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1997 Dissertation Abstracts: Part 7
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ORDER NO: ABA97-21837 A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF TEACHER'S QUESTIONING BEHAVIORS IN THAI EFL CLASSROOMS Author: THAMRAKSA, CHUTIMA Degree: PH.D. Year: 1997 Corporate Source/Institution: INDIANA UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA (0318) Chairman: JERRY G. GEBHARD Source: VOLUME 58/02-A OF DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS INTERNATIONAL. PAGE 378. 426 PAGES Descriptors: EDUCATION, CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION; EDUCATION, LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE; EDUCATION, BILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL Descriptor Codes: 0727; 0279; 0282 This is a descriptive classroom-centered study whose purpose was to investigate Thai EFL teachers' questioning behaviors in relation to the course and personal goals. The participants of the study were three Thai teachers at the university level. As classroom-centered research, this study drew on both classroom observation and interviews. Each teacher was observed seven times and interviewed six times during the second half of the first semester of the 1995 academic year. The audio-taped data were transcribed and analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative method addressed the frequencies and percentages of the aspects of teachers' questioning. Based on the quantitative data, a qualitative analysis of the transcripts was made to describe the occurrences of several aspects of questions posed by the teachers. The qualitative method also entailed the interpretation of teachers' questioning behaviors to consider the degree to which they provided opportunities for students to reach the course and teachers' personal goals. This study followed Fanselow's (1987) idea in formulating multiple interpretations to free the researcher from being limited to preconceived notions about good or bad teaching or to the commonsense interpretation of action. The major findings of this study revealed that: (1) wh-questions were used the most frequently while tag questions were hardly used; (2) display questions were the predominant type of questions in the classrooms; (3) the content of questions were mostly about the study of special areas or content communicated in textbooks; (4) the teachers' questions contained a small proportion of narrowing characteristics or clues that delimit the expected responses from students; and (5) the teachers' questioning behaviors generally provided opportunities for students to reach the course and personal goals. Drawing from the findings, four areas of implications were offered: (1) for teachers in Thailand; (2) for teacher education in Thailand; (3) for my professional development; and (4) for future research.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21826 This ethnographic study was undertaken to investigate how a local-area-networked (LAN) computer classroom affected the learning processes of reentry women students taking basic writing in a community college. Classes were observed, and interviews were conducted with selected student participants and the teacher. Additional data sources included assigned readings, teacher handouts, student essays, and transcripts of computer conferences. Participants' texts were read hermeneutically to analyze individual students' classroom experience and writing progress. Conference transcripts were analyzed for patterns of classroom interaction and their effect on students' formal writing. Results showed participants' lives were chaotic, and this affected their college work. Students' attitudes toward the computer were positive, but loss of files and limited access to computers outside of class time were persistent problems. Computer conferences fostered development of students' ideas, which influenced their essay writing in some cases. However, collaboration among students had negative effects on student success in some cases. Institutional and classroom practices that promoted a sense of inclusion among reentry women students included blocking students into classes composed entirely of reentry women students, using course materials that fostered a sense of women's place and voices in the academy, and pacing instruction flexibly in a workshop environment with frequent one-to-one contact between teacher and student. This study suggests that the nature of multiple demands on reentry women students and patterns of student interaction may have more to do with first-semester basic writers' success as writers than institutional and teacher practices and support services have. Even mature students may not always profit academically from informal networking until they have learned successful classroom behaviors. Those who teach in the computer environment must be aware of potential limitations on students' access to computers outside of class time. Teachers committed to student-centered classroom practices may need to closely monitor collaborative groups and intervene if group behaviors are interfering with students' learning. The relation of synchronous conference classroom discussion to the production of formal texts should be investigated further. Teachers should also consider alternatives to the standard formal essay as acceptable finished student texts, especially collaborative conference texts.