Matching Items (39)
Description
Many educators believe that the path to a better future is a college education. Initiatives that promote college-going cultures are quite commonplace in many public high schools with some offering elective college-prep support programs like Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID). Yet, certain groups of students are not taking advantage of these opportunities. In the initial AVID sections at a metropolitan high school in the American Southwest, the girls out-numbered the boys 2:1, and the Hispanic girls outnumbered the Hispanic boys by almost 3:1. The purpose of this study was to uncover some of the factors that influenced five Hispanic males' participation, or lack thereof, in AVID, and the ways in which those factors connected to their masculine identities. What the participants say about what influenced them to be involved, or not, in the program is reported. Some themes revealed in the interviews include how the participants' scholar identity is connected to their masculine identity, how they balance their "coolness" quotient with their desires to achieve academic success, how they depend on personal relationships and collaboration, and how their families and communities have influenced them. This information may lead to the development of strategies that will increase future representation of Hispanic males in similar programs.
ContributorsGlenn, Kathleen (Kathleen Denise) (Author) / Marsh, Josephine (Thesis advisor) / Barone, Thomas (Committee member) / Cohn, Sanford (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study follows three secondary teachers as they facilitate a digital storytelling project with their students for the first time. All three teachers were not specifically trained in digital storytelling in order to investigate what happens when a digital storytelling novice tries to do a project like this with his or her students. The study follows two high school English teachers and one middle school math teacher. Each teacher's experience is shared in a case study, and all three case studies are compared and contrasted in a cross-case analysis. There is a discussion of the types of projects the teachers conducted and any challenges they faced. Strategies to overcome the challenges are also included. A variety of assessment rubrics are included in the appendix. In the review of literature, the history of digital storytelling is illuminated, as are historical concepts of literacy. There is also an exploration of twenty-first century skills including multiliteracies such as media and technology literacy. Both the teachers and their students offer suggestions to future teachers taking on digital storytelling projects. The dissertation ends with a discussion of future scholarship in educational uses of digital storytelling.
ContributorsGordon, Corrine (Author) / Blasingame, James (Thesis advisor) / Nilsen, Alleen P (Committee member) / Early, Jessica (Committee member) / Marsh, Josephine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
There are few studies on parents' perspectives on multicultural literature. Most studies on Korean American children's literature have relied on the researchers' content analysis of the books, rather than readers' responses to them. To fill this gap, this study sought to understand the Korean/Korean American parents' perspectives on Korean American children's literature by examining their responses to seven picture books on Korean American children. Data were collected for this qualitative study by interviewing ten Koreans/Korean Americans, twice. The first interview focused on stories about their immigration to the U.S., involvement with their children's reading, and experiences reading books related to Korea or Koreans published in the U.S. The second interview focused on their responses to seven Korean American children's literature books. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed. The parents' responses, which were infused with their personal, social, and cultural marks, focused on five themes: (a) use of Korean names without specific cultural description, (b) misrepresentation of Korean/Korean American experiences, (c) undesirable illustrations, (d) criteria for good Korean American children's literature, and (e) use of Korean words in English books. The parents' stories about their involvement with their children's reading suggest that to promote multicultural literature, libraries or schools should offer lists of multicultural literature. The parents' responses showed concern about stereotypical images of Korea or Korean American in the U.S. media that often get transferred to stories about Korean Americans in Korean American children's literature. This study confirms the importance of editors and reviewers, who are knowledgeable about the Korean culture and Korean American experience. It also suggests that more books with varied images of Korean Americans, and more stories about Korean Americans children's authentic experiences are necessary in order to represent the complexity and divergence within Korean people and the Korean American culture.
ContributorsKim, Hye-jong (Author) / Smith, Karen (Thesis advisor) / Marsh, Josephine (Thesis advisor) / Edelsky, Carole (Committee member) / Hudelson, Sarah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The purpose of this study was to investigate critical literacy practices in two prehistoric exhibits in a natural history museum. Bourdieu's habitus and Bakhtin's dialogism served as theoretical frames to collect and analyze data. Data were collected and triangulated using field notes, interview transcriptions, archives, and other data sources to critically scrutinize textual meaning and participant responses. Spradley's (1979) domain analysis was used to sort and categorize data in the early stage. Glaser and Strauss's (1967) constant comparative method was used to code data. My major findings were that museum texts within this context represent embedded beliefs and values that were interwoven with curators` habitus, tastes and capital, as well as institutional policies. The texts in the two Hohokam exhibits endorse a certain viewpoint of learning. Teachers and the public were not aware of the communicative role that the museum played in the society. In addition, museum literacy/ies were still practiced in a fundamental way as current practices in the classroom, which may not support the development of critical literacy. In conclusion, the very goal for critical museum literacy is to help students and teachers develop intellectual strategies to read the word and the world in informal learning environments.
