Matching Items (14)
Description
The overall goal of this dissertation was to examine teacher characteristics, teachers’ beliefs, and contextual factors that may motivate teachers’ decisions to engage in high quality teacher-child interactions. I use two complementary studies to meet this goal. These two studies provide insight into several aspects of early childhood teachers’ and children’s interactions including the complexity of the conversations and teachers’ supportive practices. Findings from both studies reveal that teachers are selective in how they distribute their time and attention across various types of high-quality interactions with children. Study 1suggests that teachers’ perception of how often children interact with one another motivates their decisions to engage in high quality teacher-child interactions (i.e., facilitate children’s peer interactions). Study 2 suggests that teacher well-being, specifically teacher depression, limits the extent to which teachers engage in high quality interactions (i.e., complex conversations with children). Importantly, this dissertation also showed that teachers’ motivation for engaging in teacher-child interactions does not stem from their own characteristics or perceptions alone. In addition to these factors, contextual aspects of teacher-child interactions also appear to influence teachers’ motivation to engage in high-quality teacher child interactions. Study 1 revealed that the gender composition of the children involved in each teacher-child interaction was associated with the extent to which teachers use facilitative practices, as well as with the direction and magnitude of both quality and frequency effects on teachers’ facilitation. Moreover, Study 2 revealed that the relation between teacher depression and complex conversations is changed when teachers and children are engaged in academic activities (e.g., math, books, language) relative to play or routine activities. In both Study 1 and 2, I used a teacher-focused observational coding system. Use of this observational coding system contributes novel, objective information about teacher-child interactions, as prior work on teacher-child interactions has most often relied on teachers’ self-reports of how often they interact with students. Findings from this dissertation will contribute new knowledge about teacher and contextual classroom characteristics and teacher-child interactions that will inform efforts to promote positive teacher child interactions and, in turn, student and teacher well-being.
ContributorsGranger, Kristen (Author) / Hanish, Laura (Thesis advisor) / Bradley, Robert (Committee member) / Abry, Tashia (Committee member) / DeLay, Dawn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This qualitative project will begin with a general literature review on the topic of social-emotional readiness in the transition to college, with a specific lens on gifted students. Once that is completed, using first-person interviews of teachers and surveys of current students this project will seek to find out if students graduating from HYSA feel prepared socially and emotionally for the rigors of college.
ContributorsLeech, Kathleen (Author) / Hanish, Laura (Thesis director) / Lansdowne, Kimberly (Committee member) / Gruber, Diane (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor)
Created2021-12
Description
It has been 30 years since research has tried to determine how adults decide if an infant is male or female (Seavey et al., 1975; Sidorowicz & Lunney, 1980), with research at that time indicating that participants tended to label infants as male. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether adults today can identify infant gender above chance, and what tools adults use to assign gender labels to babies. I hypothesize that females, social science majors, students who frequently interact with children, and students who are very confident will all assign gender labels more accurately than their counterparts. I showed a video to University students featuring five sets of parents playing with their infants. The video featuring three male and two female babies was edited to remove any gender identifying information. Students were asked to guess whether each of the infants was male or female, and to explain how they came to that conclusion. One sample t-tests revealed that students overall were able to correctly identify infant gender significantly more than what would be expected due to chance for 4 out of 5 infants. The results did not support my hypothesis that social science majors or people who frequently interact with children are better at assigning gender labels. This study did find a significant correlation between confidence and accuracy. When asked to explain how participants assigned infant gender labels, I found a significant correlation between infant physical movement and correct students labeling the infant as male. There was also a significant relationship between parental voice being and participants labeling infants as female whether the infant was actually female or not. Unlike research from the late 1970's and early 1980's, college students today can accurately assign gender labels to infants. This suggests that either the conceptualization of gender in the U.S. culture has changed enough since previous research over 3 decades ago, that there is something about parent-baby play that helps people correctly identify infant gender, or both.
ContributorsLove, Echo (Author) / Shapiro, Alyson (Thesis director) / Mikulski, Ariana (Committee member) / Martin, Carol (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
Academic tracking has long been a subject of debate due to its potential impact on educational equity, with students who are tracked highly receiving a higher quality
education in comparison to students tracked lowly. These disparities in education quality
may be affecting students’ outcomes, as it has been demonstrated that the short-term
academic outcomes of students, such as their grades, tend to be affected by their
academic track positioning. This dissertation builds upon these previous findings by
utilizing a subsample of 20,584 students from the High School Longitudinal Study (2009)
to examine the relation between academic track positioning and post-secondary education
attendance, program length, college major, and expected future job. Additionally, the
relation between academic tracking and each of these outcomes was also assessed using
mediation, with potential mediators including education aspiration, expectations, and
academic self-efficacy. Findings suggest that academic track positioning in math and
science are influential in students’ post-secondary and career outcomes, with students
who are positioned highly in either subject having greater post-secondary attendance,
program length, higher representation in STEM college majors, and expectations for
future jobs in STEM fields in comparison to students tracked lowly. Additionally,
education aspirations and expectations mediated the relations between math academic
track positioning and each of the outcomes, although the effects were small in size.
Educators should consider exploring avenues for improving education quality in low
academic tracks.
ContributorsWoods, Kenton Bentley (Author) / Hanish, Laura (Thesis advisor) / DeLay, Dawn (Committee member) / Martin, Carol (Committee member) / Jager, Justin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023