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21821 Current school reformers lament the lack of significant roles for teachers in the unabated school reform efforts since 1983. Many now advocate significant roles for teachers and more attention to the culture and local context of schools. Two practices have offered important benefits for schooling: teacher research and collaboration. The benefits of teacher research are its ability to challenge teachers' beliefs and assumptions about practice, develop autonomy, and transform relationships with students. The benefits of the various forms of collaboration (team- teaching , peer-coaching, cooperative learning) are in the dialogue about relevant educational issues and the contestation of isolation. However, teacher researchers often fail to sustain continual research without support and networks. And, collaboration sometimes results in a reinvention of the status quo. Therefore, I theorized that collaborative teacher research might address the problems in each form by creating a culture that nourishes supportive networks for ongoing teacher research while concurrently reaping the benefits of researching in order to challenge the status quo. Employing an anthropological analytical approach with its qualitative research methodology , I studied 31 school-based collaborative teacher researcher teams during their first year in The Institute for Educational Transformation (IET)'s Masters Program at George Mason University as they conducted individual teacher researcher studies into classroom practice. The results indicate that with significant amounts of time for grappling with deep and difficult work and team development through writing reflections and receiving response, teams moved from the organizing stages inherent with numerous difficulties and personal conflicts to a more complex working culture of professionalism. The team development strategy of writing periodic reflections on collaborative behaviors and responding to one another's written drafts of the research reports plays a significant role in breaking down barriers to collaboration and contributing to a culture of professionalism. The emerging culture of professionalism challenges the traditional school cultures that are based on isolation and the treatment of teachers as technicians in the factory model of schooling. Based on these results, I argue that school-based teacher researcher teams hold promise for answering the calls of current school reformers to teachers to play significant roles in school reform, mediate issues in teaching and learning, and affect the traditional school culture through new conceptions of teachers as professionals.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21611 The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of structured controversy on learning and using ten targeted ecological concepts. Structured controversy, from the cooperative learning model, is a debate-styled instructional strategy used to enhance cognitive processing of concepts by challenging opposite ecological viewpoints. Forty-eight students in a college environmental science course were placed in heterogeneous groups of four by ACT score, gender, and the first exam score. The groups of four were randomly assigned to the treatment group or the individual study (control) group. In a pre- and post-treatment written assessment, the students individually generated a series of propositional statements that they used to support a decision about the use of pesticides. Change in the quality (correct, incorrect, and vague) of propositions was compared between the structured controversy and individual study groups. No significant differences were observed for targeted ecological concepts. However, the control group showed a significant decrease in the number of correct non-target (social, economics, etc.) propositions and an increase in number of incorrect non-target propositions based on pre- to post-treatment data and between control and experimental groups. Although not significant, the structured controversy group maintained the quality of both the ecological and social related concepts. This change in the social-related topics in a science course was an unexpected, but positive, outcome.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21603 The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent technical college graduates felt they were prepared for the workplace. While studies of employer expectations exist, little work has been done on employee perceptions of their workplace preparation and skill needs. Specifically, little was written about how well technical college graduates perceive their education to have prepared them for the new workplace. Five research questions were developed to address the problem and purpose of the study. Each of the questions dealt with a specific sub-theme of the study, (1) the congruence between the skills the graduates say are used in the workplace and those skills that the literature says are needed for the workplace, (2) the program clusters which appear to be more nearly meeting graduates' needs in the workplace, (3) college activities that were most important in helping graduates prepare for the workplace, (4) college services that were most helpful in preparing graduates for the workplace, and (5) college experiences that helped the graduates in their personal and professional development. The method of investigation was a mail survey of 438 graduates of Hennepin Technical College. The survey was developed around the five research questions and grounded in the literature of other workplace studies. The findings indicated that there is congruence between what the literature says about skills needed in the workplace and those that graduates indicated they are using in the workplace; however, there is divergence between the opinions of subjects of this study and those reported in the literature as to the importance of general skills as compared to specific technical skills. Respondents placed a high degree of importance on technical skills. The study found that graduates felt the college experience had prepared them more than adequately for the workplace. College experiences that were most helpful were hands-on, lab experiences and internships. A major finding was that respondents felt the most satisfying experience while at the college was finding that they could successfully attain an educational goal.