Global citizenship education is becoming increasingly appreciated in Ontario as an important component of formal schooling. Although all disciplinary areas have a role to play in global citizenship education, geography, which is primarily concerned with the study of people, places, and environments at home and around the world, provides an especially important context in which to foster the values and attitudes often cited as important for global citizenship. The purpose of this qualitative study is to describe how seven secondary students in the province of Ontario make meaning of global citizenship through geography education. More specifically, this study investigates the way that Grade 12 students, who had recently completed the course titled, “Canadian and World Issues: A Geographic Analysis”, conceive of the concept of global citizenship, value its importance, and experienced its values within this course. Qualitative data was collected through an analysis of the course curriculum and though interviews with seven students. The interviews revealed four themes that were most apparent in how the students conceptualized global citizenship: global awareness, belonging, caring, and commitment to action. It was revealed that the students’ personal involvement with the issues being studied helped them learn to be global citizens, as did the rich discussions of global issues they experienced in class. Careful analysis of both the students’ conceptions of global citizenship and how they experienced global citizenship in the curriculum revealed an uncritical perspective – one which emphasizes acts of charity and volunteerism rather than a commitment to social justice. In examining the participants’ perceptions of the value of global citizenship education as part of the curriculum, it was clear participants felt this was an important feature of geography education. In fact, since their perception was that they experienced global citizenship in this course exclusively, they attributed great value to the course and to geography education more generally. Overall, the findings are valuable to both teachers and teacher candidates seeking to better engage their students in global issues and equip them with global thinking strategies, and to curriculum developers wishing to effectively incorporate issues and topics concerning global citizenship within school curricula. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2013-08-30 16:23:30.774

Global citizenship education (GCE) has recently emerged as a dynamic approach to education capturing the interest of various stakeholders, including academics, educators and international organisations worldwide. In an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world, GCE is seen as a transformative pedagogy that can empower learners to resolve growing global challenges, building a more just and sustainable world. This study explores how GCE is “transferred, translated and transformed” (Cowen, 2009a; 2009b; 2006) into contemporary national education policy and practice, through a comparison of experience between Greece and Sweden. Based on a qualitative research approach, the study first examines the discourse of international organisations, such as UNESCO, the European Union and Oxfam, in order to better understand efforts to promote GCE and its implications for teaching and learning. National education curricula on citizenship-related subjects are then analysed to identify how they address GCE, while a third level of analysis involves exploring how primary school teachers and students perceive and implement the particular concept. To this end, document analysis, interviews and focus groups have been employed as methods to gather relevant data. The findings of the study indicate that international organisations have developed a powerful GCE discourse, elements of which can be seen in national education policy and school practice, yet with different emphasis between countries as a result of diverse socio-economic, political and historical contexts. In Greece, the focus on ethnocentrism and Europeanism hinders the effective delivery of GCE, whereas in Sweden, the strong commitment to human rights and internationalism allows to integrate the concept in school practice. The predominant form of global citizenship promoted in both countries is moral cosmopolitan, while critical and postcolonial approaches to the concept do not appear to have been recognised or implemented in practice. Considering all three phases of shape-shifting educational ideas, as defined by Cowen (2006), the study concludes that although policy support for GCE is evident in international and national policy discourse, actual implementation in schools is weak.

Higher education institutions across the United States have developed global learning initiatives to support student achievement of global awareness and global perspective, but assessment options for these outcomes are extremely limited. A review of research for a global learning initiative at a large, Hispanic-serving, urban, public, research university in South Florida found a lack of instruments designed to measure global awareness and global perspective in the context of an authentic performance assessment. This quasi-experimental study explored the development of two rubrics for the global learning initiative and the extent to which evidence supported the rubrics’ validity and reliability. One holistic rubric was developed to measure students’ global awareness and the second to measure their global perspective. The study utilized a pretest/posttest nonequivalent group design. Multiple linear regression was used to ascertain the rubrics’ ability to discern and compare average learning gains of undergraduate students enrolled in two global learning courses and students enrolled in two non-global learning courses. Parallel pretest/posttest forms of the performance task required students to respond to two open-ended questions, aligned with the learning outcomes, concerning a complex case narrative. Trained faculty raters read responses and used the rubrics to measure students’ global awareness and perspective. Reliability was tested by calculating the rates of agreement among raters. Evidence supported the finding that the global awareness and global perspective rubrics yielded scores that were highly reliable measures of students’ development of these learning outcomes. Chi-square tests of frequency found significant rates of inter-rater agreement exceeding the study’s .80 minimum requirement. Evidence also supported the finding that the rubrics yielded scores that were valid measures of students’ global awareness and global perspective. Regression analyses found little evidence of main effects; however, post hoc analyses revealed a significant interaction between global awareness pretest scores and the treatment, the global learning course. Significant interaction was also found between global perspective pretest scores and the treatment. These crossover interactions supported the finding that the global awareness and global perspective rubrics could be used to detect learning differences between the treatment and control groups as well as differences within the treatment group.

