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Description
Students may be situated within complex systems that are nested within each other. This complexity may also envelope institutional structures that lead to the socio-economic reification of student post-secondary opportunities by obscuring positive goals. This may be confounded by community misunderstandings about the changed world that students are entering. These

Students may be situated within complex systems that are nested within each other. This complexity may also envelope institutional structures that lead to the socio-economic reification of student post-secondary opportunities by obscuring positive goals. This may be confounded by community misunderstandings about the changed world that students are entering. These changes include social and economic factors that impact personal and economic freedoms, our ability to live at peace, and the continuing trend of students graduating high school underprepared.
Building on previous cycles of action research, this multi-strand mixed-methods study examined the effects of the innovation of the I am College and Career Ready Student Support Program (iCCR). The innovation was collaboratively developed and implemented over a 16-week period using a participatory action research approach. The situated context of this study was a new high school in the urban center of San Diego, California. The innovation included a student program administered during an advisory period and a parent education program.
Qualitative research used a critical ethnographic design that analyzed data from artifacts, journals, notes, and the interviews of students (*n* = 8), parents (*n* = 6), and teachers (*n* = 5). Quantitative research included the analysis of data from surveys administered to inform the development of the innovation (*n* = 112), to measure learning of parent workshop participants (*n =* 10), and to measure learning, hope, and attitudinal disposition of student participants (*n* = 49). Triangulation was used to answer the studies’ four research questions. Triangulated findings were subjected to the method of crystallization to search for hidden meanings and multiple truths.
Findings included the importance of parent involvement, the influence of positive goals, relational implications of goal setting and pathway knowledge on agentic thinking, and that teacher implementation of the innovation may have influenced student hope levels. This study argued for a grounded theory situated within a theoretical framework based upon Snyder’s Hope Theory and Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System Theory. This argument asserted that influence on pathway and agency occurred at levels of high proximal process with the influence of goal setting occurring at levels of lower proximal process.
ContributorsLoescher, Shawn Thomas (Author) / Mertler, Craig A. (Thesis advisor) / Jordan, Michelle E. (Committee member) / Moore, R. V. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
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Description
During the 2017-2018 academic year, I worked as Program Manager for a government-funded post-secondary organization in Ontario, Canada. A core part of my professional role was creating awareness and increasing the use of open educational resources (OER) in partnership with Ontario educators. I conducted this work with the support of

During the 2017-2018 academic year, I worked as Program Manager for a government-funded post-secondary organization in Ontario, Canada. A core part of my professional role was creating awareness and increasing the use of open educational resources (OER) in partnership with Ontario educators. I conducted this work with the support of colleagues and OER advocates at public colleges and universities. Collectively, we focused on the use of OER as an opportunity to: (a) reduce the cost of post-secondary resources, (b) diversify the types of resources used in teaching and learning, and (c) explore opportunities to create assessments and activities that empowered learners as co-creators of knowledge. Alongside my professional role during this year, I engaged in a mixed-methods action research study using change management strategies and Ajzen’s (1991) Theory of Planned Behavior. The purpose of the study was to determine the usefulness of an awareness and support strategy designed to increase the use of OER among post-secondary educators in Ontario.

For many of the participants in the study (n = 38), OER were new elements in their teaching practice. I engaged in focused and meaningful dialogue with them as part of professional development sessions in order to fully explore their perspectives about use of OER. I chose two facilitation designs as the action of my action research. The first was a pair of face-to-face workshops, and the second was an open online course commonly called a MOOC (massive open online course). These were the interventions (and innovations) for the study. From the perspective of the participants, the awareness and support strategies were determined to be useful for increasing their use of OER.
ContributorsHayman, Jenni (Author) / Mertler, Craig A. (Thesis advisor) / Anderson, Terry (Committee member) / Roen, Duane (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
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Description
During the winter semester of 2018, I conducted a series of four workshops to teach parents (n = 6) strategies that could be used from home with their fourth-grade struggling readers. This study was situated in an elementary school located in North Las Vegas, NV. I invited students

During the winter semester of 2018, I conducted a series of four workshops to teach parents (n = 6) strategies that could be used from home with their fourth-grade struggling readers. This study was situated in an elementary school located in North Las Vegas, NV. I invited students that scored two or more years below grade level, as indicated by the STAR Reading Assessment (a grade equivalency assessment).

The purpose of this study focused on how family engagement resulting from the implementation of four small group workshops delivered by the teacher (and researcher) could affect reading performance of students who were below grade level.

This mixed-methods action research study was informed by Bourdieu’s Theory of Cultural Capital (1977), Bandura’s Theory of Self-efficacy (1986), and school, family, and community partnership models.

Quantitative data included pre- and post-intervention parent surveys, post-intervention student surveys, and pre- and post-intervention student reading assessments. Qualitative data included field notes and post-intervention parent interviews.

