Action Research in Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice: A Study of the Evaluation and Reporting of Student Achievement

The theory and practice of evaluating student academic performance has been a source of concern in academia for over a century. The challenge of successfully implementing assessment practices that reflect the true measure of a student’s academic achievement, and that accurately and effectively communicate the student’s level of mastery to stakeholders, has not been met according to measurement specialists. This study was designed to examine the implementation process of research-based classroom assessment practices that both accurately measure the academic achievement of students and effectively communicate the students’ level of mastery. Interviews were conducted to examine the practicality of the assessment practices and whether the evidences gathered from these practices support performance grades that accurately articulate student achievement. The study showed that recommendations from measurement specialists are practical assessments for the classroom, accurately measure the academic achievement of students, and effectively communicate the students’ level of mastery. However, training in pre-service teacher programs that continue to be supported by in-service professional development is critical to the successful implementation of the recommendations, and to bridging the gap between theory and practice

Racial Bias And Its Relationship With Moral Blame

The proposed studies incorporate a reaction time paradigm and a moral updating paradigm in order to test the effects of both explicit and implicit racial biases on the process of moral blame. This will also help distinguish between two theories on moral blame. The first being that when biases are presented, that only the outcome of the blame judgment is affected, and the second being that people with high bias versus people with low bias process information differently, leading to different blame judgments

Instructional and career guidance in STEM: an improvement initiative to create opportunities for female high school students

The purpose of this disquisition is to disseminate an improvement initiative in a public high school that addressed female Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) disparity in STEM classes. In this high school current instructional and career guidance practices were inadequate in providing female STEM students opportunities to experience relevant instruction in STEM through the application of real world practices. The improvement initiative identified four interventions using qualitative research that addressed the question, how do instructional and career guidance practices that emphasize the real world application of STEM impact the academic choices and career aspirations of female STEM students? The interventions include (1) instructional feedback (2) instructional resources, (3) career coaching, and (4) community college partnership. These interventions were chosen as a result of insider research methods that followed a scan, focus, summarize framework for understanding the problem. The aim of the improvement initiative was to develop structured protocols that impact STEM classroom and career guidance practices. An intervention team intended to identify opportunities for female STEM students to experience the real world application of STEM. First, the research context is explained. Then, a review of the literature explains foundation knowledge that led to the conceptual and leadership framework. Next, the research methodology is outlined including design and participants, survey instruments, procedures, timeline, and measures. The research methodology is followed by an analysis of data for instructional and career guidance practice efficacy. Finally, a discussion of the initiative and its outcome are illustrated through the stories of three female STEM students. As a result of these stories, the intervention team developed STEM classroom observation protocols. These protocols can be used by school leaders as a structure for STEM instruction and career guidance

Factors related to the social competence of children in single-parent families

Viewed in light of the great deal of research documenting the negative effects of divorce on children, the results of the present investigation offer an alternative explanation of children's outcomes following divorce. These findings provide strong support for the ecological model which stresses that child outcomes may be attributed to a variety of contextual influences. In particular, these results emphasize that divorce is only one event affecting the child's adjustment and that subsequent experiences within the single-parent family environment also contribute to the child's overall social competence. Assessments were made regarding the relations between factors within the single-parent family environment and social competence of children in these families. Nine predictor variables—which included three measures of parental childrearing behaviors (acceptance versus rejection, firm versus lax control and psychological autonomy versus psychological control), as well as the variables of family income, mother's support systems, the child-father relationship, the coparental relationship, education of the mother and sex of the child—were examined in relation to measures of the social competence of children in these families

Paint by Numbers.