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21600 There is a need for a simple tool to assess the learner's match to distance delivery methods such as telecourse and modem classes. The concept of a prediction instrument is a practical approach to identifying the at-risk student in the distance delivery environment. The purpose of this study was to determine if the Telecourse Self-Assessment Predictor Inventory (TSAPI), entitled "Are Telecourses for Me?" predicted the likelihood of student success in a telecourse. The utility of this instrument was analyzed using descriptive statistical procedures to describe the relationship between the total TSAPI scores, the scores on each instrument item, and the two student success categories of completers and noncompleters. The study compared academic achievement with scores on the TSAPI of 133 students enrolled in Medical Terminology I MED051, Medical Terminology II MED052, Personal Health HE205, and Aging and Society HS220 telecourses at Chemeketa Community College from 1994 to 1995. The TSAPI did not predict student telecourse success in this study. Completion rates differed by gender, grade point average (GPA), and total credit hours but did not differ by instrument total scores or distribution of scores. Several individual instrument questions had some predictive value and needs assessment utility for both students and instructors. Only three of the instrument's 10 questions confirmed a positive relationship between the questions and prediction of student success. The categories explored by these questions were (1) independence in receiving directions from instructors, (2) expected time spent on telecourse compared to a traditional face-to-face class, and (3) student self-assessment of reading ability. Questions not found to predict success elicited responses concerning motivation for taking the class, the need for interactivity, technology anxiety, ability to come to campus, and organization of required course work. The key recommendation of the study was to develop an instrument that has greater utility in predicting student success. The results of the study support the premise that a short, easy-to- administer score prediction instrument would be valuable in assessing student needs and identifying the at-risk population in the distance learning environment.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21495 The purpose of this study was to examine how college freshmen make meaning of their secondary school physical education experiences. The study was also designed to explore the events, individuals or factors associated with their physical education experiences that influenced the ways in which students construct their meanings. Using concepts first identified in Kelly's (1955) "personal construct psychology", the study was designed to understand how college students describe their experiences in high school physical education and their current beliefs about the value and meaning of those experiences. A semi-structured, open-ended interview format was used to engage 27 college freshmen from a small private, two year college in New England in a discussion about their high school physical education experiences. This methodology allowed the students/participants to ascribe their own meaning to the experiences they had in physical education. Each audiotaped interview session lasted approximately sixty minutes and was later transcribed for analysis. Two overriding themes emerged from the data. Students recognized and have come to understand that athleticism means power and physical education has little value as a subject matter offering. Several factors contributed to these understandings. The most influential factor was student skill level. Skill level influenced interactions with and treatment by teachers and other students. In many schools it created an adolescent society where personal status and underlying self worth were accorded solely on an individual's physical ability. Curriculum content and teaching behaviors were also identified as strongly influencing student experience. Programs which had a strong team sport foundation disenfranchised many students whose talents and interests did not find avenues of expression in the activities offered. Closely aligned with participants' remarks about curriculum choices were comments regarding the lack of instruction. Participants indicated that little teaching was occurring and low-skilled students believed this put them at an even greater disadvantage. Participants believed physical education had little value as a subject matter offering. These beliefs were most directly influenced by their association with parents and peers, while indirectly influenced by grading schemes and contrasts with other more "academic" subjects.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21476 The focus of this dissertation is to identify, analyze, and critique what I take to be a fundamental contradiction between the ideal mission of the university to serve as the site for the pursuit of truth and the function of Traditionalist humanities curriculums. I argue that because nationalist education makes it nearly impossible for students to engage in the critique of ideology, nationalist education is antithetical to the university 's mission. With anything less than the ability to engage in this critique of ideology, there is no way that students can participate meaningfully in the ideal of the university. In the opening chapter I argue first, that the development and preservation of national culture stands in a dialectical relation to the preservation and contestation of national identity; second, that post-secondary education in the arts and humanities is largely education in the national culture; and third, that nationalism mediates the dialectical relation between national culture and national identity. In the second chapter I critique nationalism on the grounds that underlying every nationalist movement (including curricular Traditionalism) is a universalist project which denies the reality of complex personal identity formation. In the third chapter I show that the Traditionalist position (articulated by Bloom, D'Souza, and Searle) seeks to support through curricular control nationalist versions of culture and identity. In the fourth chapter I critique Marx's and Mannheim's theories of ideology since they seek to devise methods for evaluating ideology through epistemic standpoints removed from the site of the production of ideology. And thus I conclude this chapter by asserting that in order to be a critic of ideology one must struggle with and acknowledge multiple and complex social identities. In the final chapter I defend the claim that nationalist education undermines the process of teaching students to be critics of ideology since such an education prevents students from engaging the complexity of the encounter between the knowing subject and the object of knowledge. Moreover, I argue that a decidedly non-nationalist multicultural education offers the possibility of developing heterogeneous group identity without the deleterious consequences invariably brought forth by nationalism.