ContributorsLiang, Sheau-yann (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa (Thesis advisor) / Marsh, Josephine (Committee member) / Blumenfeld-Jones, Donald (Committee member) / Welsh, Peter (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The purpose of this study is to investigate the literacy practices of three members of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) and to explore how they use these practices to support and maintain their recovery in their lives. This study also aims to examine how each participant used specialist language, enacted certain identities and acquired the secondary Discourse in A.A. through literacy use. This dissertation study is the result of in-depth interviewing in which each participant was interviewed three times for 90-minutes. These interviews were then transcribed and analyzed using discourse analysis. Study results are presented in three chapters, each one designated to one of the participants. Within these chapters is a life history (chronology) of the participant leading up to the point in which they got sober. The chapters also include a thematic discourse analysis of the interview transcripts across themes of literacy practice and topics in A.A. A conclusion is then presented to investigate how literacy was used from a sociocultural perspective in the study. Due to the emotionally charged nature of this dissertation, it has been formatted to present the stories of the participants first, leaving the theoretical framework, literature review and research methods to be included as appendices to the main text.
ContributorsClausen, Jennifer Ann (Author) / Marsh, Josephine (Thesis advisor) / Hayes, Elisabeth (Committee member) / Serafini, Frank (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Teachers have the one of the most difficult, yet most rewarding jobs to guide our impressionable youth into academically prepared independent thinkers. This undertaking requires a commitment, as well as an enormous effort that can oftentimes be overwhelming. Teaching has been found to be a stressful profession for several decades with the potential concern of negative consequences for both teachers and students. The purpose of this study was to view mutual influences that affected the stress levels of urban teachers, as well as gather possible solutions to help alleviate some areas of stress. This study evaluated an urban school district in Arizona to uncover existing stressors for elementary teachers. Through qualitative analysis, this study utilized focus group interviews within this urban district, which consisted of 20 teachers in various grade levels. Four to five teachers formed each focus group, where participants responded to six open-ended questions in a candid setting. Using the grounded theory, major and minor themes emerged as a result of teacher responses that revealed trends and commonalities. Additionally, participants relayed their suggestions to mitigate some of these stressors. This study revealed that the some of the stressors that surfaced were common to the entire group, while some grade level subgroups differed in areas of stress. The suggestion to implement purposeful support systems to improve the stress of teachers was recommended with the proposal to reexamine the results for their effectiveness in future studies.
ContributorsAyala, Sherry L (Author) / Spencer, Dee (Thesis advisor) / Marsh, Josephine (Committee member) / Ventura, Mário (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The positive relationship between self-regulation and student achievement has been repeatedly supported through research. Key considerations that have resulted from prior research include instructor feedback and explicit expectations, student perception of their control of their progress, accurate self-calibration, reflection, goal-setting, age, and methods by which a cycle which integrates all of these can be put in place. While research provides evidence for that fact that it is possible to support student success in several of these areas, many questions are left as to how guided, active self-regulation impacts students perception of their control over their performance, their ability to accurately assess and act upon their strengths and weaknesses, and, ultimately, their overall progress at different developmental stages. This study intended to provide a better understanding of how guidance in the self-regulation strategies of sixth grade science students can impact their attitudes toward learning. Specifically, this study investigated the question, "What is the effect of active reflection, graphing of grades, and goal setting on sixth-grade students' locus of control and ability to self-regulate?"
