Studies have consistently shown that teachers’ ratings of behavior were predictive of academic difficulties. While research has clearly indicated that behavior has a reciprocal relationship with academic achievement, there is a scarcity of research on the relationship between outcomes on high stakes tests and student behavior. Early identification of children at risk for academic difficulties is vital for successful intervention and remediation. Therefore, this researcher investigated use of a brief behavior screener as a predictor of students at risk for failing a high stakes test. Results from the Behavior Assessment System for Children–Teacher Rating Scale–Child Screener (BASC-TRS-C Screener) provided an assessment of behavior. Georgia’s Criterion Referenced Test – Reading and Math scores provided achievement in reading and math. An analysis of data on 636 second through fifth grade participants revealed a significant inverse relationship between teacher ratings of student behavior and achievement. Thirteen of the fifteen models suggested that teachers’ ratings of behavior indicated with greater accuracy students at risk for academic difficulties than did the model without the behavior ratings. While two models were not significant, they clearly suggested an inverse relationship between behavior and achievement. Logistic Regression analyses suggested that the BASC-TRS-C Screener predicted with 90% accuracy the pass fail classification group associated with the score. The odds ratio suggested that with each point decrease on the BASC-TRS-C Screener score, (in which high scores equal greater behavior concerns) the chances of passing the Criterion Referenced Competency Test reading high stakes test increased by 5%. In the area of math, the odds of passing increased by 6% with each point decrease on the BASC-TRS-C Screener. Other findings suggested that minorities have a significantly greater risk (p < .05) of failing the Criterion Reference Competency Test in the areas of reading, math, or both reading and math than do their same age peers.

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In the last few years, due to the process of students¡¦ political socialization and the promotion of campus democracy and feminism awareness, the management of the correct clothing manners discipline stipulation has become an important issue for the teachers of various schools to counsel and discipline their students. The goal of this research is to inquire into the reasons, the cognition and the motivation of students violating the correct clothing manners discipline stipulation. Also, according to the findings, I aim to propose specific suggestions to assist schools to establish suitable correct clothing manners discipline standards in order to provide teachers references to counsel and discipline their students¡¦ correct clothing manners. Moreover, I aim to promote the teachers¡¦ abilities to counsel and discipline their students and reduce the conflicts between students and teachers while dealing with correct clothing manners discipline management. The technique of this research is to carry out an in-depth interview, which adopts a Tainan senior vocational high school as the main subject and the students of special behavior opposing the correct clothing manners discipline as the interiewee objects. In this research, I discover that students who have different cognition and motivations towards the correct clothing manners discipline stipulation are obviously different in their correct clothing manners discipline behavior. The cognition towards the correct clothing manners discipline stipulation, the motivation towards the correct clothing manners discipline stipulation and the correct clothing manners discipline behavior are all closely related. As for the motivation towards the correct clothing manners discipline stipulation, there is a tangible intermediary effect between the cognition and the correct clothing manners discipline behavior.

Scholars in the field of student judicial affairs have recommended that institutions remove all legal terminology and references in student conduct codes and create codes based on student development theory and practice (Dannells, 1997; Gehring, 2001; Stoner & Cerminara 1990; Stoner, 2000). The purpose of this study was to analyze student conduct codes to determine the extent to which college and university administrators have adopted Stoner and Cerminara, Gehring, and Pavela's suggestions. This study is a content analysis of student conduct codes. The data were collected by using a stratified randomly selected group of Carnegie classified institutions and examining the student conduct code for each institution from the respective institution's website. Descriptive statements were used to code and analyze the data. The study results show that only 20% of the institutions in the study had taken the advice of the judicial scholars and removed all legalistic language. Therefore, the majority of the institutions in this study, regardless of institutional type or size, need to reexamine and modify their student conduct codes. / Master of Arts