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21463 In this dissertation I will depend on Likert-scale questionnaires, open-ended interviews and my observation journals to investigate the effectiveness of semi-interactive video (as opposed to (semi)-communicative methods ) as a teaching tool in second/foreign language acquisition/learning. The participants in this study will comprise of an experimental group (traditional and non-traditional college students) whose attitudes will be measured by means of Likert-scale questionnaires, once at the beginning (before they undergo (semi)-communicative methods of teaching ), once after they undergo the above method , and once at the end of undergoing teaching methods based entirely on the use of semi-interactive video In order to have a more accurate picture of the participants' attitudes and opinions regarding the above pedagogical methods , and to cover any missing and/or misinterpreted information, the learners will be also interviewed at the end of the research project. In addition, observational journals will be kept to maximize precision. In order to account for any outside (i.e., out of classroom) variables affecting the project, research will be also conducted on a control group, i.e., a comparable group residing (working or staying home) in the U.S. but not undergoing any language training. This group will be asked to fill out questionnaires once at the beginning of the project, once two months later, and finally four months later. Just as with the experimental group, the control group will be interviewed at the end of the project in order to cover any missing information and/or for data confirmation purposes. My hope is that the results of this scientific endeavor would shed light on the following: (1) the usefulness (or lack thereof) of the interactive video in language pedagogy, (2) the application of communicative theories of second language acquisition, and theories of situated learning to semi-interactive video software design, and (3) the effectiveness of the semi-interactive video as opposed to other (semi)-interactive methods in second/foreign language education.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21449 This study is concerned with the systems approach in distance education. As a modality of instruction , distance education has grown in importance rapidly in the last thirty years. Most theories in the field have been solidified and are part of a sophisticated body of literature addressing learning issues, technologies, administration of programs, instructional design, and models. Systemic thinking has been proposed as a way to operate in distance education to obtain good results in the practice of distance education. Because most theories and models of distance education have been developed in industrialized nations, this dissertation looks at the systems approach in the context of a Latin American university. Some of its postulates are examined to determine if success areas at the Virtual University are the result of systemic practices. The larger context of this dissertation is the analysis of a distance education model within a university in the developing world. The Virtual University of the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) in Mexico serves as a case study for this work. In eight years, the unit has grown dramatically offering several graduate degrees, undergraduate courses, and continuing education programs in 26 national campuses and in other locations of North, Central, and South America. Its success and problem areas are worthy of analysis looking at a distance education model developed in the US. Through the use of surveys, review of literature, institutional evaluations, and unstructured interviews, the study looks at the interconnectedness of different process parts of the Virtual University. An assessment of success and problem areas is presented. Through the analysis of data and discussion, I propose that distance education success in this Mexican university is perhaps related to cultural perceptions or the sophisticated technological infrastructure in the 26 campus system. The result questions the adoption of external models in developing countries. It suggests that, rather than continuing to explain practices in distance education with foreign schemes, local approaches need to be developed as the basis for research in the modality. This idea may be of interest for distance educators in developing nations and elsewhere.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21425 Despite evidence that an understanding of the individual's interpretive framework is an important factor in understanding effective teaching , there is little research in higher education which addresses this variable. The purpose of the study was to facilitate an understanding of the personal context within which the behaviors and strategies of effective teachers exist. Designed as a case study of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Distinguished Teaching Award winners from 1962 to 1995 (N = 47, 69% of total population, representing all of the Schools/Colleges within the University ), it employed a written survey to gain data about faculty backgrounds and adoption of teaching attitudes and activities which the literature has identified as characteristic of effective teachers, followed by in-depth interviews (N = 14) to explore the participants' personal constructions of the process of teaching. The major findings include: all participants' definitions of teaching reflected a constructivist orientation to the process; a consistency in participants' definitions of the major goals and processes of teaching , and motivations and rewards for teaching across age, discipline, and sex; close attention to their own and their students' experiences is the primary source of learning about and motivation for teaching ; the goal of relating to students is to facilitate learning, thus participants define an appropriate faculty-student distance in their relationships with students; teaching is considered an activity with intellectual value; evidence of individual shifts in the construction of their goals for teaching and of their relationships with students, their content and the context that parallel established schema for epistemological and intellectual development, indicating the possibility of a psychological developmental aspect to the development of effective teachers. Some implications for further research include the need for efforts to clarify possible epistemological developmental aspects to the development of faculty as teachers, to research the connections between developmental stage and teaching effectiveness and conceptualization of efforts to improve teaching as incorporating more than attention to methods.