A repeated-measure t-test found the difference between student pre- and post-assessment to be statistically significant, t(9) = -3.38, p = 0.008. Findings also indicated that parents utilized the skills learned, increased their self-efficacy in regards to family involvement, and overcame obstacles.
ContributorsChamorro, Kevin Mark (Author) / Mertler, Craig A. (Thesis advisor) / Tovar, Andrea (Committee member) / Paredes, Maria (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
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Description
Data and the use of data to make educational decisions have attained new-found prominence in K-12 education following the inception of high-stakes testing and subsequent linking of teacher evaluations and teacher-performance pay to students' outcomes on standardized assessments. Although the research literature suggested students' academic performance benefits were derived from

Data and the use of data to make educational decisions have attained new-found prominence in K-12 education following the inception of high-stakes testing and subsequent linking of teacher evaluations and teacher-performance pay to students' outcomes on standardized assessments. Although the research literature suggested students' academic performance benefits were derived from employing data-informed decision making (DIDM), many educators have not felt efficacious about implementing and using DIDM practices. Additionally, the literature suggested a five-factor model of teachers' efficacy and anxiety with respect to using DIDM practices: (a) identification of relevant information, (b) interpretation of relevant information, (c) application of interpretations of data to their classroom practices, (d) requisite technological skills, and (e) comfort with data and statistics.

This action research study was designed to augment a program of support focused on DIDM, which was being offered at a K-8 charter school in Arizona. It sought to better understand the relation between participation in professional development (PD) modules and teachers' self-efficacy for using DIDM practices. It provided an online PD component, in which 19 kindergarten through 8th-grade teachers worked through three self-guided online learning modules, focused sequentially on (a) identification of relevant student data, (b) interpretation of relevant student data, and (c) application of interpretations of data to classroom practices. Each module concluded with an in-person reflection session, in which teachers shared artifacts they developed based on the modules, discussed challenges, shared solutions, and considered applications to their classrooms.

Results of quantitative data from pre- and post-intervention assessments, suggested the intervention positively influenced participants' self-efficacy for (a) identifying and (b) interpreting relevant student data. Qualitative results from eight semi-structured interviews conducted at the conclusion of the intervention indicated that teachers, regardless of previous experience using data, viewed DIDM favorably and were more able to find and draw conclusions from their data than they were prior to the intervention. The quantitative and qualitative data exhibited complementarity pointing to the same conclusions. The discussion focused on explaining how the intervention influenced participants' self-efficacy for using DIDM practices, anxiety around using DIDM practices, and use of DIDM practices.
ContributorsNelson, Andrew (Author) / Buss, Ray R (Thesis advisor) / Preach, Deborah (Committee member) / Buchanan, James (Committee member) / Mertler, Craig A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
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Description
ABSTRACT

Results from previous studies indicated nursing students needed to further develop critical thinking (CT) especially with respect to employing it in their clinical reasoning. Thus, the study was conducted to support development of students’ CT in the areas of inference subskills that could be applied as they engaged in clinical

ABSTRACT

Results from previous studies indicated nursing students needed to further develop critical thinking (CT) especially with respect to employing it in their clinical reasoning. Thus, the study was conducted to support development of students’ CT in the areas of inference subskills that could be applied as they engaged in clinical reasoning during course simulations. Relevant studies from areas such as CT, clinical reasoning, nursing process, and inference subskills informed the study. Additionally, the power of simulation as an instructional technique along with reflection on those simulations contributed to the formulation of the study. Participants included junior nursing students in their second semester of nursing school. They completed a pre- and post-intervention Critical Thinking Survey, reflective journals during the course of the intervention, and interviews as the conclusion of the study. The intervention provided students with instruction on the use of three inference subskills (Facione, 2015). Moreover, they wrote reflective journal entries about their use of these skills. Quantitative results indicated no changes in various CT measures. By comparison, qualitative data analysis of individual interviews and reflective journals showed students: applied inference subskills in a limited way; demonstrated restricted clinical reasoning; displayed emerging reflection skills; and established a foundation on which to build additional CT in their professional roles. Limitations of the study included time—length of the intervention and limited power of the instruction—depth of the instruction with respect to teaching the inference subskills. Discussion focused on explaining the results. Implications for teaching included revision of the instruction in inference subskills to be more robust by extending it over time, perhaps across courses. Additionally, use of a ‘flipped’ instructional process was discussed in which students would learn the subskills by viewing video modules prior to class and then are ‘guided’ to apply their learning in classroom health care simulations. Implications for research included closer examination of the development of CT in clinical reasoning to devise a developmental trajectory that might be useful to understand this phenomenon and to develop teaching strategies to assist students in learning to use these skills as part of the clinical reasoning process.
ContributorsLuPone, Kathleen A (Author) / Buss, Ray R (Thesis advisor) / Mertler, Craig A. (Committee member) / Heying-Stanley, Betty (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017