College of Education
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item Knowledge and Attitudes of Montessori Teachers of Young Children as a Context for Guiding the Normalization and Self-Construction Process(1994) Schaefer Zener, Rita; Flatter, Charles; Human Development & Quantitative Methodology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)The purpose of this study was (1) to investigate the degree of agreement between AMI trained Montessori teachers' knowledge and attitudes and Montessori's recommendations for guiding the process of normalization among young children and (2) to discover the reasons for differences from those recommendations. Normalization is the central process in the Montessori method. Except for a study by this investigator (Zener, 1993) guiding the process of normalization had not been researched since Montessori's work some forty-five to eighty-five years ago. Therefore, this investigation also provided current teacher experiences of guiding the process of normalization. One hundred sixty five Montessori teachers attending various regional and national conferences were surveyed with knowledge and attitude scales. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10% of the participants. Mean scale scores from 4.0 to 5.0 on a five degree Likert scale and a SD less than 1.0 were projected as satisfactory levels of agreement with Montessori's recommendations. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the scales, and content analysis was used to analyze the interviews. T-tests and ANOVAS indicated that demographic variables were not significant to the results.Item A SELF-SELECTED QUALITATIVE STUDY EXAMING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A FATHER AND HIS SON WHO HAS ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER (ADHD)(1996) Kilcarr, Patrick; Flatter, Charles; Human Development & Quantitative Methodology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)The purpose of this interpretive study was to examine the relationship that exists between a father and his son Who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Since very little information is extant describing the relationship between a father and his son with ADHD, an interview format was developed to explore paternal perceptions, affect, and behaviors in relation to raising a son with ADHD. Sixteen fathers from an upper-middle class socioeconomic environment, participated in a one hour phone interview. These interviews were tape recorded and later transcribed. The interview attempted to answer the five research questions driving this study. The narrative data was interpreted by using a qualitative research method developed by Ranata Tesch. method involved extracting themes (specific participant responses) and collapsing the themes into larger-overarching categories called metathemes. Metathemes represent shared thoughts and perceptions held in common by all participants. Ten metathemes emerged from the data. The metathemes included such topics as a father's decision to place a child on medication and how and when to use behavior management strategies. Editorial comments from the author preceded response segments from participants (these segments were indented and single spaced). The data indicated that fathers share a unique relationship with sons who have ADHD. Prior to diagnosis, the majority of fathers described the relationship as tense, frustrating, and often unfulfilling. The relationship following diagnosis was described as significantly more Positive and rewarding. This was attributed to two specific changes: 1. the advent of education for fathers' regarding ADHD issues; and, 2. medication. Fathers agreed that the most effective behavior management strategy was to remain calm, educated, and realistic regarding their Childrens' behavior. The intention of this research was to generate further questions regarding the father-ADHD son relationship. The results of this study are not and cannot be generalized to other cultlures or social groups. Further research is needed which addresses the impact of race, class, and culture on the father and son with ADHD relationship.Item PREDICTIVE ACCURACY OF THIRD AND FIFTH GRADERS ON LINGUISTIC AND NON-LINGUISTIC COMPREHENSION MEASURES: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERFORMANCE ON GRADUATED PASSAGE QUESTIONS UNDER LISTENING AND READING CONDITIONS AND THE STANDARD PROGRESSIVE MATRICES(1981) Alexander, Patricia; Garner, Ruth; Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)This study, as an investigation of predictive accuracy, examined the relationship of subjects' performance on a non-linguistic measure of comprehension, the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices, to their performance on linguistic measures of comprehension, graduated passages and questions from the Barnell-Loft Specific Skills Drawing Conclusions Series. These linguistic passages and questions were presented under silent reading and listening conditions. All third graders and fifth graders at a suburban Maryland parochial school served as the study population from which twenty subjects at each grade level were randomly selected. This sample was comprised of eighteen males and twenty-two females. All subjects received all treatment levels which consisted of four tasks administered in two sessions. Session I included the administration of the Raven's, with the added verbalization of item C-9, and passages and questions presented in a silent reading mode. In Session II all subjects completed passages and questions presented in a listening mode and