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Description
Given the current focus on high-stakes accountability in America's public schools, this study examined teacher evaluation specific to physical education. This study revealed current teacher evaluation practices used in physical education, perceptions of school administrators related to the value of the physical education evaluation process, and the perceptions of the physical education teachers related to the value of the evaluation process. The first phase of this study was an interpretive document analysis study conducted on four separate teacher evaluation systems commonly used within the public school system to evaluate physical education teachers. Those four systems were: Marzanos teacher evaluation model, Danielson framework for teaching (FFT), Rewarding Excellence in Instruction and Leadership (REIL), and Teacher Advancement Program (TAP). A separate evaluation instrument specific to physical education created by the National Association of Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) was used as a comparative evaluation tool. Evidence suggests that two of the four teacher evaluation systems had a high percentage of alignment with the NASPE instrument (TAP 87.5%, FFT 82.5%). The Marzano teacher evaluation model had the least amount of alignment with the NASPE instrument (62.5%). The second phase of this study was a phenomenological approach to understanding administrators' and physical education teachers' perceptions to teacher evaluation specific to physical education. The participants in this study were administrators and physical education teachers from an urban school district. An informal survey and formal semi-structured interviews were used to reveal perceptions of teacher evaluation specific to physical education. Evidence from the administrator's informal survey and formal semi-structured interviews revealed four common themes: (1) "I value PE, but I live in reality" (administrators value physical education, but practice in reality); (2) "good teaching is good teaching"; (3) "I know my limitations, and I want
eed help" (relative to teacher evaluation in PE); and (4) where's the training beef? Evidence from the physical education teacher's informal survey and formal semi-structured interviews revealed three common themes: (a) physical education is valued, but not prioritized; (b) teacher evaluation in physical education is "greatly needed, yet not transparent; (c) physical educators are not confident in their evaluator.
eed help" (relative to teacher evaluation in PE); and (4) where's the training beef? Evidence from the physical education teacher's informal survey and formal semi-structured interviews revealed three common themes: (a) physical education is valued, but not prioritized; (b) teacher evaluation in physical education is "greatly needed, yet not transparent; (c) physical educators are not confident in their evaluator.
ContributorsNorris, Jason (Author) / Van Der Mars, Hans (Thesis advisor) / Beardsley, Audrey (Thesis advisor) / Kulinna, Pamela (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This research is a reversal of the traditional concept of the student-teaching research experiment. Instead of studying the clear and stated goal of an apprenticeship, that of a pupil learning from the tutelage of a master, the focus here is on what a mentor-teacher learns from a student-teacher. During the act of teaching a novice, what can a mentor-teacher learn about her own practice, while demonstrating it to a pre-service teacher? Using the conceptual framework of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards' Architecture of Accomplished Teaching, and using it within a framework centered around cognitive coaching and reciprocal mentoring, this action research study implemented an intervention that called for series of five cognitive coaching cycles between a mentor- and student-teacher designed to foster dialogue and reflection between them. The ultimate aim of this case study was to help determine what a mentor-teacher learned about her own practice as a result of mentoring a student-teacher. Qualitative data were collected over sixteen weeks in a charter high school. Five findings were identified created after the data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach, and four conclusions were drawn about the intervention's role in the mentor-teacher's reciprocal learning.
ContributorsMcCloy, Daniel (Author) / Beardsley, Audrey (Thesis advisor) / Serafini, Frank (Committee member) / Roen, Duane (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This multilevel, institutional case study used ethnographic methods to explore the intersections of local language policies and emergent bilingual students’ identities in dual language and structured English immersion (SEI) classrooms at one urban elementary school. Using a sociocultural policy approach as means to explore the ways that educational language policies are appropriated and practiced in schools and classrooms and an intersectional literacy identity framework, I engaged in a multilevel qualitative analysis of one school, two fifth-grade classrooms, and four focal emergent bilingual students. At the school and classroom levels, I sought to understand the ways educators practiced and enacted language policies as well as how they conceptualized (bi)literacy for emergent bilingual students. At the student level, I engaged in identity-text writing sessions designed around student interests yet aligned with the opinion/argumentation writing style the students were working on in class at the time of data collection. Additionally, I conducted one-on-one interviews with the participants at each level of analysis (i.e. school-level, classroom-level, and student-level). The primary data analysis sources included participant interviews, classroom observations, and student identity-text artifacts.