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21396 The focus of this study is on the design and evaluation of an instructional device for rectifying the primarily impetus-based beliefs of introductory physics students at the high school and college levels regarding the phenomenon of projectile motion. From a review of the literature and modest pilot study, it was determined that a large percentage of these individuals hold misconceptions about force and motion that manifest themselves in inaccurate qualitative predictions and explanations for the trajectories of objects. This same review of the literature revealed various approaches for addressing the problem of student misconceptions. The consensus was that successful remediation can not take place unless an ongoing and concerted effort is made to first identify these misconceptions, and then provide instruction that is specifically intended to simultaneously reduce the strength of individuals' erroneous ideas and increase that of the desired conceptions. An integrated approach to the design and evaluation of instruction was then employed to (1) determine which devices and procedures are best suited to the task of promoting a more accurate student conception of projectile motion in "real-world" situations and (2) determine the efficacy and viability of the design for typical classroom application. The design that was developed and tested consisted of an analog computer microworld simulation of projectile motion, used in conjunction with a special type of questionnaire known as an "augmented anticipation/reaction guide." The design was found to produce statistically significant gains in students' qualitative understanding of projectile motion.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21395 This dissertation examines writing and teaching genres of academic writing classes by examining the computer interchanges of a class of undergraduate composition students. It analyzes the thematic formations of topics and the activity structures of discussion. These two functions of language are the source of the genres of academic situations, and must be exposed and understood in and through the teaching genres of the composition class rather than in structural reproductive teaching genres. A synthesis of social, functional, and postmodern views of language in the Bakhtinian study of genres supports such arguments. A preliminary pedagogical model is constructed from discussions of classroom genres, social semiotics, and ecosocial systemic theory. The model utilizes two metaphors, archeology and ecology, to inform and guide the reading and writing processes of both student and teacher. The model was applied to an academic writing class to find indications of its conditions, limits, and possibilities. An analytical study examines the students' production of discursive activity structures and thematic formations in the academic writing course. In the study, the interchanges of the classroom are explored. Data consisted of the log of a Daedalus interchange and observations of the classroom activities. The data reveals that students use several genres that are common to the academy and that they form thematic formations as groups, defining words and relationships in an inventive environment. Such findings extend the notions of ecosocial systemic theory presented in the early chapters. When the study is considered in relation to the synthesis of language studies found in social semiotics, it offers writing teachers insight into the ways students learn genres through dialogue and teaching genres and the ways teachers may reconceive the theory/practice relationship when adapting their pedagogy.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21255 This study determined which program performance indicators the Tech Prep practitioners of Kansas selected as evaluative tools and describes the relationships among the variables. These results were compared with the selection made by Tech Prep coordinators/directors in American Vocational Association's Region II (Southeastern United States and Puerto Rico). The 60 performance indicators were developed and validated by F. T. Hammons, Jr. (1992). In this study a questionnaire was mailed to 183 high school principals and 29 postsecondary academic leaders. An overall return of 35.3 percent was received and data are reported in tabular format. The first research question determined which Tech Prep performance indicators Kansas practitioners selected for program evaluation. The postsecondary group rejected 10 indicators from the original list while the secondary rejected 13 with percentage scores, derived by selection rates, of less than 50. The second research question examined if there was a difference between program performance indicators selected by the postsecondary and secondary practitioners of Kansas. Both groups selected 18 indicators with a difference of less than five percentage points, while 42 indicators were incongruent. Therefore, the study indicated there existed a difference of views and understanding of the Tech Prep program between the secondary and postsecondary academic leaders in Kansas. The results of the postsecondary and secondary were then combined and averaged to answer research question three--will the Tech Prep program performance indicators selected by Kansas practitioners be synonymous with those selected by Tech Prep practitioners in AVA Region II? Five indicators selected by the Kansas and AVA Region II participants were identical, and a total of 38 indicators ranked within five points of each other. Nine indicators were rejected with percentage scores of less than 50 by Kansas and two by AVA Region II. Recommendations are to: (1) Development of distance education programs for students in geographically remote areas to increase the accessibility to postsecondary Tech Prep curriculum; and resources be allocated for such endeavors. (2) Use performance indicators to initiate dialogue between groups for mutual understanding of programs for the benefit of the students. (3) Use program indicators as evaluative tools for all programs.