Human Development & Quantitative Methodology
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2248
The departments within the College of Education were reorganized and renamed as of July 1, 2011. This department incorporates the former departments of Measurement, Statistics & Evaluation; Human Development; and the Institute for Child Study.
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Item Third Grade Students' Writing Attitudes, Self-Efficacy Beliefs, and Achievement(2012) Williams, Heather Michelle; Wigfield, Allan; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In order to become successful members of society in the United States, students must be able to write effectively. However, many students are unwilling or unable to write by the time they leave high school. Two major factors linked to writing performance include writing attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs. The first objective of this research is an investigation of the effectiveness of an intervention designed to improve writing attitudes, self-efficacy beliefs, and achievement. The second objective is an examination of the relation between those constructs. Participants were given the Writing Attitude Survey, a writing skills self-efficacy scale, and a short writing assessment. Further, 50% of the participants participated in an intervention designed to increase positive writing attitudes, self-efficacy beliefs, and achievement. The study found a significant positive relation between writing self-efficacy and attitudes. The intervention was found to have no effect on the self-efficacy, attitudes, or performance of participants.Item An Integrated Item Response Model for Evaluating Individual Students' Growth in Educational Achievement(2009) Koran, Jennifer; Hancock, Gregory R.; Measurement, Statistics and Evaluation; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Measuring continuous change or growth in individual students' academic abilities over time currently uses several statistical models or transformations to move from data representing a student's correct or incorrect responses on individual test items to inferences about the form and quantity of changes in the student's underlying ability. This study proposed and investigated a single integrated model of underlying growth within an Item Response Theory framework as a potential alternative to this approach. A Monte Carlo investigation explored parameter recovery for marginal maximum likelihood estimates via the Expectation-Maximization algorithm under variations of several conditions, including the form of the underlying growth trajectory, the amount of inter-individual variation in the rate(s) of growth, the sample size, the number of items at each time point, and the selection of items administered across time points. A real data illustration with mathematics assessment data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study showed the practical use of this integrated model for measuring gains in academic achievement. Overall, this exploration of an integrated model approach contributed to a better understanding of the appropriate use of growth models to draw valid inferences about students' academic growth over time.Item Achievement Goal Orientations in Physical Rehabilitation(2005-12-01) Lawson, Sonia; Alexander, Patricia A; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Goals are used extensively in physical rehabilitation medicine to measure success. However, the goal construct has been given very little attention in research as compared to the domains of education and sport. Educational researchers and sport psychologists have described the cognitions and relations between goals, beliefs, motivation, and achievement behavior for their respective domains. In particular, goal orientation, a set of beliefs about ability, effort, achievement, and resulting behavior, is a dimension of achievement motivation that affects success in those fields. Goal orientation may influence participation and success in physical rehabilitation as there are aspects of physical rehabilitation that are similar to education and sport contexts. This study examined goal orientations for 237 patients receiving acute in-patient rehabilitation. A questionnaire was created and validated to assess goal or work orientations specific to this sample. Interview data supplemented results from the factor analysis of the questionnaire. Occupational therapists of the patient participants provided quantitative and qualitative data regarding their patients' success and factors related to success. The mastery and performance-avoid goal orientations and the cooperation work orientation were found with the highest frequency. However, none of these orientations related to success. The high frequency of the cooperation work orientation with interview comments validating the usefulness of this motivational aspect provides evidence for the use of groups in rehabilitation. The age of the participant significantly influenced three of the five goal or work orientations included in the study. This study provides a start in the investigation of additional dimensions to the goal construct that may affect participation and rehabilitation success.