the Slosson Intelligence Test. The graduated passages and question were contained in Comprehension Inventory I and II which were administered in counterbalanced format. Half of the subjects received Inventory I as the listening task and II as the silent reading task, while half received Inventory I as the silent reading task and II as the listening task. The first question under research in this study was whether there was a relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic predictive accuracy. A multiple correlation technique was used to ascertain the relationship between the Raven's and the listening and silent reading linguistic comprehension measures. A correlation coefficient significantly different from zero was achieved in the comparison of subjects' performance data for these tasks. The second question addressed by this study was whether the relationship between the non-linguistic and the listening linguistic measure of predictive accuracy would be stronger than the relationship between the non-linguistic and the reading linguistic measure of predictive accuracy. Through the use of a partial correlation technique it was determined that the relationship between the Raven's and the listening task was not statistically stronger than the relationship between the Raven's and the silent reading task. Both partial correlations, however, were determined to be significantly different from zero. The third question investigated by this study was whether there was a significant relationship between the Raven's, as a non-linguistic measure of predictive accuracy, and the Slosson, as a linguistic measure of intellig ence. The coefficient produced by the Pearson Product-Moment technique was assessed to be significantly different from zero. Finally, the study sought to ascertain if there were developmental differences in predictive accuracy. At test for related samples produced significant differences for all outcome measures in the direction of the fifth-grade subjects. These findings confirmed the hypothesis that older students would perform the specified tasks at a higher level of predictive accuracy than younger students. Possible explanations of the outcomes of this investigation, and their relationship to research in the areas of language/thought, analogous reasoning, intelligence/cognition, reading/listening and comprehension/prediction were discussed, along with implications for theory, research, classroom and diagnostic practices.Item A Comparison of the Effectiveness of Demonstrations, Verbal Statements, and Hands-on Experiences on Correcting a Misconception of First-Graders Regarding Magnets(1987) Benbow, Ann E.; Lockard, J. David; Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)The purpose of this study was to compare the relative effectiveness of five instructional interventions which were designed to correct a size-related science misconception in a group of first graders. The particular misconception chosen for the study is the belief that larger magnets are always of greater strength than smaller magnets. These interventions consisted of: a. a demonstration lesson, b. a hands-on lesson, c. a verbal statements lesson, d. a demonstration-plus-verbal statements lesson, and e. a hands-on-plus-verbal statements lesson. At the beginning of each magnet lesson, students were first exposed to evidence contradicting the size-related magnet misconception. This was followed by the introduction of cognitive conflict via the use of a small weak rectangular magnet and a larger strong rectangular magnet to pick up paper clips. Finally, students interacted with two (apparently) identical rectangular magnets of clearly differing strengths. The second major component of each intervention was the use of iron filings and a magnet to "show" lines of force. The purpose of this last activity was to give the students some information about magnets that would assist them in accommodating the events witnessed in the first part of the intervention. Subjects were tested three days before the treatment, one day after treatment to determine change of knowledge effect, then six weeks after treatment as a check for knowledge retention. Six subjects were randomly chosen from each treatment group to be interviewed using a format based upon Novak's Interview-about-Instances (1984) prior to the instruction, and on two occasions (one day, and six weeks) after the instruction. It was hypothesized that a demonstration treatment would result in the highest frequency of students who received a score of 100% on four misconception-related items on the post-test. It was also hypothesized that the demonstration treatment would result in the greatest retention. Analysis of both test scores and interview data indicates that, although there is strong support for the corrective properties of a demonstration which directly confronts the misconception that a necessary direct relation ship exists between magnetic strength and magnet size, a demonstration alone is not more effective than all of the remaining treatments in achieving change of knowledge or retention. Therefore, there is a lack of support for both research hypotheses. Both treatments containing demonstrations, however, were more effective in achieving correction of the size-related misconception than the treatments consisting of a hands-on treatment alone and verbal statements alone.Item The Effects of Instruction in Sentence Combining and Revision on Ninth and Tenth Graders' Explanatory Writing(1989) Horstman, Franklin; Slater, Wayne H.; Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)In this study, I