Findings highlight the dynamic in-school and classroom-level realities of emergent bilingual students in an Arizona educational-language policy context. Specifically, at the school level, there was an ongoing tension between compliance and resistance to state-mandated policies for emergent bilingual students. At the school and classroom levels, there were distinct differences in the ways students across the two classrooms were positioned within the larger school environment as well as variation surrounding how language and culture were positioned as a resource in each classroom context. The role of teachers as language policymakers is also explored through the findings. Analysis of student texts revealed the centrality of intersectional student identities throughout the writing processes. The discussion and conclusions more broadly address implications for educational practice, policy, and future research directions.
Findings highlight the dynamic in-school and classroom-level realities of emergent bilingual students in an Arizona educational-language policy context. Specifically, at the school level, there was an ongoing tension between compliance and resistance to state-mandated policies for emergent bilingual students. At the school and classroom levels, there were distinct differences in the ways students across the two classrooms were positioned within the larger school environment as well as variation surrounding how language and culture were positioned as a resource in each classroom context. The role of teachers as language policymakers is also explored through the findings. Analysis of student texts revealed the centrality of intersectional student identities throughout the writing processes. The discussion and conclusions more broadly address implications for educational practice, policy, and future research directions.
ContributorsBaca, Evelyn Concepción (Author) / Jimenez-Silva, Margarita (Thesis advisor) / Artiles, Alfredo (Committee member) / Beardsley, Audrey (Committee member) / Casanova, Saskias (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Assessments at the international, national, state, and local levels demonstrate that students’ reading scores in Arizona lack growth. Current trends in education encourage teachers to engage in close reading as a strategy to help improve reading efficacy. The close reading process helps students learn how to analyze complex text. A mixed method study examined the effect of ten weeks of instruction in close reading on the reading comprehension skills of fifth grade students. Also examined were any differential effects of close reading on literary versus informational texts. Students in an upper income public school community were taught the specifics of close reading procedures approximately four days per week for about 30 minutes daily. Research-based procedures for close reading strategies were followed. Students self-reported changes in their use of strategies prior to receiving close reading strategies and again post-instruction. Six students were interviewed and responded to journal questions concerning their use of the close reading strategies to ascertain how they made meaning from text. Results suggest that close reading was beneficial in helping students to make academic achievements in overall reading comprehension, as well as growth in literary content. Data also reflected that students used close reading strategies to make meaning out of the text and used it to influence their overall reading comprehension. The discussion focused on the triangulation of the quantitative and qualitative data and analyzed connections to current research. Also explored were implications for practice and future research, as well as limitations and the role of the researcher.
ContributorsVictor, Laura (Author) / Caterino, Linda C (Thesis advisor) / Koro-Ljungberg, Mirka (Committee member) / McNeil, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This study addresses the problem of high school graduates with learning disabilities who are unprepared for higher education and the workplace because of limited exposure to career professionals and perceived barriers. The purpose of this study is to examine how a career exploration model, entitled CaMPs (Career Model Professionals) influences students’ career decision-making self-efficacy. CaMPs incorporates exposure to career role models, as well as career research and self-reflection. CaMPs proivides students with learning disabilities first-hand accounts of successful career professionals, to assist them in setting academic and career goals that are aligned to their personal strengths. This mixed methods study develops and evaluates a career based innovation for high school students and reviews the relationship between the innovation and students’ self-efficacy. Students completed a self-efficacy survey (Career Decision Self-Efficacy - Short Form: CDSE) before and after the implementation of the CaMPs program. A t-test comparing pre- and post-survey scores indicated that there was a significant increase in self-efficacy after completion of the program. Qualitative data revealed changes in students’ career interests and new considerations to their career preparation process after participating in the CaMPs innovation. This study will be useful in the development of career programs for high school students, particularly those with learning disabilities, to assist them in choosing and preparing for their future careers.
