Human Development & Quantitative Methodology Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2779
Browse
3 results
Search Results
Item STUDYING EPISTEMIC COGNITION IN THE HISTORY CLASSROOM: CASES OF TEACHING AND LEARNING TO THINK HISTORICALLY(2010) Maggioni, Liliana; Alexander, Patricia A; VanSledright, Bruce; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Building on the literature on epistemic cognition, epistemic beliefs, and historical thinking, three class-level case studies were conducted to investigate features of historical thinking and history-specific epistemic beliefs of high-school students and their teachers. These cases also considered teachers' pedagogical practices and the potential effects of those practices on students' historical thinking and epistemic beliefs. Two junior honors and one freshman US History classes were selected from a school system that fostered the preparation of students for AP History courses by encouraging the use of a variety of primary sources and analysis of documents in teaching history. Preliminary visits indicated that these classes' teachers used different pedagogical practices. Class observations spanned one semester of instruction. History-specific epistemic beliefs were explored using interviews structured around the items of the Beliefs about History Questionnaire (BHQ) and historical thinking was assessed through analysis of think-alouds collected while student informants (4 from each class) and their teachers read a set of 6 documents and responded to a constructed response task (CRT). Specifically, student data were collected at the middle and end of the semester, while teachers were interviewed only once, at the end of the semester. In one of the junior classes, 27 additional juniors responded in writing to the BHQ and to the CRTs. Additional questionnaires and interviews explored teachers' goals, rationales for their practice, and interest in history. In regard to history-specific epistemic beliefs, results indicated that students and teachers manifested ideas indicative of different developmental levels, suggesting that their epistemic beliefs are a complex system, not necessarily characterized by a high level of integration. Differences across students tended to be greater in regard to epistemic beliefs than to historical thinking. In addition, comparison of initial and follow-up data suggested different trajectories of change in regard to students' epistemic beliefs while changes in historical thinking were modest and not consistently suggesting progression in competence. These trends were confirmed by the analysis of students' written responses to the BHQ and the CRTs. The study identified a set of ideas and behaviors that tended to produce cognitive impasse and hindered the development of historical thinking and a series of pedagogical practices, mostly aligned with teachers' goals and beliefs, which might have fostered such outcomes.Item Characteristics of Classroom Contexts, Self-Processes, Engagement, and Achievement across the Transition from Middle School to High School(2007-01-03) Tomback, Robert M; Wentzel, Kathryn R; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The central purposes of this study were to determine the impact of high school transition on the experience of the 93 participating students (33 males, 60 females, 72 Caucasian, 17 African-American, 2 Asian, and 2 mixed-race) with respect to perceived changes in context (i.e. teacher support, teacher values) and self-processes (i.e. concerns regarding competence, relatedness and autonomy, hassles and uplifts) and changes in engagement (i.e. interest, effort, learning and performance goals) and outcome (GPA) across the transition to ninth grade, and to identify concerns about the transition to high school held by students at the conclusion of eighth grade and of ninth grade. This study also explores whether these variables differ for high and low performing students in eighth and in ninth grade. Based on Connell and Wellborn's (1991) model of self-systems, findings suggest that: participants perceived their eighth grade teachers as having placed higher value on their work and of holding higher expectations for students' academic achievement than their ninth grade teachers, participants reported expending more effort to pay attention in class and to pursue performance goals, as well as experiencing fewer competence-related hassles as eighth graders than as ninth graders. High achieving eighth grade students reported greater interest their classes, fewer relatedness hassles, more total uplifts, greater effort to do well in class, higher perceptions of their teachers' expectations for academic success, and feeling more supported by their teachers than did low achieving eighth graders. High achieving ninth grade students reported significantly fewer overall hassles and relatedness hassles than their low achieving counterparts. Students did not suffer a significant decline in GPA from eighth to ninth grades. Connell and Wellborn's identification of competence, relatedness, and autonomy as three essential psychological needs requiring satisfaction for students' success in the school context were reflected in that almost all of eighth graders' and ninth graders' transition-related concerns could be reliably categorized in accordance with their model. Implications of findings with respect to students' high school transition experience, as well as implications for schools' transition-related practices are discussed.Item READING COMPREHENSION COMPONENT PROCESSES IN EARLY ADOLESCENCE(2005-04-07) Cromley, Jennifer Grace; Azevedo, Roger; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A significant proportion of American high school students struggle with reading comprehension. Several different models might help identify the components that have the largest effect on comprehension. The current dissertation study replicates a comparison of the Construction-Integration (CI), Verbal Efficiency (VE), and Inferential Mediation (IM) models of reading comprehension, the latter model based on an extensive literature review. It then tests the fit of four variations on the IM model. Ninth-grade students ranging from 1st to 99th percentile on comprehension completed measures of background knowledge, inferencing, strategies, vocabulary, word reading and comprehension. Researcher-developed measures of background knowledge, inferencing and strategies (based on Cromley & Azevedo, 2004a) showed good reliability with this sample. A subset of the students also completed a think-aloud protocol while reading a passage from an American history textbook. These protocols were transcribed and coded using a coding scheme adapted from Azevedo, Guthrie, and Seibert (2004). As in a preliminary study, the IM model had a much better fit to the data than did the CI or VE models. The original IM Model had the best fit, explaining 66% of the variance in comprehension. All predictors made a significant contribution to comprehension, with vocabulary, background knowledge, and strategies having significant indirect effects. Vocabulary and background knowledge made the greatest total contribution to comprehension. There were large, significant differences between low- and high-comprehending participants on all of the predictor variables, except for word reading accuracy, where there were small but significant differences. The coded think-aloud protocols were largely consistent with the correlations underlying the model. Spearman rank correlations among the codes provide convergent evidence for eleven of the correlations underlying the model. The think-aloud protocols also provided convergent evidence for the validity of the paper-and-pencil measures. The current study validates and refines a new model of reading comprehension. Results suggest that both the direct and indirect effects of the components are important for comprehension. Results also suggest that vocabulary and background knowledge might first be targeted for interventions with 9th grade students who struggle with reading comprehension. Implications for future research are also discussed.