The Relationship Between Teacher Efficacy and Multiple Learning Competencies with Arts and Non-Arts Educators

The National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983) published A Nation at Risk to relay the academic performance level of American students. The results revealed that Americans students were performing considerably below other countries. Consequently, accountability through testing became the focus for policy makers to promote educational reform and educational equality (Linn, 2000). The focus on testing, however, has hindered student achievement and led to more (a) social promotion; (b) remedial courses; (c) retention rates; (d) teachers leaving the field; (e) dropout rates; and (f) invalid achievement results (Hoffinan, 2001). As more schools have reassigned staff members to meet the demands of testing and have altered the school curriculum to cover the academic standards being tested, art programs and teachers have been removed from schools across the nation. The elimination of the arts in the curriculum, nevertheless, has not proven to be a remedy for improving student achievement. The average reading score for fourth and eighth graders has only increased by two points, since 2005 and four points compared to the first assessment 15 years ago (National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2007). The literature review on the impact of the arts on learning clearly supports the implementation of the arts to improve student achievement and the overall quality of education. The results of one particular research study at UCLA revealed that students involved in the arts were more successful in school than those who were not involved (Caterall et al., 1999). The theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1999) encompassed the essence of the creative genius of artists. People were more inclined to learn when involved in an activity for which they have talent due to the arts: (a) providing powerful points of entry; (b) offering models; and (c) providing multiple representations of the central idea (Gardner, 1999). The gap in the literature suggested that researchers had not explored the impact that the multiple intelligences of teachers had on the effectiveness of learning, which in turn, could raise student achievement. The purpose, therefore, of this non-experimental study was to examine whether the multiple intelligences of art and non-arts teachers, measured by the Multiple Intelligences Test (Chislet & Chapman, 2005), impacted teachers\u27 perceptions of teacher efficacy, measured by the Teachers\u27 Sense of Efficacy Scale Test (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). The accessible population was Palm Beach County K-12 teachers who responded to the surveys online. The researcher ran the following statistical tests into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 14.0: (a) Cronbach\u27s Alpha to determine the reliability estimates; (b) Pearson\u27s Chi-Square Test to observe frequency distributions; (c) Correlation Matrix to determine the degree of the relationship between groups; (d) Multiple Regressions to ascertain the criterion-related validity; (e) ANOVAS to establish the means of each group; and (f) t tests to establish whether the difference of the means were statistically significant. The outcomes of the study will provide additional information for the body of research that supports the inclusion of the arts as an indispensable element of the school\u27s curriculum for (a) raising the quality of instruction and (b) providing a more equitable education for American students

Examining the learning burden and decay of second language vocabulary knowledge

Research in second language (L2) vocabulary learning has shown that not all words are equally easy to learn, and that several factors affect the difficulty with which words are acquired, i.e., their learning burden. However, research to date has explored only a few of the many factors affecting learning burden and existing findings are inconclusive. Another important finding in the L2 vocabulary learning literature is that L2 lexical knowledge is forgotten after learning but, to date, there has been minimal investigation of the variables that influence lexical decay. It has also been assumed that the lexical items most difficult to acquire are those easiest to forget, pointing towards a positive relationship between learning burden and decay (Webb & Nation, 2017). However, there is currently limited empirical evidence to support this assumption. This thesis reports research undertaken to explore the effect of different variables on learning burden and lexical decay, and the relationship between burden and decay. It consists of three empirical studies that investigated the effect of intralexical (i.e., part of speech, word length), contextual (i.e., meaning presentation code, form presentation mode), and individual (i.e., perceived target item usefulness, language learning aptitude) factors on the learning burden and decay of vocabulary knowledge that was intentionally learned with flashcard software. Each study also considered the effect of learning burden on lexical decay. Additionally, a cross-study analysis was conducted to explore the effect of the retention interval length on decay. The empirical studies showed that word length, aspects of language learning aptitude, and form presentation mode impacted learning burden but not decay, with shorter words, higher associative memory capacity, and bimodal form presentation related to less burden. Perceived target item usefulness was found to have no effect on burden or decay. Meaning presentation code and PoS were found to affect both burden and decay. Lexical items presented with an L2 definition and verbs were more burdensome and more likely to decay than items presented with an L1 equivalent and nouns. The findings also indicated that more learning burden was associated with a higher likelihood of decay. The cross-study analysis showed that decay was not directly proportional to the retention interval length and that form recall knowledge was more susceptible to decay than form recognition. Additionally, this thesis explores implications for vocabulary research and L2 pedagogy

Online Digital Game-Based Language Learning Environments: Opportunities for Second Language Development

This dissertation project is an analysis of the language learning processes of 14 learners playing in and interacting with the massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft (WoW) in German in order to determine how second language development (SLD) emerges. The data for this study was collected from the in-game experiences and out-of-game conversations of students at the University of Waterloo over the course of four months. Participants were asked to play the game in an extramural setting without any instructor intervention; the only stipulation was that each participant played a minimum of 10 hours. Three times throughout the course of the study, participants met in small focus groups to discuss their gameplay experiences in German. By doing so, the near transfer of linguistic constructions from the gaming context to the out-of-game environment could be observed as evidence of SLD. A complex adaptive systems (CAS) theoretical framework was employed to analyze the language learning and gameplay trajectories of the learners. All language that was observed and produced was recorded and transcribed in order to determine to what extent the transfer occurs while playing WoW, and which type of language learner and approach to gameplay is optimally suited for extramural digital game-based language learning (DGBLL). Pairwise comparisons were conducted for which eight participants were studied in detail. Each individual’s gameplay and language learning experience resulted in the computation of an efficacy score, representing how much linguistic growth occurred relative to the amount of language production that each individual contributed in the in-person or online conversations. By analyzing the efficacy of the learners’ trajectories through a retrodictive qualitative modeling methodology, whereby the process of analysis is reversed so that the outcomes of the system are considered first, each learner’s SLD is traced back to determine which factors and experiences emergent in DGBLL influenced change and growth. The results of this study position MMORPGs as well-suited for SLD in extramural contexts so long as learners are given the opportunity to communicate about the game with fellow players or language learners. If this condition is met, and individuals are given the opportunity to experience the game at their own pace, learners are able to successfully transfer linguistic constructions from the gaming context to the out-of-game environment. Fundamentally, the analysis of these results reveals that due to gameplay and language learning trajectories being nonlinear, a CAS conceptualization of gameplay for SLD purposes is necessary to understand the many factors and influences which lead to development and change within the system. Each learner’s efficacy score proves to be a valuable means by which to gauge the SLD of each learner over the course of the gameplay experience, suggesting that certain factors, such as the amount of time spent playing the game, and the learner’s previous experience learning languages and its relation to his or her rationale for studying German, are worth researching in order to best understand the growth conditions which will lead to SLD in DGBLL