Counseling, Higher Education & Special Education Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2757
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Item Examining the Multidimensional Nature of Engagement: The Development of the Multidimensional Engagement Rubric (MER)(2018) Smith, Patricia; Taboada Barber, Ana M.; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The current literature on the construct of engagement lacks clarity in how it defined, the dimensions associated with engagement, and the way it has been measured. Establishing agreement on how engagement is conceptualized and operationalized will inform the development of instruments that measure this construct accurately. Engagement is an important topic of study given its relationship to students’ reading achievement. Understanding the engagement needs of growing populations of students in K-12 schools, such as English Learners (ELs), is vital to their academic success. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation is to clarify the conceptual and operational problems with the construct of engagement, assess the content validity of a newly developed engagement instrument through experts’ judgements, and test the reliability and criterion-related validity of this instrument with a small sample of ELs. Chapter 2 is a research synthesis that examined the discrepancies surrounding the construct of engagement using instruments that measure engagement for upper elementary and middle school students. Two empirical studies comprise Chapters 3 and 4 of this dissertation. Study 1 assessed the content validity of the items included in the Multidimensional Engagement Rubric (MER) through expert opinion. Study 2 explored the reliability and validity of this instrument when used to measure the engagement of 6th grade English Learners (ELs) participating in literacy instruction. The results from these three papers have uncovered several findings. First, the instruments used to measure student engagement have been constructed using a confounded body of literature which may, in turn, have led to the development of measures that may not have assessed this construct with precision. Next, the MER was developed after synthesizing the engagement literature and eliciting feedback from experts on engagement and motivation, which revealed a need for revising indicators included in the MER. Evidence of high reliability was revealed through weighted Kappa analysis, while criterion-related validity of the MER, when correlated with time on task scores, revealed moderate positive correlations. Finally, correlations between engagement and participants’ ages revealed mostly weak relations despite the small sample size.Item THE CONTRIBUTION OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTION TO READING COMPREHENSION FOR LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE LEARNERS(2018) Meyer, Anna; Silverman, Rebecca D; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research suggests that EF can aid in the prediction of RC. However, much of the existing research into the relationship between these two variables has relied on statistical correlations and simple linear regression, neither of which fully capture the complexity of their theoretical relationship and other known contributors to RC, such as decoding and linguistic comprehension. Accordingly, this dissertation study investigated the relationship between EF and RC through a synthesis of the literature and two separate empirical studies. The first empirical study investigate whether (1) a latent construct of EF, measured by separate assessments of working memory, shifting, and inhibition, makes unique direct contribution to the prediction of RC and (2) whether EF’s latent construct mediates the prediction of RC through decoding and a latent construct of linguistic comprehension. The second empirical study investigated whether (1) a latent construct of EF, measured by separate assessments of working memory, shifting, and inhibition, makes unique direct contribution to the prediction of RC and (2) whether EF’s latent construct mediates the prediction of RC through decoding and a latent construct of linguistic comprehension. Both empirical studies examined this relationship in linguistically diverse learners (LDLs) as an understudied population to extend the current research base. Specifically, the sample included three groups of LDL students: (a) English Learners (ELs), or students who speak a language other than or in addition to English in the home and who are receiving school-based English language services because they have not passed an English language proficiency exam, (b) R-ELs, or students who speak a language other than or in addition to English in the home but have passed an English language proficiency exam and have thus been recently exited from EL services, and (c) EL students from the above cohorts who the school identified as having a disability. Language and disability status, respectively, were entered as moderators in the above models to test for significant differences by group. Limitations of the dissertation study and directions for future research are discussed.