published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 133-141).

The purpose of this study was to identify team development activities which occurred in public elementary schools during the implementation year of the Teacher Assistance Team (TAT) and determine if there were any significant differences between highly effective and less effective teams. The sample under study consisted of 42 elementary schools which were implementing the Teacher Assistance Team model during the 1983-84 school year. A questionnaire survey instrument was used to obtain information from the schools regarding team development activities. School staff were asked to respond to eight general areas thought to impact upon the adoption of the Teacher Assistance Team model in the school. These areas were level of service delivered, effectiveness of service delivered, personnel training, team membership, scheduling of meetings, principals' support strategies, technical assistance needs, and teacher reactions to the team process. Statistical analysis revealed the high and low service teams did not differ significantly in school enrollment, personnel trained, scheduling of team meetings, or 26 of the 27 support strategies employed by building principals. However, the analysis indicated significant differences between the high and low service levels. The high service teams operated for a larger proportion of the months possible; served a larger proportion of the student enrollment; and considered more cases per month and per team than did the low service teams. Additionally, the high service teams attempted to resolve a larger proportion of team development problems and actually resolved more problems than the low service teams. Building principals among the high service teams demonstrated more of a commitment to the team process by personally selecting team members and requiring that teachers experiencing learning or behavior problems in the classroom refer to the team for assistance. The results of this study hold implications for teachers and school administrators. Recommendations were developed enabling state and local educational agency personnel and building principals to increase the effectiveness of Teacher Assistance teams during the first year of the team's operation in the school. Future research is directed to address three outcomes of the team process. These are: referral and cost effectiveness; classroom intervention; and teacher satisfaction.

This study was designed to determine the factorial validity of specific components of the Reitan-Indiana Neuropsychological Battery with a learning disabled population. Scores of 42 children, 38 males, 4 females, ages 6.2 to 8.8 years were compiled on specific tests of the Reitan-Indiana. Principal component factoring of the original correlation matrix was followed by principal factoring, using a 4 factor solution; varimax rotation with six iterations produced the desired reduction of the correlation matrix; four factors emerged for the learning disabled population, which accounted for 53% of the variance: verbal intelligence, psychomotor speed, achievement, and memory. The factor structure that emerged was not consistent with the surface factors of the battery as conceptualized by its author suggesting that this battery may lack construct validity when used with a learning disabled population.

This study investigated the development of acquisition and long term retention processes in Learning Disabled (LD) and Non-Learning Disabled children aged 7-12. One hundred six subjects were randomly assigned to memorize either a list of unrelated words (with free recall), or a list of taxonomically related words (with recall cued by category). Each subject had a 16 word list presented in visual and auditory modes. The repeated recall paradigm alternated study and test trials, with a buffer activity between trials. The acquisition phase ended when the subject reached 100% criterion. After an interval of two weeks, each subject was given 5 additional recall tests. Acquisition results indicated significant main effects for age, group (LD, Non-LD) and list type (unrelated, categorized) on measures of trial-of-last-error and total-errors. Overall, the groups which acquired the lists most quickly were the older and Non-LD subjects, with the categorized list. There was a List x Group interaction on the trial-of-last-error. With the categorized list, only age was significant, and conversely, with the unrelated list, only group was significant. On the retention measures, there were main effects for list and group, with a List x Group interaction. The only significant age effect was with total-words on the categorized list. Over the five trials (repeated measures), there was a significant effect for trials. A consistent hypermnesia effect (increase in net recall) was predominant. Further model-based analyses (Brainerd, Kingma, Howe, & Reyna, 1988) revealed storage failure, rather than retrieval failure to be the major action in children's forgetting. Learning Disabled children had significantly more storage failure than the Non-LD children. Both groups had more storage failure on the unrelated lists. There was retrieval relearning with all groups. Results are discussed within the framework of the disintegration/redintegration theory, which pertains to the gradual weakening and redintegration of bonds that unite features to form a trace.

Interactive teaching approaches have been documented as viable and effective methods of comprehension instruction. This study identified the components characteristic of interactive and directive teaching. The language employed by teachers and learning disabled (LD) students engaged in one of three interactive strategies or a directive strategy are described and compared with student performance. A written summary and a multiple choice comprehension test served as dependent measures. Subjects were upper elementary bilingual, LD students and their teachers in eight self contained or resource classrooms. Classes were randomly assigned to one of four instructional conditions: (a) semantic mapping, (b) semantic feature analysis, (c) semantic syntactic feature analysis, or (d) direct instruction. Teacher utterances were coded according to general, directive, and interactive teaching functions. Student utterances were coded according to prior knowledge categories including elaborate, specific, restrictive, and response, and other. Results reported indicate findings regarding classroom interaction, condition effects, and theoretical tenets. Teacher and student interaction patterns revealed (a) no difference in the amount of teacher talk across assigned conditions, (b) "no response" as the most frequent student response to teacher utterances, and (c) the most student to student conversation occurred in the semantic feature analysis and the semantic syntactic feature analysis condition. Condition effect findings reported significant difference on prior knowledge and cohesiveness of written summaries. Student performance on the multiple choice test exhibited no significant difference on vocabulary items. Theoretical divergence was represented by interactive and directive teaching functions that were most differently used. These differences characterize interactive and directive instruction. Findings indicate that learning disabled students are capable of benefiting from interactive instruction; and, teachers engaged in interactive instruction employ teaching functions that encouraged student participation in classroom discussion.

The role of memory as measured by the Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning (WRAML) was studied in an outpatient clinic sample of 62 arithmetic disabled children.

A total of 60 school psychologists and educational diagnosticians across Texas completed a survey to identify the instruments used to screen and diagnose learning disabled (LD) students, and to identify the criteria on which the final diagnosis and placement of LD or non-LD is made. The results of this survey indicate that consistent methods and criteria are not being used for identifying children as LD within the state. Many of the instruments currently used may not be technically adequate for use with a LD population. Implications of the use of inconsistent criteria, inadequate screening and assessment measures are discussed.

This article discusses how instant video revisiting (IVR) promotes reflective thinking for both teachers and children. IVR was used as a daily classroom experience with both the children and the teachers throughout one semester in two preschool classrooms with children 2.5 to 5 years old. The teachers used a digital video camera to generate data to help them understand the behavior of the children and revisit the children's actions immediately, with the children using the video clips to extend their learning. Two classroom examples illustrate how IVR supports the children's learning and the teacher's reflection of this learning. The first example describes how IVR helped the children reflect on their actions and solve their own conflicts. The second example describes the use of IVR to scaffold the children's idea of the middle of a story, thereby strengthening their own thought processes in relation to a story construction.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1983. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-129). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.