ContributorsCook, Jeffrey (Author) / Caterino, Linda C (Thesis advisor) / Carlson, David L. (Committee member) / Dawes, Mary E (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Parent involvement in their children’s education has been a frequently sought after and highly regarded component in education that has repeatedly been identified as a significant influence that contributes to children’s success in school. Historically, Latino parent involvement has been markedly low in the United States. Researchers’ interest in Latino parents’ involvement in their children’s education has been spurred by this low level of involvement coupled with reports of significant differences in educational achievement between Latino students and students of other ethnic backgrounds. Perceptions of self-efficacy and role construction have been identified as motivators for parent involvement. The purpose of this action research study was to examine the relationship between the Espacio Iluminado Parent Engagement Program as a nontraditional Latino parent involvement opportunity and parents’ perceptions of self-efficacy and role construction as it pertains to supporting the education of their children. The foundation of the program was developed utilizing Third Space Theory (Bhabha, 1994) to generate a framework that had the potential to serve as a model for future parent involvement programs that validated the knowledge of diverse cultures and discourses and encouraged a mediation of the two. Participants’ ratings of Role Construction and Self-Efficacy were significantly improved after their involvement in the parent program. Participants also felt strongly that the program was personally valuable and useful. Future direction might include a longitudinal study to track the academic progress of children of the participants.
ContributorsBrotherton, Kathleen Scheehl (Author) / Caterino, Linda C (Thesis advisor) / Buss, Ray R (Committee member) / Weber, Christina (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Digital media is becoming increasingly important to learning in today’s changing times. At the same time, digital technologies and related digital skills are unevenly distributed. Further, deficit-based notions of this digital divide define the public’s educational paradigm. Against this backdrop, I forayed into the social reality of one rural Americana to examine digital learning in the wild. The larger purpose of this dissertation was to spatialize understandings of rural life and pervasive social ills therein, in order to rethink digital equity, such that we dismantle deficit thinking, problematize new ruralism, and re-imagine more just rural geographies. Under a Thirdspace understanding of space as dynamic, relational, and agentive (Soja, 1996), I examined how digital learning is caught up spatially to position the rural struggle over geography amid the ‘Right to the City’ rhetoric (Lefebvre, 1968). In response to this limiting and urban-centric rhetoric, I contest digital inequity as a spatial issue of justice in rural areas. After exploring how digital learning opportunities are distributed at state and local levels, I geo-ethnographically explored digital use to story how families across socio-economic spaces were utilizing digital tools. Last, because ineffective and deficit-based models of understanding erupt from blaming the oppressed for their own self-made oppression, or framing problems (e.g., digital inequity) as solely human-centered, I drew in posthumanist Latourian (2005) social cartographies of Thirdspace. From this, I re-imagined educational equity within rural space to recast digital equity not in terms of the “haves and have nots” but as an account of mutually transformative socio-technical agency. Last, I pay the price of criticism by suggesting possible actions and solutions to the social ills denounced throughout this dissertation.
ContributorsCirell, Anna Montana (Author) / Gee, Elisabeth R. (Thesis advisor) / Gee, James (Committee member) / Beardsley, Audrey (Committee member) / Carlson, David L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This action research, mixed methods, case study examined middle school student perceptions of the effectiveness of Club Aspire. Club Aspire is an after-school program created to support the lowest achieving seventh and eighth graders in an Arizona K-8 school. The framework of this study comes from the theory of self-regulation, social learning theory and co-regulation. The primary focus of Club Aspire is to teach low achieving middle school students, self-regulation skills and learning strategies through goal setting, self-regulation learning strategy lessons and co-regulation activities.
The study took place over 13 weeks and included 11 participants and answered the following research questions. How do middle school Elevate students perceive the impact of Club Aspire on their self-regulation and themselves as a learner? How does Club Aspire affect middle school Elevate students’ academic success? What do middle school Elevate students perceive as the most influential elements of Club Aspire? Data collection tools consisted of interviews, class work, referral data, pre- and post-questionnaire and benchmark assessment data.