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21147 The primary purpose of this study was to develop an instrument for evaluating educational software in elementary mathematics for educators in Taiwan. This new instrument, which was called the Instrument for Evaluating Chinese Educational Software (IECES), included three scales (technical quality and presentation, instructional quality, and pedagogical content). The second purpose was to provide empirical evidence of IECES validity and reliability. Content validity, construct validity, internal consistency reliability, inter-rater reliability, and the impact of teachers' characteristics on the total IECES scores were investigated. The subjects for this study were eighty-four elementary mathematics teachers enrolled in an in-service teacher training program at The National Taipei Teachers College in Taiwan. Four software packages were used in this study. Every subject was asked to evaluate two software packages and complete the instrument. Descriptive analysis (frequencies, and percentages), correlations, Cronbach's alphas, inter-rater reliability coefficients, analysis of variance, expert panel reviews, and qualitative analysis were used to determine the quality of the instrument. The findings were as follows: (1) Based on the results from the expert judgment and scale homogeneity, the IECES contained appropriate content for the purpose of evaluating educational software; (2) the structure of IECES might be more uni-dimensional rather than having three dimensions (technical quality and presentation, instructional quality, and pedagogical content); (3) the internal consistency of IECES was quite good across four different software packages. This supported IECES as a reliable instrument for assessing different software packages in the area of elementary school mathematics; (4) the inter-rater reliability coefficients showed that although independent teachers were consistent in their ratings using IECES, the accuracy and consistency of their ratings still needed to be improved; (5) there were no statistically significant differences found with regard to the variables of gender, age, years of teaching experience, computer experience, and knowledge of educational software. This implied that these individual teacher characteristics were not main factors affecting software evaluations when IECES was used; (6) teachers frequently commented that it was easy to respond to items, and to interpret the IECES scores.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21107 A teaching model was developed based on current theories of adult learning and contemporary pedagogical approaches to art history. To test the validity of the model a pilot study was undertaken within the context of a college classroom of adult students. The work of three adult educators, Knowles, Mezirow and Jarvis have revealed that the life experiences adults have accrued are significant factors in their learning process. These varied life experiences form the basis of adult students' knowledge, thus producing a less homogeneous, definable group of students than a classroom of children who are at a predictable developmental stage. The pedagogy that relates to introductory art history has been contested territory since the subject was first introduced to the college classroom in the United States during the nineteenth century. Access to more information, technological changes, as well as societal changes reflected in the philosophical bases for the course have resulted in a perceived need to move beyond traditional teaching methods such as lecture. One way to facilitate the evolutionary nature of the discipline as well as account for the diverse backgrounds of the students is to teach the method and structure of the discipline. Teaching how to do art history does not preclude teaching facts as course content. Students should learn how art historical information is determined, so they can find the information necessary to understand and explain works of art on their own. The structure of doing art history is best taught in a participatory manner, such that students are actively engaged in talking about works of art. Results from the pilot study, that focused on the participation of students through discussion as they learned a method of doing art history, indicated that the teaching model could be useful in the adult classroom. Students' differences were accounted for as well as validated as they engaged in research and presentation of personally selected works of art.