examined the effects of instruction in sentence combining on three measures of student writing : 1.) syntactic fluency; 2.) overall writing quality; and 3.) sentence -combining ability. Sentence combining is a method of writing instruction in which students rewrite a series of sentences into one syntactically more complex sentence. Two teachers instructed experimental group one (37 students) in sentence combining applied to revision. The same two teachers also instructed experimental group two (37 students) in sentence combining alone. A third teacher instructed the control students (38 students) in the standard ninth-grade English curriculum. To examine syntactic fluency, I analyzed students' writing for words per T-unit, clauses per T-unit, and words per clause. To examine overall writing quality, two trained raters assessed students' writing using forced choice holistic scoring. I also assessed students' sentence-combining ability. On syntactic fluency, the control group demonstrated statistically significant gains for mean number of words per clause. On overall writing quality, the control group also demonstrated statistically significant gains. On sentence-combining ability, both experimental group one and experimental group two demonstrated statistically significant gains. While the results do not support the first two research questions, on sentence-combining ability, the results suggest that ninth-grade writers can be taught sentence combining in a four-week, intensive instructional unit. Additionally, results suggest links between rhetorical and psychological theories and writing. However, the limitations of the results also suggest further sentence-combining research.Item Learning Newton's Second Law Using a Microcomputer Based Laboratory Curriculum(1995) Morse, Robert Alan; Layman, John W.; Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)This study investigated the effect of theory-based Microcomputer Based Laboratory instruction on high school students' understanding of Newton's second law in a high school physics course taught by the teacher-researcher. The study focused on 1) the effect of the theory-based MBL instructional design on student understanding of Newton's second law, 2) on the changes in conceptual understanding that occurred, and 3) on the effect of student learning beliefs on conceptual change. Data sources included pretest and posttest measures of conceptual understanding, audiotape debriefings of students during a seven day unit, and pretest and posttest measures of students' motivational and self-regulated learning beliefs. The design of the instructional unit was based on prior research and theory. It is important to specify the characteristics as well as the content of the knowledge we would like students to construct. Desirable characteristics of physics knowledge are that it be accurate, extendable, integrated with other knowledge, recognized as knowledge, related to experience and experiment, strategic, and available in multiple representations including verbal, graphical, algebraic, pictorial, and story representations. Proponents argue that appropriately designed Microcomputer Based Laboratory instruction can promote construction of such knowledge. The theory-based instructional unit employed real-time computer graphing of force and motion variables in a novel "iconographic" experiment which enabled students to determine the relationship between force and motion variables by simple recognition. The study found that the nature of students' conceptual change was consistent with the mechanisms postulated for MBL instruction, that the short chain of reasoning in the iconographic force and motion experiment allowed students to readily identify and focus on the goals of the experiment rather than be distracted by a profusion of sub-goals, that this instruction is more effective than some traditional instruction and as effective as some other theory-based instruction in Newton's second law, based on Force Concept Inventory (Hestenes, Wells, & Swackhamer, 1992) and Force and Motion Concept test (Thornton, 1992a) scores. The study failed to achieve the goal of relating motivational, cognitive and performance measures using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich & DeGroot, 1990).Item TEACHERS' PEDACOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE OF RECURSION(1995) Neagoy, Monica M. M.; Fey, James T.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)"Pedagogical Content Knowledge" (PCK) consists of topic-level knowledge of learners, of learning, and of the most useful forms of representation of ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations --in a word, the ways of representing and formulating the subject that makes it comprehensible to others" (Shulman, 1986). Recursion is a process that permeates many aspects of the real world-both natural and man-made. In discrete mathernatics, recursion is a powerful idea, a problem solving strategy that enables us to describe or predict future results as a function of past results. The purpose of this study was to explore the nature of high school teachers' PCK of recursion prior to, and as a result of, their participation in a carefully designed summer institute that focused on the important emerging concept of discrete dynamical systems. The study also explored how teachers plan to use this knowledge in teaching recursion. The framework for studying teachers' PCK was one inspired by Shulman's model ( 1987), but modified in its connectedness among components and its dynamics of change. The in-service program that served this