The study revealed that students made gains in self-regulation learning strategy usage, however, their academic achievement was not influenced. Students identified goal setting, learning self-regulation strategies and co-regulation activities with their peer partner as the most beneficial elements of Club Aspire. The study also revealed that student self-efficacy was increased throughout the semester.
The study took place over 13 weeks and included 11 participants and answered the following research questions. How do middle school Elevate students perceive the impact of Club Aspire on their self-regulation and themselves as a learner? How does Club Aspire affect middle school Elevate students’ academic success? What do middle school Elevate students perceive as the most influential elements of Club Aspire? Data collection tools consisted of interviews, class work, referral data, pre- and post-questionnaire and benchmark assessment data.
The study revealed that students made gains in self-regulation learning strategy usage, however, their academic achievement was not influenced. Students identified goal setting, learning self-regulation strategies and co-regulation activities with their peer partner as the most beneficial elements of Club Aspire. The study also revealed that student self-efficacy was increased throughout the semester.
ContributorsRomero, Kaseylyn (Author) / Jordan, Michelle (Thesis advisor) / Beardsley, Audrey (Committee member) / Isai, Shelley (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This study explored the influence of how the development of self-determination skills affected college students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Five college students who qualified for a university-based disabilities resource program under the category of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) participated in a five session mentoring program over the course of the first 12 weeks of the fall semester. The mentoring program was designed to develop specific self-determination skills, including, self-awareness, self-advocacy, and confidence. Participants engaged in an interactive dialogue, discussing specific skills and experiences, relative to the development of self-determination skills. Pre- and post-surveys, and a post intervention interview indicated that the students reported positive results in describing that mentoring experience, and found the protocol useful in their development of self-determination skills. Implications identified for further application into practice, include (a) a deeper appreciation and review of the participants’ background and experience, (b) the development and implementation of peer-to-peer mentoring, (c) the need for more intentional collaboration with high school partners, (d) the need to expand the skills being developed, and (e), the need to expand the number of services and resources discussed. This study will be used in the exploration of a broader collegiate mentoring program geared towards students with ASD with the purpose of increasing self-determination skills.
ContributorsHarrop, Lance J (Author) / Caterino, Linda C (Thesis advisor) / Puckett, Kathleen (Committee member) / Montoya, Georgeana (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
The purpose of this action research study was to explore the relationship between growth mindset instruction in a community college success class with student academic effort and achievement, among students enrolled in a developmental reading class. Community college students, especially those testing into developmental classes, face numerous obstacles to achieving their goal of completing a college degree. Research supports that students with a growth mindset - a psychological concept grounded in the belief of the malleability of traits such as intelligence - embrace challenges, exert more academic effort, and achieve more. Fourteen students enrolled in a community college participated in this convergent parallel mixed methods study. A mindset survey was administered three times, at the beginning and end of the semester as well as at Week 3 after initial introduction to growth mindset. Descriptive statistics indicated a slight increase in students’ growth mindset scores by the end of the term. An analysis of variance, however, yielded no statistically significant relationship. Correlational analysis of final mindset scores with effort variables indicated an unexpected result – a negative correlation (p<.05) of growth mindset with time in Canvas (the Learning Management System). An ANOVA using a median split for high vs. low mindset scores indicated an unexpectedly significant (p<.05) positive relationship between missing assignments and a high mindset score. Statistical analysis of mindset with achievement yielded no significant relationship. Qualitative results included data from three journal assignments and semi-structured interviews and suggest that these students could comprehend and support most of the tenets of Growth Mindset Theory. While quantitative results were not significant in the expected direction, triangulation with qualitative data indicated that students’ goal orientation may be a factor in the unexpected quantitative results. This study adds to the growing literature on Growth Mindset Theory by extending it to a new and different population, first year community college students, with reading challenges. Further study is needed to clarify the relationships of growth mindset, malleability of intelligence, and goal orientation with academic effort and achievement over a longer period.
ContributorsBrysacz, Lynn M (Author) / Caterino, Linda C (Thesis advisor) / Jordan, Michelle E (Committee member) / Auten, Marianne A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017