Partnering with Parents to Promote High School Graduation: An Evidence-based Program Evaluation

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Teaching College Writing in a High School Setting: The Impact of Concurrent Enrollment on Teacher Learning and Practice

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Beliefs, practices, and interactions of teachers in a Japanese high school English department

This study reveals the school culture and the teachers' professional development activities in a Japanese high school learning environment. Furthermore, it documents the relationships among the context, teachers' beliefs, practices, and interactions. Using multiple data sources including interviews, observations, and documents of teachers from an English department, this yearlong study revealed these English as a Foreign Language teachers lacked many teacher learning opportunities in their context. The study revealed that teacher collaboration only reinforced existing practices, eroding teachers' motivation to learn to teach in this specific context. The study provides evidence to teacher educators about inservice teachers and their learning environment and the significance of the relationships between the two entities. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Stress associated with the transition from high school to university: The effect of social support and self-efficacy

The present study aimed to evaluate the role of social support and self-efficacy on the level of stress associated with the transition from high school to university. One hundred and eight-five university students who had completed high school in the previous year completed a three-part questionnaire designed to gather information on their levels of self-efficacy, social support, and stress associated with their transition. The results showed that self-efficacy was a significant predictor of stress associated with the transition to university in that higher levels of self-efficacy were associated with lower levels of stress while social support was a non-significant predictor of stress. [Author abstract]

Future Engineers Australia Management Project: Turning high school students into engineering entrepreneurs

There has been a strong move towards entrepreneurial education in high schools and at universities over the past few years. This has been echoed by a call from state governments around Australia to promote enterprise thinking and education in high schools. It also parallels the push within engineering to learn across the traditional boundaries , particularly between engineering and business. To meet this call, The Engineering Link Group (TELG) developed the Future Engineers Australia Management Project (FEAMP) in 2003. The project is based around Enterprise Education, and was inspired by the Smallpeice Year 12 Engineering Management course in the UK. The idea was to take high school students in years 11 and 12 and turn them into ‘engineering entrepreneurs’. This paper presents the design, development and evaluation of FEAMP as a five day residential course for year 11 and 12 students who want to learn more about being entrepreneurs and managers. It is a hands-on activity where the students invent, develop and sell an engineering concept to venture capitalists and ultimately to customers at a trade fair. It has been run successfully for two years, going from strength to strength. © 2005, Australasian Association for Engineering Education

Graphical Approach to Teaching Compound Interest in High School Math Classes

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education and Research in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2015

Effectiveness of peer counseling on high school students who failed two or more classes in a nine week quarter

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of peer counseling on high school students who have previously failed two or more classes in a nine week quarter.^ This study was constructed by comparing students who previously failed and were subsequently given peer counseling with a matched group of students who failed and did not receive peer counseling.^ To test the proposed research question, 324 students from a large urban school system were randomly chosen from a computer generated list of students who failed courses, matched on variables of number of classes failed, grade level and gender. One student from each matched pair was randomly placed in either the experimental or control group. 162 students from Group 1 (experimental) were assigned a peer counselor with their pair assigned to Group 2 (control). Group 1 received peer counseling at least 4 times during the third nine week academic quarter (Quarter 3) while Group 2 did not.^ The Grade Point Averages (GPA) for all students were collected both at the end of Quarter 2 and Quarter 3, at which time peer counseling was terminated. GPA's were also collected nine weeks after counseling was terminated.^ Results were determined by multiple regression, analysis of covariance and t-test. A level of significance was set at.05. There was significant increase in the GPA's of those counseled students immediately after peer counseling and also nine weeks after counseling was terminated, while the group not receiving peer counseling showed no increase. It was noted that there were significantly more school drop-outs from the non-counseled group than the counseled group. The number of classes failed, high school attended, grade level and gender were not found to be significant.^ The conclusion from this study was that peer counseling does impact significantly on the GPA's of students experiencing academic failure. Recommendations from this study were to implement and expand peer counseling programs with more failing students, continue counseling for longer than one quarter, include students in drop-out programs and students from different socio-economic and racial backgrounds, and conduct subsequent evaluation. ^

An investigation into factors that influence the sense of competence of six high school girls

The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of environment, behavior, capabilities, beliefs and values, and identity, based on Dilts' (1990) levels of cognitive alignment, on the cognitive construct of sense of competence and related constructs of self-efficacy, motivation, expectations, and goal-setting among adolescent girls. An individual who is aligned is free from conflict among the interaction of these levels. In addition, academic achievement, adolescent culture, parental involvement, and school environment were four of several issues in the lives of adolescent girls examined to explore how these issues might interact with the levels of alignment and sense of competence.^ A case study approach used in-depth interviews with six female seniors from private single-sex and mixed-sex high schools organized around the levels of alignment and school environment. Response patterns were analyzed to determine each girl's varying evidence of alignment or freedom from conflict within her environment.^ The findings indicated that none of the girls were able to meet the conditions for alignment in Dilts' model or a sense of competence. School environment, parental involvement, and adolescent culture were important factors influencing the extent to which conflict was experienced by each girl. The girls with domain-specific successes developed strategies that concentrated their efforts in the domains in which they could demonstrate their best abilities. The results contribute to current theory and research on adolescent girls: and have value for practitioners working with adolescent girls in developing strategies to improve their self-efficacy, motivation, expectations, goal-setting, and overall sense of competence. ^