study was the 1991 Summer Institute in Mathematics Modeling with Discrete Mathematics, (SIMM) offered at Georgetown University and partially funded by NSF. Forty high school math teachers from Washington metropolitan area schools, who attended the SIMM were the subjects of this research. The instruments that helped assess the nature and growth of teachers' PCK as a result of the SIMM intervention were: A personal data questionnaire, a pretest, and a post-test; follow-up, one-on-one interviews were conducted with a random sample of nine teachers. The test results and interview transcripts were analyzed in terms of teachers' subject matter and pedagogical knowledge (knowledge of teaching and learning) of recursion: For that purpose, this study developed an original model of six categories of knowledge for each domain. Overall, teachers' PCK of recursion, as exhibited by their performance on the totality of the test items, grew as a result of the in-service intervention. The only category in which teachers' knowledge showed no growth was Student Errors.Item THE EFFECTS OF AN EXEMPLARY FOURTH-GRADE TEACHER'S EXPECTATIONS AND A SATISFACTORY FOURTH-GRADE TEACHER'S EXPECTATIONS ON THE READING INSTRUCTION PROVIDED TO HIGHAND LOW-ACHIEVING STUDENTS: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY(1989) McCallum, Peter Littleton; Hebeler, Jean R.; Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)Item An Exploratory Case Study of the Formal and Informal Discipline Policies Used in Selected Elementary School Classrooms(1999) Taylor-Cox, Jennifer; Andrews, J. Edward; Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)The broad aim of this study was to examine the dynamics of classroom discipline policy through the use of the micropolitical model of interaction. While this study explored classroom di scipline policies utilizing the micropolitical perspective, it was classroom discipline that was the center of interest in this research. The template that framed and guided the exploration of classroom discipline included enactment, conveyance, realization, and evaluation as the particular phases of policy development. A distinctive feature of this study was the focus on the explicit, stated policies and the more subtle but equally important "dominant patterns of practice" in the classroom. This exploratory case study of the formal and informal discipline policies used in selected elementary school classrooms was a qualitative research endeavor. The data sources included in-depth guided interviews and semi-structured classroom observations, supplemented by informal interviews and pertinent printed material. The methods of data analysis involved categorizing, distilling themes, and arraying chains of evidence. The findings of this case study involved the ways in which teachers and students assert power and control; conflicts are manifest; compromises are used; protection is fundamental; and the classroom context affects, hinders, and constructs social order in the classroom. The views, behaviors, and verbal exchanges of the teachers and students concerning discipline were paramount to the analyses of the discipline policies used in the selected elementary school classrooms. The conclusions of this case study were that the micropolitical model of interaction is a productive, yet unrefined conceptual framework for the study of classroom discipline; discipline policies are teacher-centered, noise-related, and community-focused; the dominant mechanisms for teacher-based control are rewards and punishments; the dominant outcome of conflict and assertions of power is the brokering of policies; compromises are used to reduce conflicts and produce student compliance; intentions and realities pose a paradox; and the influence from parents is an important factor.Item The Effect of a Structured Group Experience on the Transition from the Role of College Student to the Role of Working Professional(1980-04-23) Lyons, John C.; Schlossberg, Nancy K.; Counseling, Higher Education, and Public Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)This study was conducted to investigate the effects of a structured group experience on the transition of new college graduates from the role of student to worker. Fifty-seven subjects,who were employed in their first professional job upon graduating from college,were formed into an experimental group of twenty-nine and control group of twenty-eight subjects . A needs assessment identified ten behaviors which supervisors considered to be indications that a new employee was functioning as a worker rather than a learner. A twenty-two item questionnaire was developed which allowed supervisors to evaluate the degree to which their subordinates were performing the ten target behaviors . A second instrument containing seven items was developed which allowed subjects to report the degree to which they felt they were performing these behaviors . Data were collected from supervisors and subjects using these instruments both before and after treatment. Treatment consisted of a workshop having two components: 1) the presentation of the ten behaviors which supervisors had identified as being desirable, and 2) a structured approach to skill mastery which utilized fantasy, planning and problem solving. Post-treatment evaluations of subjects by supervisors were significantly higher than the corresponding pre-treatment evaluations, t (28) = 3.11, p < .01, providing support for the hypothesis that a structured group experience has a beneficial effect on the transition from the role of college student to the role of working professional.