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- Creators: Allen, Althe
- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
Description
An unrelenting need exists to improve literacy instruction in secondary schools in the United States. Reading scores, especially among minority and language minority students, as well as the economically disadvantaged, have not produced significant gains in recent years. The problem of low level reading skills in secondary grades is complicated to address, however, as many secondary teachers find themselves ill-equipped to deal with the challenges they face. Improving student achievement by integrating reading comprehension strategies into the freshman English curriculum was the ultimate goal of this innovation. A total of 15 freshman English language arts teachers and 30 freshman students participated in this 14 week action research study, which involved teaching explicit pre-, during-, and post-reading strategies during daily lessons at a large, urban high school in the Southwestern United States. Data were collected using a reading diagnostic test, focus group interviews with teachers, individual interviews with teachers and students, and teacher observations. Findings from the data suggest that professional development designed to infuse comprehension strategies through collaborative inquiry among English language arts teachers contributed to assisting students to perform better on reading diagnostic measures. Furthermore, the findings suggest that this method of professional development served to raise teachers' self-efficacy regarding literacy instruction, which, in turn, improved students' efficacy and performance as readers.
ContributorsWilliams, Jeffrey (Author) / Roe, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Weber, Catherine (Committee member) / Allen, Althe (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Attending college provides young adults with a major shift in environment from high school where many students are used to living at home with their parents or guardians. Students experience a newfound freedom once beginning their freshman year, especially if living in on-campus housing. Freshmen are known to gain weight during this transitory period, and this has been partially attributed to changes in eating behaviors, which makes this a population of concern. College freshmen have significant autonomy over their food choices if not living at home, due to not having parents or guardians present. In the transition to college, freshmen are able to adopt new habits, healthy or unhealthy, which could make a large impact on their health habits for the rest of their lives; this is why the freshman population is an area of concern. RESULTS: None of the relationships between social connectedness and FF consumption were found to be statistically significant. Social connectedness was not significantly related to cross-sectional FF intake at the two different phases, or longitudinally between the two phases, even after adjustments were made. Additionally, there were no gender differences present in FF consumption or social connectedness at either phase. CONCLUSION: The lack of significant findings suggest that social connectedness might not be a reason college freshmen consume FF. Students might eat with others due to the convenience of living closely to them rather than as a means to socialize. Also, factors such as time constraints and cost might have played a larger role in why students consumed FF. Future research could involve similar studies using shorter questionnaires more tailored to eating behaviors, with more detailed measures of FF consumption (e.g. What specific FF meals did you consume?) and for a longer duration of time, to allow students to become more situated in their environment and have a better knowledge of all their food options. This study was an important contribution to the sparsely researched topic of social connectedness with a large and diverse sample studied longitudinally. It was also the only study of its kind to be performed on the college population, and had potential for future health implications in obesity and chronic conditions such as hypertension and type II diabetes. Further research is warranted to evaluate the relationship between social connectedness and other eating behaviors.
ContributorsBaca, Rachel (Author) / Bruening, Meg (Thesis director) / Brennhofer, Stephanie (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Nutrition and Health Promotion (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Though National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) in Arizona have been identified as leaders on a national level, they do not have comparable opportunities to lead within their local contexts or engage in leadership and collaboration activities that align with Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) Standard 10. The purpose of this sequential, mixed-methods study was to explore how the development of a teacher leadership community of practice for NBCTs might influence their perceptions of themselves as leaders. Social constructionism, action research, and communities of practice guided the innovation and a mixed-methods approach was used for data collection and analysis. Data illustrated NBCTs’ dichotomous feelings about leadership on local and national levels. Findings revealed that NBCTs need continued professional learning opportunities, beyond National Board Certification, to resolve feelings of isolation and fully meet all of the leadership and collaboration indicators for InTASC Standard 10. Participating in a teacher leadership community of practice (a) provided a professional learning opportunity for NBCTs, (b) improved NBCTs’ perceptions of teacher leadership and helped them define it as an active process of learning, reflection, and action, and (c) increased NBCTs’ readiness to take action as teacher leaders within their local contexts to evoke positive change.
ContributorsAdams, Alaina (Author) / Marley, Scott C. (Thesis advisor) / Koro-Ljungberg, Mirka (Committee member) / Allen, Althe (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
OBJECTIVE: Freshman year at college is a time in an adolescent's life marked by a large amount of change in environment, as well as a shift in peer influences. Past research has shown that there are a variety of influences both personal and socio-environmental that affect weight control behaviors in college freshmen. This study examined the relationship between unhealthy weight control behaviors (UWCB) and two different personal and socio-environmental factors: time spent on each meal, and the perception that friends are partaking in UWCB. The Social Cognitive Theory was used to explain the intricate and intertwined association between the personal and socio-cognitive factors. METHOD: Unhealthy weight control behavior was assessed from first-year university students (n= 1241) living in campus dorms at Arizona State University. Demographics included Male (n=438) Female (n=802) first-year students with an average age of 17.5 years from various ethnic backgrounds. This was a secondary analysis of the devilSPARC study at Arizona State University and students completed a check-in survey upon participation. The survey asked for an estimation of time spent at meals and also asked the students to determine the individual's use of unhealthy weight control behaviors (vomiting, dieting, diet pills, steroids, substances, and protein shakes) as well as the observation of friend's participating in weight control behaviors. Students received a $15 Amazon gift card and devilSPARC swag as an incentive for participating. All participation was voluntary. RESULTS: This study found that unhealthy weight control behaviors were associated with spending more time on meals; this was relevant during the breakfast period. As well, the use of unhealthy weight control behaviors was associated with friends participating in unhealthy weight control behaviors in regards to both unhealthy weight loss and weight gain behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest both personal and socio-environmental factors affect the use of unhealthy weight control behaviors in college freshmen. Interventions for education should focus on body image and healthy weight control behaviors for college freshmen, intervening both before individuals enter college, as well as during the first year at university. This research is an important contribution to the literature, as it examines unhealthy weight control behaviors in college freshmen and the potential influences they face that lead them to develop such behaviors. Future studies should delve deeper into researching the relationship between time spent eating and weight control behaviors, as that has not been extensively studied in the literature.
ContributorsSwanson, Kendra Melanie (Author) / Bruening, Meg (Thesis director) / Mason, Maureen (Committee member) / School of Nutrition and Health Promotion (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05