High profile behavioral problems have motivated a national call for accountability by colleges and universities to better manage these issues to maintain safe and supportive campus communities. The current literature supports the use of the student conduct process as the main student behavioral intervention, but limited research has been published that examine the outcomes associated with the process. This study examines the experiences of students who participated in the conduct process and influence on their learning and future behaviors. The study also compares the experiences of students to the expressed outcomes of the professionals who administer the process. This study utilizes a qualitative research design to provide a reflective understanding of administrators’ desired outcomes pertaining to the conduct process and students’ experiences and meaning-making after participating in the same process. The study exams students’ perceptions of learning and ways future behaviors are influenced due to participating in the conduct process. This study takes place at a large four-year public urban institution located in the Northeast and includes interviews with students who participated in the student conduct process between August 2012 and September 2014 and of administrators that oversee the disciplinary proceedings at the same university. The findings from this study reveal similarities and differences between administrators and students that may provide useful in exploring ways to further prevent disciplinary issues and support students when behaviors occur beyond what is already being offered. Additionally, findings demonstrate that learning is occurring, which students attribute to interactions with administrators, active sanctions involving peer interactions, and learning to critically think through future decisions before making them. Furthermore, students’ claims that the conduct process is educational aligns with responses shared by administrators, but are not fully substantiated, due to a lack of formal outcomes and assessment measures that could validate the overall effectiveness of the conduct process. / Educational Leadership

The relationships between building condition and student achievement, student behavior, and student attitude were investigated by reviewing research. A synthesis of research studies from 1998 through 2008 was completed. A matrix was replicated from Lemasters’ 1997 study that identified the researchers used in each study. The matrix presented each author and the areas each author researched. The first task was to determine if a substantial amount of research was available from the time period between 1998 through 2008. Current research through journals, research reports, briefs, and theses and dissertations supported this. The main research question examined if current relationships existed between building conditions and student achievement, student behavior, and student attitude by synthesizing several studies from 1998 through 2008. The results of the studies within this time period presented many new phenomena and also either substantiated or refuted findings in the previous syntheses conducted by Weinstein (1979), McGuffey (1982), and Lemasters (1997). Over one hundred pieces of literature were reviewed that supported a preponderance of evidence, which broadened the field of focus to include certain variables that affect student achievement, student behavior, and student attitude. There were 54 studies to be synthesized and included some independent variables presented in Lemasters’ study, as well as the variables of lighting, acoustics, school age, density, climate conditions, design features, teachers, attendance, attitudes, miscellaneous studies, and building conditions. There were 35 dissertations reviewed that involved the dependent and independent variables mentioned above. Student academics, student perceptions and attitudes, and behavioral statistics were analyzed within each study. Each analysis of studies included the author of the study, the title of the document, the purpose of the study, the sample population used in the study, the statistical methodology used, the independent and dependent variables identified, and the findings and conclusions. The studies were formatted in a matrix and identified the number of studies in which the dependent variables of student achievement, student attitude, and student behavior. The majority of all 54 studies involving building conditions and independent variables, from 1998 through 2008, had a direct influence on student achievement, student behavior, and student attitude. Newer, well maintained, schools had a positive influence on the dependent variables, while older, less cared for, and non-modernized schools had an adverse relationship to student achievement, student behavior, and student attitude. The results of the previous three syntheses in 1979, 1982, and 1997, along with the results of the findings in this study supported and indicated that building condition was directly related to student achievement, student behavior, and student attitude. / Ph. D.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 was established to improve student achievement among all public school students. To accomplish this goal, this federal mandate requires each state to establish the seven set priorities under NCLB. In addition, each state is required to establish and report their accomplishments and failures annually. One priority listed under NCLB required that all public schools establish a safe learning environment for students, school staff, and parents (U.S. Government, 2001). Some researchers have identified a high frequency of student discipline incidents, resulting in high suspension and expulsion rates, as a negative constuct that hinders teachers from establishing a nurturing learning environment. As a result, students are unable to develop the skills they need to successfully pass their state-wide assessment test (Howard et. al., 1987; Hernandez & Seem, 2004). Therefore, this study was designed to determined if there is a relationship between incidents of student discipline and student achievement across public school districts in Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. For the purpose of this study, a hierarchical clustering analysis was used to create five clusters of school divisions (N=1,108) within the four states according to similiarities. To accomplish this task, a data matrix was created, which contains data of the total number of incidents for disorderly conduct, weapon violations, substance abuse, and violence; the number of students receiving free and reduced lunch; and the number of students by race/ethnicity for each school district within the four states. The findings indicate that there is a relationship between incidents of student discipline and student achievement among the four states. / Ph. D.

