<p> As discussed in past literature, high school students often lack motivation towards learning (Crow, 2007; Lumsden, 1995). This lack of motivation interferes with student learning (Lumsden,1995; Vansteenkiste, Simons, Lens, Soenens, &amp; Matos, 2005). At the middle school and collegiate level, Socratic Seminar is seen to provide motivation towards learning in students (Copeland, 2005; Mee, 2000; Strong, 1996); however, there is a need for research on student motivation as a result of Socratic Seminar at the high school level. </p><p> The purpose of this study is to identify the extent to which, if any, differences exist in student motivation towards learning among students receiving English instruction via Socratic Seminar versus traditional lecture at the high school level. It was hypothesized that Socratic Seminar provides a better opportunity for students to experience the IV pillars of motivation as described by John Keller (1987a)--attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction--than traditional lecture does. </p><p> A quantitative correlational design was implemented with a cross-sectional data collection administered post-implementation of traditional lecture 3 times and post-implementation of Socratic Seminar 3 times over an 8-week period with 139 11th grade English students at Lutheran High School of Orange County. The responses were viewed as a group through the application of chi-squares. Next, chi-squares were applied to analyze the group's results for each question from the modified CIS. Then, the results were analyzed via Cramer's V within the individual constructs of motivation as described by the CIS, which include: attention, relevance, confidence and satisfaction. </p><p> The results displayed Socratic Seminar as providing a more motivating experience towards learning in certain areas of motivation while lecture was seen to be more motivating for other areas of motivation. It was originally believed the application of Socratic Seminar would provide higher student motivation toward learning. From these results, it was learned that teachers must seek a balanced approach in their teaching by applying both Socratic Seminar and lecture. In a broader sense, the lesson learned is that different teaching strategies motivate students in different ways and a wide range of teaching strategies ought to be applied.</p>

<p> The Jewish community has increasingly relied upon Experiential Education as a pedagogical approach to instilling Jewish identity and communal affiliation over the past twenty years. The Experiential Education format of travel programs has specifically been emphasized and promoted for Jewish Emerging Adults for this purpose, and outcome studies of these trip programs have demonstrated success in instilling identification and affiliation with both the Jewish community and the state of Israel among their participants. However, little is actually empirically known about the processes that impact the participant during the trip experience &ndash; the so-called "black box" &ndash; or how significant a participant's predisposition towards Israel and Judaism are in how they process their trip experiences. Even less is empirically known about the identity development of Jewish Emerging Adults in large part due to a pre-disposition to study Jews developmentally only as affiliates of a religion rather than members of a distinctly multi-layered group. </p><p> This grounded theory study examines participants in two different trip experiences, Taglit Birthright Israel and an Alternative Spring Break, through post-trip interviews. The emergent theory suggests three conclusions: The predisposition of a participant towards their own Jewish identity can influence how they process their experiences on the trip; the actual trip experience can be best understood as repeatedly processing multiple and ongoing experiences within the trip itself; the processing of those experiences can be descriptively modeled as a theory that allows an glimpse in to the "black box." Such a theoretical model can be used to better train trip staff on how the trip experience impacts the Jewish identity of those participants and also to plan trip itineraries to optimize the trip's experiential impact on participant Jewish and Zionist identity and communal affiliation.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to assess the goal intent and achievement of university students, during the Fall 2011 semester, at Blue Wave University, a high research activity public institution in the southeast United States. This study merged theories of motivation to measure goal setting and goal attainment to examine if students who chose to participate in a learning community program set goals at different levels than the students who chose not to join a learning community program.</p><p> This study investigated if there was a difference in motivation, by studying goal intent and goal achievement of Freshman Learning Community participants, Living-Learning community participants, or non-learning community participants at Blue Wave University. Data were collected for 363 students who were eligible and responded to the assessment, College Assessment of Readiness for Entering Students (CARES). CARES was developed by Blue Wave University as a pretest, CARES-I (intended) and posttest, CARES-A (achieved). This study analyzed whether or not students, who are classified as First Time In College (FTIC), in the studied groups, had a difference in their level of intended goals, (responses to CARES-I), achieved goals (responses to CARES-A), and the level of change from goal intent to goal achievement (the change in student responses from CARES-I to CARES-A), during their first semester enrolled at Blue Wave University. </p><p> Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to investigate the change from goal intent to goal achievement; results revealed that the level of change was not significantly different for the three groups. All three groups of students achieved fewer goals than they intended. Although the Living-Learning Community participants did not achieve all the goals they set, the ANOVA indicated that the tests were significantly different as Living- Learning Community participants set higher goals and achieved higher goals than the Freshman Learning Community participants or non-learning community participants.</p><p> Moderation analyses concluded that none the seven contextual variables (choice of college, ethnicity, gender, high school grade point average, living on-campus, SAT score, and ACT score) moderated the difference in the level of change from goal intent to goal achievement in this study.</p>

