Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 165-178).

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2001. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-83). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ67728.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2002. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-160). Also available via the World Wide Web.

The Texas Education Agency’s Social Studies Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills results show an achievement gap between males and females for every criteria on every test given since 2003. The most dramatic achievement difference is in the area of “traditional” U.S. History. The Texas results mimic a gender gap reported by College Board Texas AP U.S. history exams and the 2006 National Assessment of Education Programs United States assessment for 8th and 12th graders. Literature and education research outline a contentious background the current social studies and history education programs a, a history of social studies assessment programs, and different theoretical frameworks regarding male and female learning. A Transformative Sequential Mixed Method/Model Design was used for this study. Social Studies TAKS quantitative data collected by the Texas Education Agency formed the basis for an Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) study. The Researcher gathered data from a statewide sampling of social studies supervisors, administrators, teachers and Austin Independent School District social studies students. Findings show perspectives regarding the social studies are different and crucial to effective instruction. Both female and male student focus groups believe the teacher to be in complete control of student learning whereas social studies supervisors, administrators, and teachers find the teacher to be a recipient of the pressures from the statewide assessment, accountability, external influences. Female students are shaped by the influences of their outside life and find the entire subject matter covered by the social studies irrelevant. Male students are more personally involved in the history and social studies subject matter finding it important and interesting. / text

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Within the framework of task-based language teaching, various types of tasks have been proposed, yet in English as foreign language classroom contexts where learners’ exposure to target language input is often limited, the adoption of form-focused tasks seems to receive much credit. Although the potential academic gains brought forth by such tasks have been studied in some previous quantitative research, the call for investigations into those tasks from a learner perspective remains warranted. In this study I investigated the use of grammatical consciousness-raising (C-R) tasks as an inductive approach to grammar pedagogy in an EFL classroom from a learner perspective. While performing such tasks the informants, who were a class of secondary level English as foreign language learners, made discoveries about the targeted grammar items based on contextualized examples provided. In the study I first examined the extent to which adopting C-R tasks impacted on the informants’ learning of English grammar through pretests and posttests. Second, I elicited their perceptions of C-R tasks through a questionnaire and two semi-structured interviews. Third, with the think-aloud protocols method I studied the informants’ engagement with the grammar items presented through either C-R tasks or deductive explanation. The findings revealed that the majority of the informants were able to develop grammatical understanding through performing C-R tasks. They tended to respond positively to and show deep engagement with the grammar items presented though such tasks as well. To enhance the perceived effectiveness of such tasks and thus to maximize the effect of grammar teaching, I concluded by suggesting the need for teachers to make the learners fully aware of the nature of and rationale behind C-R tasks and to investigate whether and how such tasks can be integrated with other methodological options in realizing effective grammar instruction in their own contexts. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Education

