Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Transforming Knowledge: The Effects of Scaffolded Instruction in the Toulmin Model of Argument on the Problem-Solving Strategies of Four Sixth-Grade Writers(2014) Wilson, Adam Holmes; Slater, Wayne; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this case study was to examine the effects of scaffolded instruction in the Toulmin Model of Argument on the problem solving strategies used by four sixth-grade writers while composing argumentative essays. Three major components of the Toulmin Model that were presented to participants were claims, data, and warrants. Participants for the proposed study were four sixth-grade students, two of whom were identified as "high ability" (one male and one female) and two of whom were identified as "average ability" (one male and one female). Results of the study were derived primarily from the analysis of intervention protocols and essays produced by participants. After completing a survey about their experiences with argument/persuasion, participating in a practice think aloud, and composing a pretest argumentative essay while providing a think aloud guided by the intervention protocol, participants received a total of six units of scaffolded instruction in the Toulmin Model over a period of four weeks. At the end of the instructional period, participants composed an "independent" argumentative essay under normal (non-protocol) conditions. For the posttest, participants provided a second think aloud guided by the intervention protocol while composing an argumentative essay. Pre-test, independent, and posttest prompts asked participants to formulate and support a claim about a proposed change to a school policy and were identical in form, audience, and task demands. As a result of the intervention instruction in the Toulmin model and the scaffolds I was able to construct through the intervention protocols, participants were able to move beyond knowledge telling to engage in knowledge transforming, moving back and forth between problem spaces of content and rhetoric, and thus more effectively handling the audience-related task demands of warranting claims and providing convincing supporting data - aspects of argumentative writing that existing research suggests pose the greatest difficulties for secondary students. I had hypothesized that the intervention instruction in the Toulmin model would also enable participants to more effectively handle the argumentative writing task demand of anticipating and responding to opposition, but this hypothesis was not supported by the study data.Item More than just "plug-and-chug": Exploring how physics students make sense with equations(2013) Kuo, Eric; Gupta, Ayush; Elby, Andrew; Physics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Although a large part the Physics Education Research (PER) literature investigates students' conceptual understanding in physics, these investigations focus on qualitative, conceptual reasoning. Even in modeling expert problem solving, attention to conceptual understanding means a focus on initial qualitative analysis of the problem; the equations are typically conceived of as tools for "plug-and-chug" calculations. In this dissertation, I explore the ways that undergraduate physics students make conceptual sense of physics equations and the factors that support this type of reasoning through three separate studies. In the first study, I investigate how students' can understand physics equations intuitively through use of a particular class of cognitive elements, symbolic forms (Sherin, 2001). Additionally, I show how students leverage this intuitive, conceptual meaning of equations in problem solving. By doing so, these students avoid algorithmic manipulations, instead using a heuristic approach that leverages the equation in a conceptual argument. The second study asks the question why some students use symbolic forms and others don't. Although it is possible that students simply lack the knowledge required, I argue that this is not the only explanation. Rather, symbolic forms use is connected to particular epistemological stances, in-the-moment views on what kinds of knowledge and reasoning are appropriate in physics. Specifically, stances that value coherence between formal, mathematical knowledge and intuitive, conceptual knowledge are likely to support symbolic forms use. Through the case study of one student, I argue that both reasoning with equations and epistemological stances are dynamic, and that shifts in epistemological stance can produce shifts in whether symbolic forms are used to reason with equations. The third study expands the focus to what influences how students reason with equations across disciplinary problem contexts. In seeking to understand differences in how the same student reasons on two similar problems in calculus and physics, I show two factors, beyond the content or structure of the problems, that can help explain why reasoning on these two problems would be so different. This contributes to an understanding of what can support or impede transfer of content knowledge across disciplinary boundaries.Item Using Elaborative Interrogation Enhanced Worked Examples to Improve Chemistry Problem Solving(2012) Pease, Rebecca Simpson; Holliday, William G; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Elaborative interrogation, which prompts students to answer why-questions placed strategically within informational text, has been shown to increase learning comprehension through reading. In this study, elaborative interrogation why-questions requested readers to explain why paraphrased statements taken from a reading were "true." Although previous research in elaborative interrogation has examined the effect of utilizing these why-questions while reading biology content, they have not been explored with chemistry text or chemistry textbooks that include worked example problems, according to a review of the literature. This study investigated the effect of answering elaborative interrogation why-questions placed adjunct to worked examples which were embedded within a section of a college chemistry textbook, compared with the commonly used study strategy of rereading the same text as a placebo-control. A randomized two-group posttest only design was used in this study. Specifically, the ability to solve quantitative chemistry problems in terms of a problem solving posttest requiring comprehension (dependent variable) was estimated for both groups and statistically compared. The subjects in this research were 74 students enrolled in an introductory chemistry course at a community college in the southwestern United States. Prior chemistry knowledge, mathematics skills, and verbal ability were also measured and statistical methods were employed to assess their correlations with posttest results in both groups. The use of elaborative interrogation why-questions was found to significantly benefit students' quantitative chemistry problem solving requiring comprehension compared to the rereading strategy, even after the effects of prior chemistry knowledge and mathematics skill (factors that were statistically determined to be significant predictors of posttest score) were statistically controlled.Item Implementing Eighth Grade Mathematics Problems in Six Countries: A Secondary Analysis of the TIMSS 1999 Video Data(2007-07-11) Birky, Geoffrey D; Fey, James T; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examined transcripts of videotaped lessons from the U.S. and five high performing countries participating in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 1999 Video Survey to investigate how eighth-grade teachers implemented mathematics problems. A coding system was developed to describe how teachers maintained or altered the potential of problems to "make connections" as they led public discussions of these problems. An analysis of the transcripts of 82 problem implementations found that when teachers or students made connections during problem discussions they most frequently did so by addressing mathematical justification, examining concepts more deeply than simply recalling or applying them, and connecting representations. Teachers most frequently led such discussions by drawing conceptual connections, taking over challenging aspects of the problems, and stepping students through arguments. Teachers much less frequently developed generalizations, compared solution methods, built on student ideas, provided scaffolding, or pressed students for justification. When connections were lost, teachers most often took over challenging aspect of the problems or shifted the focus to procedures, answers, or superficial or vague treatment of concepts. Regardless of whether or not connections were made, in about half of all implementations, teachers did most of the mathematical work, in about 8% of implementations students did it, and in the remainder, the work was shared more or less equally. This study suggests that teachers in high performing countries often make connections using approaches American mathematics educators associate with traditional teaching. Teachers in other countries may not share the assumption held by some American educators that teacher-centered instruction is ineffective for improving students' conceptual understanding and abilities in problem solving and mathematical reasoning.