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 How Electrical Engineering Students Design Computer Programs(2014) Danielak, Brian Adam; Elby, Andrew; Gupta, Ayush; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)When professional programmers begin designing programs, we know they often spend time away from a computer, using tools such as pens, paper, and whiteboards as they discuss and plan their designs (Petre, van der Hoek, & Baker, 2010). But, we're only beginning to analyze and understand the complexity of what happens during such early-stage design work. And, our accounts are almost exclusively about what professionals do. For all we've begun to understand about what happens in early-stage software design, we rarely apply the same research questions and methods to students' early-stage design work. This dissertation tries to redress that imbalance. I present two case studies — derived from my 10 study participants — of electrical engineering (EE) students designing computer programs in a second-semester computer programming course. In study 1, I show how analyzing a student's code snapshot history and conducting clinical interviews tells us far more about her design trajectory than either method could alone. From that combined data I argue students' overall software designs can be consequentially shaped by factors — such as students' stances toward trusting their code or believing a current problem is a new instance of an old one — that existing code snapshot research is poorly equipped to explain. Rather, explanations that add non-conceptual constructs including affective state and epistemological stance can offer a more complete and satisfactory account of students' design activities. In study 2, I argue computer science and engineering education should move beyond conceptual-knowledge and concept deficit explanations of students' difficulties (and capabilities) in programming. I show that in doing design students do, say, write, and gesture things that: – Are outside the phenomenological scope of most (mis)conceptions accounts of programming – Would be explained differently under frameworks that emphasize manifold epistemological resources. Some student difficulties can be recast as epistemological blocks in activity rather than conceptual knowledge deficits. Similarly, some students' productive capacities can be understood as epistemologically-related stances toward an activity, rather than evidencing particular knowledge of specific computational concepts. – Would suggest different instructional interventions if teachers attended to the stabilizing aspects — such as epistemological dynamics — that help these episodes of activity cohere for students.Item Relational Aggression Among Girls and Boys with Emotional/Behavioral Disorders in a Special School Setting(2005-12-04) Sutch, Zina B; Harris, Karen R.; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study was to determine if two factors, relational aggression (RA) and overt aggression (OA), emerge using the Children's Social Behavior Scale - Self Report (CSBS-S) with students with emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD) in a special school setting; to determine if students with EBD exhibit relation aggression (RA) or overt aggression (OA), as measured by the CSBS-S; and to determine if there was a relationship between these types of aggression and three variables: age, gender and IQ. The classroom teacher administered the CSBS-S to 130 students with EBD, ages seven to twenty years old, in their special school classrooms during the school day. Although RA and OA did not emerge as two distinct factors with this population, two new factors did emerge and were identified as verbal/physical aggression (VPA) and exclusion type aggression (EXA). VPA included all overt, physical and verbal behaviors and EXA included only behaviors in which a target child was excluded from the group. Students with EBD differentiated between all overt physical and verbal aggressive behaviors and exclusionary behaviors. A possible implication of these results is that students with EBD do not differentiate between RA and OA and view all aggression, with the exception of exclusion, as a single type of aggression. Students with EBD did exhibit RA and OA. However the percentage differences between genders was not significant and the means and standard deviations of scores were similar, suggesting that in this setting, with these students, both boys and girls are similarly aggressive. IQ was a significant predictor for RA, OA, and VPA, while age was only a significant predictor for OA. The relationships between IQ and the four types of aggressions was negative which implied that as IQ increased, these three aggressions decreased. Although the CSBS-S was not a valid measure of RA and OA with students with EBD, two new variables were identified, VPA and EXA. It was recommended that further studies include interviews, focus groups and observations in order to better determine how students, especially girls, with EBD differentiate and perceive aggression.Item The Role of Goal Structure in Undergraduates' Use of Self-Regulatory Variables in Two Hypermedia Learning Tasks(2004-11-17) moos, daniel Charles; Byrnes, James P; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Think-aloud and posttest data was collected from 64 undergraduates to examine whether they use a different proportion of self-regulated learning (SRL) variables in two related learning tasks about science topics while using a hypermedia environment. We also manipulated the goal structure of the two learning tasks in order to explore whether goal structure of a learning task is related to the use of SRL variables. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions [mastery goal structure, performance-approach goal structure, or performance-avoidance goal structure] and participated in two 20 minute learning tasks in which they learned about the circulatory and respiratory system. Results indicate that while a mastery goal structure and a performance-approach goal structure are related to undergraduates' use of a similar proportion of SRL variables in two related learning tasks, a performance-avoidance goal structure is related to undergraduate's use of a different proportion of SRL variables, specifically planning.