As more students interact with online learning platforms and eTextbooks, they generate massive amounts of data. For example, the OpenDSA eTextbook system collects clickstream data as users interact with prose, visualizations, and interactive auto-graded exercises. Ideally, instructors and system developers can harness this information to create better instructional experiences. But in its raw event-level form, it is difficult for developers or instructors to understand student behaviors, or to make testable hypotheses about relationships between behavior and performance. In this study, we describe our efforts to break raw event-level data first into sessions (a continuous series of work by a student) and then to meaningfully abstract the events into higher-level descriptions of that session. The goal of this abstraction is to help instructors and researchers gain insights into the students' learning behaviors. For example, we can distinguish when students read material and then attempt the associated exercise, versus going straight to the exercise and then hunting for the answers in the associated material. We first bundle events into related activities, such as the events associated with stepping through a given visualization, or with working a given exercise. Each such group of events defines a state. A state is a basic unit that characterizes the interaction log data, and there are multiple state types including reading prose, interacting with visual contents, and solving exercises. We harnessed the abstracted data to analyze studying behavior and compared it with course performance based on GPA. We analyzed data from the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 sections of a senior-level Formal Languages course, and also from the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 sections of a data structures course. / Master of Science / OpenDSA is an online learning platform used in multiple academic institutions including Virginia Tech's Computer Science courses. They use OpenDSA as the main instructional method and students in these courses generate massive amounts of clickstream data while interacting with the OpenDSA content. The system collects various events logs such as when students opened/closed a certain page, how long they stayed on the page, and how many times they clicked an interface element for visualizations and exercises. However, in its raw event-level form, it is difficult for instructors or developers to understand student behaviors, or to make testable hypotheses about relationships between behavior and performance. We describe our efforts to break raw event-level clickstreams into a session (continuous series of work by a student) and then to abstract the events into meaningful higher-level descriptions of students' behavior. We grouped raw events into related activities, such as the events associated with stepping through a given visualization, or working with a given exercise. We defined such a group of activities as a state, which is a basic unit that can characterize the interaction log data such as reading, slideshows, and exercises state. We harnessed the abstracted data to analyze students' studying behavior and compared it with their course performance based on their GPA. We analyzed data from two offerings of two CS courses at Virginia Tech to gain insights into students' learning behaviors.

The problem of the present study was to determine the relationship between role-preferences of experienced elementary school teachers and their attitudes toward certain behavior problems of children.

Managing challenging behaviour in the classroom is a problem faced by all teachers. Challenging behaviour is any form of behaviour that interferes with children's learning or normal development; is harmful to the child, other children or adults; or puts a child in a high risk category for later social problems or school failure. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the link between undesirable behaviours of students and their effect on classroom learning culture, as one of the key factors in behaviour management is in understanding why challenging behaviour occurs. The qualitative nature of this research allowed for the exploration of both teacher and student narratives by learning from their experiences regarding challenging behaviour and its effect on a classroom learning culture. The literature review revealed that it is important, that teachers have a personal definition of challenging behaviour and reflect on their own personal beliefs and the beliefs of others regarding the understanding of challenging behaviours. Research, reviewed in Chapter 2 has indicated that challenging behaviour is strongly context dependent as seen particularly in the impact of different cultural contexts on that behaviour, that learning and behaviour are socially and culturally acquired and that academic learning and social learning are interconnected. It is the teachers' responsibility to initiate a classroom culture that recognises the connections between learning and behaviour, especially when there are a number of cultures represented. This type of classroom culture must be acceptable to, and shared by both students and teachers, must recognise and respond to cultural difference, and must avoid deficit thinking about minoritized cultures. To achieve this, teachers need to be the ones that change the most as they are the ones who hold the power to do so. Successful teachers need to place a high value on forming mutually respectful, trusting and positive relationships with their students which will create classrooms and schools that are safe and caring and allow a stronger focus on realising potential and encourage learning. The most effective way of forming such relationships is to learn to listen to and respect student voice. The outcomes of this study confirm findings in literature by demonstrating, that a close, positive and supportive relationship between teacher and students are essential for developing learning potential and for responding appropriately to challenging behaviour. Recognition of student voice is central to achieving these aims. Teachers also need to be aware of cultural difference and be prepared to make shifts in their thinking so that their own culture does not totally dominate in the classroom. In this study, the student and teacher participants were representative of both Māori and European ethnicity and the findings suggest that their assertions regarding how challenging behaviours affects learning were noticeably similar. This suggests perhaps that the participants in this study felt they were in a culturally safe environment where the teachers' culture did not always dominate.