The purpose of this research study is to explore first graders’ understanding of parental involvement in a rural high school, to investigate students’ feeling and attitude towards their parents’ participation in high school education, to understand rural students’ expectation of parent-teacher collaboration, and further to examine potential differences caused by gender, degree of parental involvement, and level of academic performance. Qualitative data was collected by means of individual interviews and questionnaires among first-grade students in a rural high school in Heilongjiang Province. The research involves 12 interview participants and 115 students for questionnaires. After transcribing verbally all the individual interviews, both line-by-line coding and software N-Vivo were utilized to analyze transcriptions in order to generate main codes and themes to describe students’ understanding and perception and further explore differences across individual interview participants. Questionnaire data was entered into Excel program to create figures supporting findings of interviews. Findings show that rural high school students understand parental involvement as interactions involving parents, teachers and students in four aspects- material, supportive, communicative and environmental. Effective communication, initiation of providing supports, good relationship, and comfortable environment were highlighted in students’ expectations. Secondly, the feelings of confident, proud, warm, happy, relax, pressure, and distrust were related by students to their parents’ various practices of involvement in high school education. Moreover, students identified three different attitudes towards parental involvement: positive, negative, and dependent. It was found that students’ attitude towards the communicative parental involvement was highly depended on the content and the frequency. Besides, students tend to express their neutral attitude towards activities that were not implemented in the high school such as participation in school decision making and parent-teacher association. Thirdly, academic scores and motivation of study were discovered to be affected by parents’ involvement. Parent involvement with positive feeling and positive attitude were more likely to be related to positive effects on academic outcomes by students. The research suggests a three-way communication among parents, teachers and students at school and in the community. Findings imply that it is necessary for rural high schools and rural parents to work together with students in the establishment of home-school cooperation. Students’ reaction and expectation provide valuable implications for practices of parental involvement in rural high school. Individual differences are also recommended to be taken into considerations in the practices. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Students pursue different goals in school, which have been shown to influence a variety of educational outcomes. The achievement goal framework which focuses on mastery and performance goals is currently the most dominant paradigm for the examination of students‘ goals in the school setting. Numerous studies have shown the different consequences associated with the pursuit of mastery and performance goals. However, a limitation of achievement goal theory is its neglect of social goals which pertain to social reasons for studying. This is surprising given the importance of interpersonal relationships for adolescent students. Moreover, from a cross-cultural perspective, social goals seem to be even more salient for students from collectivist cultures due to the greater importance of the relational fabric in such societies. Therefore, the general aim of this study was to investigate the types, the structure, and the consequences of social goals in a collectivist cultural context. Five inter-related studies were conducted with Filipino secondary school students. Study 1 was a qualitative study which aimed to assess the different types of goals that students pursued. Results indicated that most of the goals pertained to social goals, and only a minority of these referred to the more commonly-researched achievement goals. Studies 2 and 3 aimed to examine the cross-cultural applicability of the 2 x 2 achievement goal model and the hierarchical and multidimensional model of social goals respectively in the Philippine setting. The 2 x 2 achievement goal model posits a distinction between four types of achievement goals: mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, and performance avoidance, while the hierarchical and multidimensional model of social goals construes social goals as a higher-order construct underpinned by five specific types of social goals: social affiliation, social approval, social concern, social responsibility, and social status. Results of these two studies indicated that these models were both applicable to Filipino students. As such, they were used in the subsequent studies. The aim of Study 4 was to test the relationships among achievement goals, social goals, academic engagement, and achievement. A longitudinal design was adopted and results indicated that social goals were the most salient positive predictors of academic engagement. They were also negative predictors of academic disengagement. Engagement and disengagement, in turn, mediated the impact of goals on subsequent academic achievement. Study 5 examined the relationships among achievement goals, social goals, and well-being. A longitudinal design was adopted, and results showed that mastery-approach and social goals were the most beneficial for well-being. Taken together, these studies showed the importance of investigating social goals alongside the oft-examined achievement goals given their greater salience and their causal dominance over achievement goals in predicting both achievement-related and broader well-being outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as directions for future research are discussed. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Drawing on critical race theory, racial formation theory and the extant literature on the so-called post-racial turn in American life, this research explored the broad question of how young people of color make sense of issues of race and equity in the era of the first Black president. Using a case study design, as well as elements of visual research methods and narrative inquiry, I examined how a group of high school students of color at a predominantly White high school have learned about race and Obama, considering both formal school curricula and out-of school sources. I also sought to understand what significance the students placed on president Obama’s election, including their views on racial progress in the U.S. and their beliefs in the plausibility of a post-racial American era. Through the collection and analysis of interview, classroom observation, and artifact data, my findings suggest that schools can be unfriendly spaces for learning about these topics, but students pick up rich, though scattered, information through out-of-school sources such as family, community, and media. Additionally, students exhibited contradictory beliefs about race in America, with experiences of racial marginalization at school juxtaposed with measured optimism about racial progress in the U.S. Students also expressed personal inspiration in having a Black president and a willingness to hold multiple, competing narratives about race, Barack Obama, and their own lived experiences. These findings suggest a need for history and social studies teachers to provide formal curricular spaces for open discussion about race and President Obama to allow students to discuss and extend their multiple Obama narratives. Researchers must also consider the hybridized racial stories of both students of color and of the 44th president. / text