ContributorsReid, Lisa J (Author) / Baker, Dale (Thesis advisor) / Marsh, Josephine (Committee member) / Megowan, Colleen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This qualitative study uses the theoretical concepts of identity, agency, and power to explore the ways in which students in their moment-to-moment interactions enact identities, agency, and power as they engage in the activity of writing and participate in a writing workshop. This research highlights what happens to writers as they engage in writing processes with one another and moves away from interpreting what happens between students as only cognitive or behavioral phenomenon. Additionally, through the lenses of identity, agency, and power, the complexity of what it means to be a writer in a writing workshop is made visible. Data for the study were collected over a five-month period and include observations of children participating in a third-grade writing workshop, written field notes, and detailed recording of the actions and interactions among the students as well as the teacher and students to capture the time, space, and participants' activity during the writing workshop. Whole class and small-group interactions were video and/or audiorecorded daily for later transcription, observation and reflection. Semi-structured informal interviews and informal talks with the students and the teachers were conducted and recorded on a regular basis, and the students' written work and other related artifacts were collected to examine the students' work as writers. The research reveals three major themes: 1) students enact multiple identities to serve a variety of purposes; 2) students enact agency in the ordinary and everyday practices of the writing workshop to change their present interactions, circumstances, and conditions; and 3) in their microlevel interactions, students enact macrolevel notions of power that shift classroom as well as peer relations. Additionally this study reveals the ways in which students use their written texts as evidence to substantiate the claims they are making about themselves and about others as learners and as people.
ContributorsKander, Faryl Leigh (Author) / Smith, Karen (Thesis advisor) / Edelsky, Carole (Committee member) / Hudelson, Sarah (Committee member) / Marsh, Josephine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
This mixed methods action research dissertation examines the effects of implementing growth mindset teaching practices in third grade math as a means to improve student math self-efficacy, math mindset and student achievement. Since the transition to the Pennsylvania Core Standards, students across the state including those in this district have been experiencing a decrease in math achievement in grades three through eight according to the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) the standardized achievement test all public school students take. Locally, traditional interventions such as worksheets, boxed programs, computer-based programs and extra practice have not yielded gains so this intervention focused on developing growth mindset teaching practices in math to answer four research questions. Framed in Dweck’s Implicit Theories of Personal Attributes (1995), Bandura’s description of self-efficacy (1997) and Hall and Hords’ work with teachers in bridging research into practice (2011), this study used Jo Boaler’s, Mathematical Mindset (2015) in a book study with the third-grade teachers. The dissertation study analyzed pre and post survey data from the third-grade class (n=57) on both mindset and self-efficacy. The study also analyzed pre and post survey data from the teachers (n=2) on mindset along with pre and post intervention interviews with the teachers. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis revealed the intervention had a positive effect on teacher mindsets and practices, a positive effect on student mindsets and a positive effect on student math self-efficacy. While the study did not reveal the intervention to have a positive impact on student achievement at this time, previous research included in the literature review cites improvement in student achievement through developing growth mindset thinking. This gives reason to predict that with more time, these students will experience improved achievement in math. Implications from this study include that we should train all math teachers in incorporating growth mindset practices, and that administrators should build the bridge between research and practice for teachers as they implement new teaching practices in effort to positively affect student performance.
ContributorsCastiglione, Rebecca Ann (Author) / Marsh, Josephine (Thesis advisor) / Moses, Lindsay (Committee member) / Doran, Terrence (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Schools are in place to provide for the education of students across the nation. In trying to ensure all students have equal opportunities, both state and federal government have instituted policies which direct and influence what and how the curriculum is taught across the nation. Teachers are compliant in following these guidelines, as district adopted curriculum aligns with accountability measures. However, when teachers are encouraged to innovate instructional practices specific to the needs of their students, success follows. Further, when processes are in place to allow teachers to innovate collaboratively, collective teacher efficacy is enhanced. Research shows that collective teacher efficacy is a top indicator of student achievement. The purpose of this mixed methods action research study was to identify if teacher-initiated innovations, enacted through collaborative inquiry cycles, would increase teachers’ self- and collective efficacy and how the sources of efficacy may have contributed. While quantitative data did not show statistical significance, aggregated qualitative data indicated otherwise. Through the process of using collaborative inquiry cycles, teachers were more intentional with their instruction, were positively influenced and impacted by their peers, and they felt successful. These are behaviors that lead to higher levels of collective efficacy.
ContributorsChristy, Jacquelyn (Author) / Marsh, Josephine (Thesis advisor) / Loescher, Shawn (Committee member) / Hoogsteen, T.J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022