A Temporal Analysis of Emotions in Girls' Secondary School Physical Education Games and Fitness Classes

Female enthusiasm towards engaging in physical education (PE) significantly decreases with age as it provides females with positive and negative emotional experiences. This study examined emotions within four grade nine female PE soccer and fitness classes (N = 67). Emotional patterns were studied over time and across two units of instruction and in relation to student grades. A mixed-method approach was utilized assessing the state emotions of shame, enjoyment, anxiety, and social physique anxiety (SPA). Results revealed unsatisfactory internal consistency for shame and thus it was removed. Statistical analysis revealed no significant changes in emotions over time, whereas qualitative analysis found that state emotions were inconsistent. Statistical analysis indicated that students in the fitness classes reported significantly higher levels of anxiety and SPA on the final class (p < .01). Qualitative analysis signaled different origins and themes of students‟ emotions. No predictive relationship between emotion and students‟ grade was found.

An after-school literacy program : investigating the experiences of students with literacy difficulties, their volunteer tutors, and the tutors' transition into the teaching profession

This research responds to a pervasive call for our educational institutions to provide students with literacy skills, and teachers with the instructional supports necessary to facilitate this skill acquisition. Questions were posed to gain information concerning the efficacy ofteaching literacy strategies to students with learning difficulties, the impact of this training on their volunteer tutors, and the influence of this experience on these tutors' ensuing instructional practice as teacher candidates in a preservice education program. Study #1 compared a nontreatment group of students with literacy difficulties who participated in the program and found that program participants were superior at reading letter patterns and at comprehending the elements of story grammar. Concurrently, the second study explored the experiences of 19 volunteer tutors and uncovered that they acquired instructional skills as they established a knowledge base in teaching reading and writing, and they affirmed personal goals to become future teachers. Study #3 tracked 6 volunteer tutors into their pre-service year and identified their constructions, and beliefs about literacy instruction. These teacher candidates discussed how they had intended to teach reading and writing strategies based on their position that effective teaching ofthese skills in the primary grades is integral to academic success. The teacher candidates emphasized the need to build rapport with students, and the need to exercise flexibility in lesson plan delivery while including activities to meet emotional and developmental requirements of students. The teacher candidates entered their pre-service education with an initial cognition set based on the limited teaching context of tutoring. This foundational ii perception represented their prior knowledge of literacy instruction, a perception that appeared untenable once they were immersed in a regular instructional setting. This disparity provoked some of the teacher candidates to denounce their teacher mentors for not consistently employing literacy strategies and individualized instruction. This critical perspective could have been a demonstration of cognitive dissonance. In the end, when the teacher candidates began to look toward the future and how they would manage the demands of an inclusive classroom, they recognized the differences in the contexts. With an appreciation for the need for balance between prior and present knowledge, the teacher candidates remained committed to implementing their tutoring strategies in future teaching positions. This document highlights the need for teacher candidates with instructional experience prior to teacher education, to engage in cognitive negotiations to assimilate newly acquired pedagogies into existing pedagogies.