A comparison of the academic performance of students with General Educational Development credentials and high school diplomas at a selected community college

This study compared the performance of students who earned GED credentials in Florida with that of graduates of Florida high schools, when members of both groups enrolled for the first time in fall 1992 at an urban multicultural community college in south Florida. GED's and HSD's were matched on gender, race, age range, placement levels, and enrollment in college preparatory courses (reading, English, mathematics). The paired samples t-test compared course grades, first semester GPA, and total college GPA for the groups and subgroups of matched students at a probability level of .05. The McNemar test compared how many students in each group and subgroup re-enrolled for a second and third term, or ever; how many were placed on special academic status during their college enrollment; and how many graduated within 16 semesters. Differences between groups were found only for placement on probation—with HSD's on probation in significantly higher proportion than GED's. ^ Additional findings among subgroups revealed that male and Caucasian HSD subjects earned higher math grades than their GED counterparts. Male HSD's were more likely than male GED's to return to the college at some point after the first term. However, male HSD's were placed on probation in greater proportion than the GED's with whom they were matched. ^ Female GED's earned higher English grades and higher first semester and cumulative GPA's and returned to the college in greater proportion than their HSD counterparts. Black GED's earned higher first-semester GPA's, re-enrolled in terms 2 and 3 and graduated from the college in higher percentages than Black HSD's. Black HSD's were placed on probation in higher proportion than Black GED's. Lastly, greater percentages of HSD than GED subjects in the lowest age range (16–19) were placed on probation. ^ Results connected to the performance of Black GED subjects are likely to have been affected by the fact that 50% of Black study subjects had been born in Jamaica. The place of the GED in the constellation of methods for earning credit by examination is explored, future implications are discussed, and further study is recommended. ^

Academic performance of college students in financial management and related prerequisite courses: A comparison of senior high school and commercial high school graduates attending Tamsui Oxford University College in Taiwan

In Taiwan, the college freshmen are recruited graduates of both senior high school and senior vocational school. The Ministry of Education (MOE) of the Republic of China prescribes the standards of curriculum and equipment for schools at all levels and categories. There exists a considerably different curriculum arrangement for senior high schools and vocational high schools in Taiwan at the present time. The present study used a causal-comparative research design to identify the influences of different post-secondary educational background on specialized course performance of college business majors. ^ The students involved in this study were limited to the students of four business-related departments at Tamsui Oxford University College in Taiwan. Students were assigned to comparison groups based on their post-secondary educational background as senior high school graduates and commercial high school graduates. The analysis of this study included a comparison of students' performance on lower level courses and a comparison of students' performance in financial management. The analysis also considered the relationship between the students' performance in financial management and its related prerequisite courses. The Kolb Learning Style Inventory (LSI) survey was administered to categorize subjects' learning styles and to compare the learning styles between the two groups in this study. The applied statistical methods included t-test, correlation, multiple regression, and Chi-square. ^ The findings of this study indicated that there were significant differences between the commercial high school graduates and the senior high school graduates on academic performances in specialized courses but not in general courses. There were no significant differences in learning styles between the two groups. These findings lead to the conclusion that business majors' academic performance in specialized courses were influenced by their post-secondary educational background. ^

A comparison of the effects of social constructivist and traditional approaches to teaching on students' attitude and achievement in high school chemistry

Current views of the nature of knowledge and of learning suggest that instructional approaches in science education pay closer attention to how students learn rather than on teaching. This study examined the use of approaches to teaching science based on two contrasting perspectives in learning, social constructivist and traditional, and the effects they have on students' attitudes and achievement. Four categories of attitudes were measured using the Upper Secondary Attitude Questionnaire: Attitude towards school, towards the importance of science, towards science as a career, and towards science as a subject in school. Achievement was measured by average class grades and also with a researcher/teacher constructed 30-item test that involved three sub-scales of items based on knowledge, and applications involving near-transfer and far-transfer of concepts. The sample consisted of 202 students in nine intact classrooms in chemistry at a large high school in Miami, Florida, and involved two teachers. Results were analyzed using a two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with a pretest in attitude as the covariate for attitudes and prior achievement as the covariate for achievement. A comparison of the adjusted mean scores was made between the two groups and between females and males. ^ With constructivist-based teaching, students showed more favorable attitude towards science as a subject, obtained significantly higher scores in class achievement, total achievement and achievement on the knowledge sub-scale of the knowledge and application test. Students in the traditional group showed more favorable attitude towards school. Females showed significantly more positive attitude towards the importance of science and obtained significantly higher scores in class achievement. No significant interaction effects were obtained for method of instruction by gender. ^ This study lends some support to the view that constructivist-based approaches to teaching science is a viable alternative to traditional modes of teaching. It is suggested that in science education, more consideration be given to those aspects of classroom teaching that foster closer coordination between social influences and individual learning. ^