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21061 The study was a descriptive, qualitative one. Its purpose was to identify the strategies utilized by Oklahoma superintendents involved in a voluntary school consolidation process since H.B. 1017. Data was collected on eight voluntary consolidations. The data included semistructured interviews with the superintendents serving the districts at the time of consolidation. The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed. Other data included researcher notes, school board meeting minutes, newspaper articles, consolidation plans, and feasibility studies submitted by the Oklahoma State Department of Education. Data analysis was performed following Holsti's (1969) four-step procedure for content analysis. The four steps include: (1) selecting a sample of data, (2) selecting content categories, (3) comparing the categories, and (4) drawing inferences (pp. 25-27). The emerging themes were identified as the strategies utilized by superintendents experienced in voluntary school consolidation to enhance the consolidation process. Through data analyses, thirteen strategies utilized to enhance the consolidation process were identified. The thirteen strategies were utilized in at least five of the eight consolidations studied. Table 15 provides an outline of the significant strategies and the consolidations in which they were utilized. These identified strategies, if implemented appropriately, could provide for a more collegial, efficient consolidation process. Clearly, more research is needed in the area of strategies utilized by superintendents that facilitate and enhance school consolidation processes. Research populations should be broadened to include school annexations and forced consolidations. A more in-depth study of a single consolidation may be productive in providing additional strategies, also. As the researcher found no other study of this type on the topic of school consolidation, the strategies reported, if implemented appropriately, may be used by school districts, State Department of Education personnel, and university professors to prepare for an enhanced school consolidation process.
ORDER NO: ABA97-21021 As current educational reform has moved from the classroom to the university , teacher education programs have come under fire. Educational research calls for redesigned preservice programs that teach constructivist oriented educational ideas as well as evaluative research to determine if such programs are effective. This study investigated an innovative fifth year, elementary teacher education block program by comparing it to a traditional fifth year elementary program at the same university. The study asked, which program was better able to change the pretraining beliefs of its students, and which program did the best job instilling constructivist ideas. The study used both a quantitative pre- and post-survey design as well as a qualitative descriptive study matched group design. The study concluded that the block program was more effective at teaching constructivist oriented ideas. The quantitative data, however, suggested that when it came to changing the pretraining beliefs of its students, neither program was successful. The study reinforced many other education findings current in this field. The wealth of data collected, however, provides fertile ground for further research. The sharp contrast between the interview data which provided evidence of knowledge growth and the survey data which showed that student beliefs about teaching did not change, raised new questions about the symbiotic relationship between knowledge and beliefs. Most useful was the "Teacher Beliefs Survey" developed for this study. The instrument asked preservice students to respond to a series of belief statements. The statements measured traditional and constructivist ideas about several different aspects of teaching. The statistical results provided benchmark data for Teacher educators who deconstruct constructivist teaching ideas and attempt to incorporate them into their teaching programs. Educational researchers who want to further define and investigate constructivism, Teacher educators who want to redesign their program, administrators who want some understanding of the knowledge base of the new teacher, and teachers who want to better understand the teaching and learning process, will all find this study in some measure, enlightening and illustrative.
ORDER NO: ABA97-20530 The evaluation is based on the application of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) to determine if statistically significant differences exist in test scores between the student groups in the Department of Architecture which offers three programs. All incoming freshmen study for two years in the Architectural Engineering Technology (AET) program. For students who continue, at the beginning of the third year, they may launch into one of two options (a) the five year Architectural Cooperative Program (ARC) or (b) the four year Architectural Engineering Cooperative (AEC) program. The problem under investigation is that although critical thinking ability is an expected outcome of a college education and is an essential skill of technical and design professionals, WIT has yet to establish empirical research data to determine the level of student critical thinking ability, or to establish benchmarks for future evaluation efforts. The following ten research questions (RQ) were developed to address the problem: (1) What is an operational definition of critical thinking skills? (2) What are the critical thinking skills needed for effectiveness in the professional fields of engineering and architecture? (3) Based on the WGCTA, are there significant total mean score differences between the architectural-engineering (AEC-4) and architectural (ARC-5) senior level students, and the (AET-1a) freshmen? (4) Based on the WGCTA, are there significant total mean score differences between (AEC-4) and (ARC-5) senior level students, and the (AEC-3) and (ARC-3) juniors? (5) Based on the WGCTA, are there significant total mean score differences between the (AEC-3) and (ARC-3) juniors, and (AET-1a) freshmen? (6) Based on the WGCTA, are there significant total mean score differences between senior level (AEC-4) and (ARC-5) students? (7) Based on the WGCTA, are there significant total mean score differences between two independent freshmen groups, one group (AET-1a) tested at the beginning of the first semester and the other group (AET-1b) tested at the end of the first semester? (8) Based on the WGCTA are there significant total mean score differences between (AET-2) sophomores nearing completion of two years of study and entering (AET-1a) freshmen? (9) Based on the WGCTA, are there significant total mean score differences between fifth year (ARC-5) architectural students and entering (AET-1a) freshmen? (10) Based on the WGCTA, are there total mean score differences between the combined WIT students and comparable normative student groups from the WGCTA database? (Abstract shortened by UMI.) | ||||||||||||