<p> Growing demand for higher education has contributed to the popularity of online education. While online courses can be effective in terms of student learning and success, and there are many potential benefits, there are also still areas that can be improved. There is evidence that students can experience online courses as impersonal and lacking interaction. They can feel isolated, less satisfied, less successful, and are more likely to withdraw. Thus, one of the challenges facing online education is to find ways to increase connection and interaction between students and faculty.</p><p> One means for addressing the sense of isolation students might feel in online courses might be instructor immediacy. While instructor immediacy in traditional classes has been shown to motivate students, create a sense of connection, and support their learning and success, it is not known whether or how immediacy can help students in a fully online course.</p><p> The purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental intervention study was to examine the effectiveness of faculty immediacy on undergraduate student engagement and success in an online course. Students in an upper division psychology course were randomly assigned to either a redesigned high immediacy section or a 'regular' section. The study's hypothesized framework suggested that instructor immediacy would enhance student engagement, and thereby influence student success.</p><p> A survey measured immediacy and student engagement; success was measured by total points earned. The sample included 215 students enrolled in the course in the fall 2012 semester. Independent samples <i>t-</i>tests, correlations, multiple regression, and repeated measures ANOVA were the statistical tests used.</p><p> The findings revealed no significant differences between the high immediacy (intervention section) and low immediacy (regular nonintervention group) sections of the course. Immediacy and engagement were highly correlated. Engagement was a significant predictor of student success. Age, units completed, and gender were also significant predictors of student success in this study. These results provide insight into the relationship between immediacy and engagement. Implications and recommendations based on the findings of this study are given. Further studies are recommended to further study the relationship between immediacy and engagement.</p>

<p> Current research shows that students with a growth mindset are more motivated to learn, want to work harder, are less discouraged by difficulty, use more effective strategies for learning, and have higher academic performance in comparison to students without this mindset. Despite these promising findings, a growth mindset is sometimes not reinforced or is even refuted by classroom conditions. The purpose of this intrinsic case study was to explore how community college educators create classroom environments that foster a growth mindset. The conceptual framework for this study was a social constructivist approach where the interviewer and the participants co-constructed the interpretation of how to influence a growth mindset in the community college classroom. Data were collected through 14 in-depth interviews with community college educators who completed a workshop on influencing a growth mindset. Data were analyzed through categorizing, coding, and identifying themes that answered the research question. The findings of this study indicated that the mindset of the student and the teacher play an important role in academic success at the community college and that faculty desire training in tools and strategies to create classroom environments that foster a growth mindset. Recommendations include an in-depth, experiential professional development program based on research where community college educators from a variety of disciplines can collaborate to gain new knowledge and skills. Training community college educators using the most effective ways of fostering a growth mindset to increase students' motivation, effort, and persistence will lead to greater academic success and degree completion.</p>

<p> Emergent popularity and student consumer/educational administrator demand for online technology in counselor education is also increasing the need to research its impact and potential effectiveness/ineffectiveness as a pedagogical tool. Research shows that the trend toward online coursework is likely to increase in the future and also that the new trend is moving away from asynchronous text-based delivery toward virtual environments using video and audio (Robey, 2009). </p><p> Counselor educator led preparation programs are experiencing more pressure to join the online bandwagon and yet lag behind other professions in utilizing technologies in education (Karper, Robinson, &amp; Casado-Kehoe, 2005). Although some studies have investigated the use of online technology in counselor education, very few studies have explored using virtual simulated clients in counselor education in order to develop counseling skills (Engen, Finken, Luschei, &amp; Kenney, 1994; Hayes, Taub, Robinson, &amp; Sivo, 2003; Karper et al., 2005). </p><p> Furthermore, self-efficacy is a critical component of counseling skill development for counselors-in-training (CITs; Levitt &amp; Jacques, 2005). Therefore, the purpose of this mixed-methods dissertation was to investigate whether online learning technology using synchronous, online, video-based, computer-guided, simulated-client microskills drills in real time influenced microskills development for counselors-in-training. </p><p> Further, I used <i>Counselingskills on Demand</i> (COD) online virtual client microskills drills within the framework of Bandura's (1977) social cognitive theory that performance is the best indicator of self-efficacy and explored how online microskills drills influence counseling student microskills performance and developmental process. </p><p> Qualitative data analysis suggested that participants were comfortable with online learning, found virtual client microskills drills most beneficial while developing a basic understanding of the difference between microskills and how to use them, and less useful once a basic understanding and ability to use the microskills was established. Overall, study results appeared to indicate that online learning technology using synchronous, online, video-based, computer-guided, simulated-client microskills drills in real time may be beneficial, may assist counseling students in the developmental process of increasing cognitive complexity and self-efficacy, could lead to decreased anxiety when doing counseling, and might help develop microskills understanding and basic proficiency.</p>

