Counseling, Higher Education & Special Education

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2226

The departments within the College of Education were reorganized and renamed as of July 1, 2011. This department incorporates the former departments of Counseling & Personnel Services; Education Leadership, Higher Education & International Education (excluding Organizational Leadership & Policy Studies); and Special Education.

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.adolescents

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Self-concepts of adolescents with learning disabilities: A large-scale database study
    (2005-08-20) Strein, William; Signor-Buhl, Sara
    Using the ELS: 2002 national database, we compared the self-concepts in reading, math, and general academic areas for students with and without identified learning disabilities. Unlike most similar research, students’ measured achievement in reading and math was controlled, thereby effectively comparing students at similar levels of achievement. When controlling for achievement, academic self-concepts were not lower for the students with LD. Similar to other studies, students with LD tended to statistically over-predict their achievement compared to the non-LD group.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Adolescents on the Lookout for Suicidal Friends on Social Networking Sites
    (2013) Berger, Jill; Gottfredson, Gary D.; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    There are opportunities to identify and intervene with suicidal adolescents through social media outlets. This study explored the effectiveness of using two types of persuasive messages to encourage adolescents to get help for Facebook friends who might be suicidal. Facebook-using adolescents (N = 299) were recruited to participate in an online survey within which a randomized experiment was embedded. More than one third of participants reported seeing Facebook friends post about suicide. Participants were randomly assigned in a 2x2x2 design to exposure or no exposure to suicide prevention information, a suicide intervention story, and a pre-test assessment. The effects of these conditions on participants' knowledge of what to do and their intentions to get adult help were examined. Participants exposed to information were more likely to report that they knew what to do for a suicidal friend; whereas those exposed to the story were more likely to express intentions to get adult help when presented with suicidal scenarios. Stories depicting social role models appear to be an effective way to encourage adolescents to take appropriate actions when friends post content suggestive of suicide on Facebook. Further research exploring how youth suicide prevention efforts can be integrated with social media is warranted.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Using Argumentative Discussion to Enhance the Written Arguments of Middle School Students in Social Studies Classrooms
    (2012) Wissinger, Daniel R.; De La Paz, Susan; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of Walton, Reed, and Macagno's (2008) dialectical framework on middle school students' historical discussions and written arguments. To do this,151 middle school students from six classrooms were randomly assigned to one of two conditions and asked to participate in a three-week intervention that featured: (a) examining three controversial topics in history, (b) primary source documents, (b) argumentative discussions, and (c) constructing argumentative essays. Because students were taught in small groups, the average performance of 12 groups of students who were assigned to the experimental condition was compared to the average performance of 12 groups of students who were assigned to the comparison conditions. Students in the experimental condition learned argumentative schemes and asked critical questions during discussions. Students in the comparison condition participated in the same historical investigations, received the same materials for instruction, engaged in discussions, and learned about text structure for writing argumentative essays in ways comparable to the experimental group, but used a traditional set of questions during discussions. The findings indicated a significant relationship between teaching students to use argumentative schemes and to ask critical questions during discussions and performance on students' resulting content knowledge. Main effects were also evident regarding students' historical thinking, a writing outcome that reflected use of evidence, ability to write from an author's perspective, use of contextual information, and the inclusion of rebuttals in their essays. While significant differences were not present between conditions on three outcome measures (i.e., reading comprehension, length of essays, or overall writing quality) students' in both sets of groups averaged moderate-to-high scores for reading comprehension and constructed essays that were considered proficient or advanced on the PSSA writing rubric. Taken together, the results of the study were encouraging and align with many of those in the existing literature, which emphasize the positive effects of integrating discussion in classroom activities.