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure high school students’ perceptions of global awareness and attitudes towards global issues. The research questions that guided this study were: (a) Can acceptable validity and reliability estimates be established for an instrument developed to measure high schools students' global awareness? (b) Can acceptable validity and reliability estimates be established for an instrument developed to measure high schools students' attitudes towards global issues? (c) What is the relationship between high school students’ GPA, race/ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, parents’ education, reading and listening habits, the number of classes taken in the social sciences, whether they speak a second language, and have experienced living in or visiting other countries, and their perception of global awareness and attitudes toward global issues? An ex post facto research design was used and the data were collected using a 4-point Likert-type survey. It was administered in 14 schools in the Miami-Dade County area to 704 students. A factor analysis with an orthogonal varimax rotation was used to identify the underlying constructs that were being measured by the instrument – global education, global citizenship, and global workforce. This was done to estimate construct validity. However, the findings indicated two different factors that included the content of the three constructs but had to be labeled differently. They were: factor 1 – self- perception of global awareness and factor 2 – attitudes towards global social issues. Cronbach’s alpha was used to estimate the reliability of the instrument. These findings helped answer the first two research questions. A hierarchical multiple regression was also used. The findings helped determine the relationship of the two factors to the demographics. The overall model indicated that the demographic variables accounted for significant amounts of variance of each of the factor constructs identified. Among the findings, the independent variables, ethnicity and parents’ education were statistically significant for self-perception of global awareness (factor 1). Gender and SES were statistically significant for attitude toward global social issues (factor 2).

Strategies for Developing Interpersonal Communication Skills for Business Students by Sharon A. Pope M.B.A., Cleveland State University, 1995 M.S.H.P/A., University of Cincinnati, 1983 B.Ed., University of Toledo, 1981 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education Walden University December 2015 Research has shown that interpersonal communication skills (ICS) are important for employment success, particularly if they are learned by students during college. A private university in Ohio identified the need to enhance students' ICS; however, the university's faculty lacked strategies to teach those required skills. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate perceptions of key administrative staff (KAS), faculty, and alumni about the implementation of ICS instruction to foster students' work-ready skills. Guided by the social skill component of Goleman's emotional intelligence theory and related research, this study examined key applications of ICS including communication, collaboration, conflict management, and cross cultural awareness. Three KAS with extensive knowledge of university practices were purposefully sampled to take part in a focus group addressing current and recommended ICS instructional strategies. Network sampling, informed by the KAS, identified 23 faculty members who completed an open-ended online questionnaire and 4 alumni who participated in semi-structured interviews targeting their perceptions of ICS in the classroom. In addition to these sources of data, the researcher's reflective journal was analyzed to examine implementation and perceptions of current and alternate ICS instructional strategies. Data were transcribed, reviewed, then coded inductively without a prior list of codes resulting themes of presenting, self-branding, group/team work, networking, global awareness, and diversity. These findings were used to create a faculty professional development series on effective ICS instruction that can be used to promote positive social change for the university, students, and community by preparing graduates ready for success in the workforce.

This study examined motivation, anxiety, global awareness, and linguistic confidence, and their relation to language test performance within the context of Chinese university students taking the College English Test Band 4(CET-4) in China. Using a mixed methods approach, through survey and interview inquiries, this study explored whether and how the selected psychological factors contributed to students’ CET performance. Results from exploratory factor analysis revealed that Chinese university students displayed three types of instrumental motivation (i.e., mark orientation, further-education orientation, and job orientation), two types of anxiety (i.e., language anxiety and test anxiety), and two types of confidence (i.e., linguistic confidence and test confidence). The results of confirmatory factor analysis led to a modified socio-educational model of motivation with some context-specific concepts (i.e., new instrumental orientations, global awareness, and linguistic confidence) that more accurately represented the characteristics of the Chinese university students. The results of structural equation modelling confirmed that attitude toward the learning situation and integrative orientation were two strong indicators of motivation, which in turn influenced language achievement and confidence. The negative impact of anxiety on language achievement was confirmed. Certain group differences were found in comparing male students with female students, high achievers with low achievers, students from the Arts programs with those from the Science programs, and students who started to learn English before Grade 7 with those iii who did so after Grade 7. The interview findings indicated stronger instrumental orientations than integrative orientations. External influences, including influences from society, teachers, and peers, were also identified. Students expressed their mixed feelings toward the CET-4, indicating that this test had both positive and negative influences in promoting their English learning. Testing well-developed motivation and anxiety models in the Chinese context enriched and expanded our knowledge in theory development in English language education in China. The implications of this study point to the importance of understanding language test-takers’ characteristics in their macro and micro learning contexts, as well as the importance of establishing the relevance of English language learning to language teaching, and testing in English as Foreign Language contexts. / Thesis (Ph.D, Education) -- Queen's University, 2009-12-30 22:08:41.138

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