Reality status evaluations in mediated experiences /

This paper explores the cognitive functions of the Reality Status Evaluation (RSE) system in our experiences of narrative mediated messages (NMM) (fictional, narrative, audio-visual one-way input and moving picture messages), such as fictional TV programs and films. We regard reality in mediated experiences as a special mental and emotional construction and a multi-dimensional concept. We argue that viewers' reality sense in NMM is influenced by many factors with "real - on" as the default value. Some of these factors function as primary mental processes, including the content realism factors of those messages such as Factuality (F), Social Realism (SR), Life Relevance (LR), and Perceptual Realism - involvement (PR), which would have direct impacts on reality evaluations. Other factors, such as Narrative Meaning (NM), Emotional Responses, and personality trait Absorption (AB), will influence the reality evaluations directly or through the mediations of these main dimensions. I designed a questionnaire to study this theoretical construction. I developed items to form scales and sub-scales measuring viewers' subjective experiences of reality evaluations and these factors. Pertinent statistical techniques, such as internal consistency and factorial analysis, were employed to make revisions and improve the quality of the questionnaire. In the formal experiment, after viewing two short films, which were selected as high or low narrative structure messages from previous experiments, participants were required to answer the questionnaire, Absorption questionnaire, and SAM (Self-Assessment Manikin, measuring immediate emotional responses). Results were analyzed using the EQS, structural equation modeling (SEM), and discussed in terms oflatent relations among these subjective factors in mediated experience. The present results supported most of my theoretical hypotheses. In NMM, three main jactors, or dimensions, could be extracted in viewers' subjective reality evaluations: Social Realism (combining with Factuality), Life Relevance and Perceptual Realism. I designed two ways to assess viewers' understanding of na"ative meanings in mediated messages, questionnaire (NM-Q) and rating (NM-R) measurement, and its significant influences on reality evaluations was supported in the final EQS models. Particularly in high story stnlcture messages, the effect of Narrative Meaning (NM) can rarely be explained by only these dimensions of reality evaluations. Also, Empathy seems to playa more important role in RSE of low story structure messages. Also, I focused on two other factors that were pertinent to RSE in NMM, the personality trait Absorption, and Emotional Responses (including two dimensions: Valence and Intensity). Final model results partly supported my theoretical hypotheses about the relationships among Absorption (AB), Social Realism (SR) and Life Relevance (LR); and the immediate impact of Emotional Responses on Perceptual Realism cPR).

Examining the inclusion experiences of students with intellectual disabilities : a study focusing on the transition from elementary to secondary school

Transitioning from elementary to secondary school is a major event in adolescents' lives and can be associated with academic, social, and emotional challenges (Shaffer, 2005; Sirsch, 2003). Considerably less research has focused on the transitional experiences of students with intellectual disabilities (lD) as they enter secondary school and the role of educational inclusion in this process (Noland, Cason, & Lincoln, 2007). Conceivably, students with ID who leave inclusive elementary schools, where they have been educated alongside their peers without ID, and who enter segregated secondary educational placements may experience unique social and emotional challenges (Farmer, Pearl, & Van Acker, 1996; Fryxell & Kennedy, 1995; Shaffer, 2005). This study examined the transitional experiences of 6 students with ID and the role of educational inclusion, with a focus on elementary to secondary school transitions from inclusive to segregated settings and vice versa. This study included the collection of multiple sources of data. Semi-structured interviews with 6 caregivers and students with ID were conducted. Students' Individual Education Transitional Plans were discussed in caregivers' interviews to determine how they shaped students' educational inclusion experiences (Ontario Ministry of Education & Training, 1999/2000/2004). Parts ofthe following questionnaires were "qualitized" (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998) and administered orally: "Youth Self-Report" (YSR; Achenbach, 2001 c) and "Child Behaviour Checklist Caregivers Form" (CBLC/6-18; Achenbach, 200la). The findings of this study contribute to the literature on educational inclusion by highlighting the positive/negative social and emotional impact of congruent and incongruent transitional experiences of students with ID and the role of educational inclusion.

Aboriginal women in education : Honouring our experiences a vision of access to and success within the university

This thesis explores Aboriginal women's access to and success within universities through an examination of Aboriginal women's educational narratives, along with input from key service providers from both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community. Implemented through the Wildfire Research Method, participants engaged in a consensusbased vision of accessible education that honours the spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical elements necessary for the success of Aboriginal women in university. This study positions Aboriginal women as agents of social change by allowing them to define their own needs and offer viable solutions to those needs. Further, it connects service providers from the many disconnected sectors that implicate Aboriginal women's education access. The realities of Aboriginal women are contextualized through historical, sociocultural, and political analyses, revealing the need for a decolonizing educational approach. This fosters a shift away from a deficit model toward a cultural and linguistic assets based approach that emphasizes the need for strong cultural identity formation. Participants revealed academic, cultural, and linguistic barriers and offered clear educational specifications for responsive and culturally relevant programming that will assist Aboriginal women in developing and maintaining strong cultural identities. Findings reveal the need for curriculum that focuses on decolonizing and reclaiming Aboriginal women's identities, and program outcomes that encourage balance between two worldviews-traditional and academic-through the application of cultural traditions to modern contexts, along with programming that responds to the immediate needs of Aboriginal women such as childcare, housing, and funding, and provide an opportunity for universities and educators to engage in responsive and culturally grounded educational approaches.