<p>Although literacy skills have been associated with critical academic, social, and economic outcomes, most adolescents in the United States lack basic proficiency in reading comprehension. Experts in the field of adolescent literacy have identified affective components of reading (e.g., reading attitudes) as a critical topic in need of further research. Prior research has found a significant correlation between affective components of reading and reading comprehension, even after controlling for cognitive covariates (e.g., vocabulary). However, the bulk of this research has been limited to first language learners and children in the early grades. Therefore, this study extends the reading attitudes literature by examining these relationships among Latino adolescents, including those who speak English as a second language. Furthermore, reading attitudes has predicted reading comprehension growth among certain populations, although the mechanisms behind this relationship are unclear. This study theorizes that reading attitudes promotes reading development by facilitating incidental vocabulary acquisition through increased reader engagement and implicit strategy use. Therefore, this study also extends the literature by determining whether reading attitudes predicts vocabulary growth from September to June of ninth grade. Participants were 128 ninth grade students in a low-income, predominantly Latino high school. 24% spoke English only (EO), 26% were from Spanish-speaking homes but had been determined to be initially fluent-English-proficient (I-FEP) at enrollment, 21% were classified as &ldquo;true&rdquo; English learners (ELs) who had not yet attained proficiency in English, and 29% were former English learners who had been redesignated fluent-English-proficient (R-FEP). Reading attitudes were assessed using an adapted form of the Elementary Reading Attitudes Survey (ERAS), which contains both recreational (ERAS-R) and academic (ERAS-A) reading subscales. In a hierarchical regression analysis (HRA), the ERAS-R independently predicted reading comprehension after controlling for language group, vocabulary, and word reading ability (i.e., decoding, word recognition, and fluency). No language group interactions were detected. In a second HRA, the ERAS-R predicted students&rsquo; vocabulary at the end of ninth grade after controlling for language group, prior vocabulary achievement, and word reading ability. However, reading attitudes only predicted vocabulary development for EO and R-FEP students, while no effect was present for I-FEP children and &ldquo;true&rdquo; ELs. </p>

<p> Verified improvement in the treatment of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in the past decade has involved both early interventionists and parents. It is widely acknowledged that the parent-child relationship is fundamental to the development of communication and social skills, especially for children with ASD, and accordingly that parent education is critical. However, lists of required skills and knowledge in professionally developed curricula designed for parents of children with ASD have not been prioritized by the consensus of large numbers of variously affiliated practitioners. The present research yielded wide professional agreement on the prioritization of such skills and knowledge. The instrument used was a self-evaluating, closed-ended survey administered to 483 behaviorists who treat autism. In particular, the survey identified whether a participant had a child with autism or not. The information gathered will assist in the development of a curriculum intended to guide parents in optimizing the help they can give their children with autism.</p>

<p> This phenomenological case study of finding meaning explored the developmental nature of Pepperdine University&rsquo;s Doctor of Education in Organization Change (EDOC) program through graduates, who as students, found deep, visceral, and life changing meaning. The primary request of participants, identified as co-inquirers, was to: describe in as much detail as possible how meaning was found through their participation in the EDOC program. Detailed storied descriptions from 10 graduates were gathered through interviews. Anecdotes were gathered by email from other graduates concerning the meaning found, relational experiences, and vivid program experiences. In my analysis of data, I explicated the structure (the relationship among the most invariant constituents of the phenomenon) and meaning (implications) from their lived experience. Though particulars differed, the interview data revealed a structure surrounding each of the ten co-inquirers as being (a) self-aware learners who joined the program with assumptions concerning the challenging nature of the learning experience; (b) a socially constructed environment that facilitates the formation of relational sets and community engagement; (c) deep and rich dialogic relationships among participants within the learning community; (d) co-constructed learning through collaboration with faculty and fellow students; (e) abundant free-space in learning enabling the transcendence of boundaries to personal growth; (f) an immensely helping and caring environment; (g) significant opportunities to challenge and broaden worldviews through program experiences; and (h) consistent validation of progress toward personal, educational and life goals. In coming to understand the phenomenon for finding meaning, I used descriptive phenomenology and given my presence as a student in the program being studied, I offered my own observations. I framed propositions from the study&rsquo;s findings for progressive educators and organization development professions. Meaning found led to life changes such as improved personal and professional effectiveness, a deeper sense of self and self-worth, a clearer view of the world, and an ability to enact what had been taken from the experience; a significant educational outcome in addition to cognitive competencies, field knowledge and application. Those who have experienced the program came away with a deeper sense of purpose and far reaching capabilities to serve.</p>

<p> This study sought to fill the gap in the literature concerning gifted students and academic motivation by examining the academic motivation in 126 non-gifted (<i>n</i> = 66) and intellectually gifted (<i>n </i> = 60) middle and high school students. The study used archival data to answer the following questions: What is the relationship between motivational variables, test anxiety, and student GPA for both non-gifted and gifted students? Are there differences in motivation across student group and across gender? And does a unique profile of motivation exist for intellectually gifted students? Study results revealed positive relationships between certain aspects of motivation and academic performance within the non-gifted students and the gifted students. Findings indicated that intellectually gifted middle and high school students tend to be more motivated than their non-gifted peers and experience significantly less test anxiety than their non-gifted peers. Gender differences in motivation were found only within the gifted group on intrinsic goal orientation, with gifted female students reporting more intrinsic goal orientation than their male counterparts. While a unique profile of motivation did not arise for intellectually gifted students, the gifted students were more likely to fall within cluster groups with high motivation, high sense of control over academic outcomes and high perception of their ability to successfully complete academic tasks. These students tended to have a higher GPA and experience very little test anxiety when compared to students with low motivation.</p>