7,648 eighth grade public school students. It was also tested separately on the four race/ethnic subgroups comprising the full sample. The study used data from student and parent files of the base year survey of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS 88), a major national study conducted under the auspices of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). For the full sample, the major school and parental factors influencing a student’s math course choice were math track placement, parents’ educational expectations and school-parent algebra push. Of the two achievement influences, standardized math test scores had the stronger influence on the outcome variable. Prior math grades influenced math course choice, but to a lesser extent and was influential largely due to an indirect effect. Although these factors were important for each of the subgroups, the influence of the factors varied among the subgroups. The model fitted the data fairly well for the full sample and the Asian and White subgroups, but less well for the Hispanic and Black subgroups. / Ph. D.

The purposes of this study were to apply a model of achievement-related behaviors to a sample of eighth-grade girls and to ascertain whether this theoretical model continued to describe girls' internal beliefs regarding mathematics.

This research grew from concerns relative to the mathematical performance of Spanish-speaking limited English proficient (LEP) public school students. This investigation studied the effects of the sheltered mathematics class on eighth-grade Spanish-speaking LEP students with regard to mathematical achievement, attitudes toward mathematics, the dropout rate, and the number of math credits earned in high school. The enrollment of a sheltered mathematics class was limited to LEP students. The purpose was to compare Spanish-speaking LEP students enrolled in sheltered mathematics classes with Spanish-speaking LEP students enrolled in regular mathematics classes. The research hypotheses were that achievement, mathematical attitudes, the dropout rate, and high school math credits earned would favor enrollment in sheltered mathematics classes. The data for achievement, dropout information, and mathematics course work completed were drawn from student records in the school district data bank. A mathematics attitude survey was given to a sample from the 1995-96 eighth-grade advanced level Spanish-speaking LEP students. The research hypotheses were not accepted. All of the populations did show an academic deficit. However, they did have more positive attitudes than negative attitudes toward mathematics. To improve achievement, staying in school, and a higher rate of inclusion in mathematics related careers the following recommendations were made: 1. Research should be done to write standardized mathematics tests that would be accurate and fair for Spanish-speaking LEP students. 2. Further research should be done into teaching strategies and classroom management particularly suited to Spanish-speaking LEP students. 3. Attitude measures should be used as pretest and posttest to study the effect of sheltered mathematics classes on LEP students in relation to attitudes toward mathematics and motivation to continue schooling. 4. Recruit and train qualified mathematics teachers to teach English as a second language (ESL) mathematics.

This study sought to determine if there were differences in the types of reading interests of seventh- and eighth-grade pupils associated with their racial origins, their socioeconomic status, or their school environments. It also sought to consider the strength of reading interest scores as related to other variables and to consider the relationship between these scores and the number of hours spent in reading and the change in amount of reading since the previous school year.

Educators considering implementing a computer simulation must decide on the optimum placement of the simulation in the unit of instruction to maximize student learning. This study examined student achievement using two different placements for the computer simulation, The Civil War, in a unit of instruction of 8th grade American History students in a suburban middle school.

The purpose of this study is to determine the nature of a curriculum for use in the eighth-grade social science classes of the Plainview Junior High School, Plainview, Texas.

The problem reported in this thesis was one whose purpose was to determine, if possible, the relative value of gains in civic knowledge, skills, and attitudes growing out of a course in eighth-grade community civics as compared with those derived from a course in traditional eighth-grade history. An interesting phase of the study was the tabulation of losses in civic knowledge, skills, and attitudes and an attempt on the part of the writer to account for them. Chiefly, however, the study concerns itself with progress in social and civic thinking on the part of eighth-grade pupils.

The purpose of this study was to make a comparative investigation of certain phases of the physical-education status of eighth-grade boys in the Travis Junior High School, Harlingen, Texas, for the 1948-1949 school session.

This study investigated the effects of technology education, science, and mathematics (TSM) curriculum integration on the technological problem-solving ability of eighth grade technology education students. The researcher used a quasi-experimental, nonequivalent control group design to compare the performance of students receiving correlated TSM integration to those not receiving integration in an adapted Technology, Science, Mathematics Integration Project Activity (LaPorte & Sanders, 1993). The students were to design, construct, and evaluate wind collectors to generate electricity. The collectors were mounted on a generator for the pretest and posttest measurements. The measure for treatment effect was the output wattage of the generator for each student's wind collector. The samples were drawn from middle schools that had two technology education teachers in the same school, each teaching eighth graders. The pilot study sample (N = 51) was selected from a middle school in rural south-central Virginia. The study sample (N = 33) was selected from a middle school in a suburb of Richmond, Virginia. Treatment group technology education teachers employed echnological problem solving, and they correlated instruction of key concepts with science and mathematics teachers using the adapted TSM Integration Activity. The control group technology education teachers did not correlate instruction with science and mathematics teachers. There was no significant difference between the treatment and control groups for technological problem solving. Evidence suggested that students were applying science and mathematics concepts. The researcher concluded that TSM curriculum integration may promote the application of science and mathematics concepts to technological problem solving and does not hinder the technological problem-solving ability of eighth technology education students. / Ph. D.