My thesis project is an attempt to make a theoretical connection between my working process and the image or object created as an emergent effect of that process. The focus is on primary art materials: graphite, gesso, hardboard and white or black pigments mixed with matte binders. The work is predominately two dimensional and will function diagrammatically as well as indexically in it's description of my artistic process

Cohort work values of employed men and women

The purpose of this study was to determine the differences in work values of employees. The major purpose was to determine (a) age group differences in work values and (b) the predictors of work values as measured by Super's Work Values Inventory (WVI) (1970). Predictor variables, other than age, were sex, education, race, marital status, job type, and number of children. Of the 400 employees randomly selected from a southeastern regional bank, 265 employees returned the questionnaire. Overall, Achievement, Supervisory Relations, Way of Life, Economic Returns, and Security were the most important work values. A t-test (p <.05) showed significant between-group differences in total WVI scores with the young group (born 1960 to present) having higher scores than the older group (born on or before 1943), An analysis of variance also showed significant differences between the young and older groups on five of the 15 subscales of the WVI. Prestige, Economic Returns, Associates, Variety, and Way of Life were more important to the younger group than to the older group. The Baby Boomer (born 1944 - 1959) group also valued Variety more than the older group

Strategic organizational engagement in social media to motivate directed action

Little is known regarding organizations' high-level strategies toward social media. This research develops an empirically informed understanding of how organizations can engage in social media to accomplish their strategic goals. To develop an in formed understanding, I conduct interpretive case research over a twenty-four month period on a single revelatory case. Based on the findings, I derive empirically and theoretically informed frameworks to describe how organizations can strategic engage in social media to motivate directed actions from others which are aligned with their own organizational goals

Perceived Genetic Knowledge of Pre-licensure Nursing Students

The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge base of nursing students regarding the topic of genetics and how this may change as a student progresses through the nursing program. A 70 item multiple-choice and dichotomous survey was given to freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior nursing students at a university school of nursing in the eastern part of the United States. Two hundred and seventy five pre-licensure nursing students, 255 females and 18 males, comprised the sample. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed and the results concluded that there was a significant difference among the freshman, sophomore, juniors, and seniors in regards to having at least a 'minimal' knowledge or better of medical genetic terminology and conditions. Seniors reported a higher number of terms which they had at least a 'minimal' knowledge level or better than freshman or sophomores. Also the juniors reported a higher number of terms which they had at least a 'minimal' knowledge level or better than sophomore

Individual muscle thickness of the quadriceps and hamstrings and their relationship with knee extension and flexion strength

Strength of the thigh muscles, namely the hamstrings and quadriceps, is a strong determinant of athletic performance and recovery from injury. Thigh strength can be directly assessed using dynamometry or clinical tasks such as jumps and hops, although in the case of injured individuals such approaches may not be safe. In these cases, it is inferred that the muscle size is indicative of muscle strength thus allowing muscle size to serve as an indirect measure of muscle strength. Typically indirect clinical measures may poorly differentiate muscle size. A more muscle-specific clinical measure can be made from measuring the thickness of the quadriceps and hamstrings using clinical ultrasound. Typically, the individual muscles of the quadriceps and hamstrings are grouped together to assess thickness and the correlation between these thicknesses and muscle strength is well understood. The relationship between individual muscle thicknesses and the strength of their muscle groups as a whole is not well understood. The aim of this study was to test whether or not knee extension and flexion strength are correlated to the thickness of individual muscles in the quadriceps or hamstrings, respectively. This would allow clinicians such as athletic trainers to quickly assess atrophy and therefore loss in strength in injured athletes. Results demonstrated that both medial and lateral quadriceps and hamstrings thicknesses were moderately correlated with knee extension and flexion strength measures, respectively. Further analyses showed that grouping multiple quadriceps or hamstrings in the correlation did not improve the relationship of strength to individual muscles. These results indicate that individual thigh muscle thicknesses correlated with knee strength similarly to one another. These results support prior research that has looked at each of these muscles as groups and carry implications about how clinicians can quickly measure muscle strength indirectly in populations where direct strength assessment is not possible

Female Representation In The Slasher Genre: An Analysis Of The Hitchcock Era And Beyond

For this thesis, I will conduct a literature review and a content analysis of various films in the slasher genre—Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960), Halloween (Carpenter, 1978), Black Christmas (Clark, 1974), and the Black Christmas remake (Takal, 2019). Throughout these films, I will be examining the themes of violence against female characters, stereotyping of female characters, as well as the concept of the Final Girl. There is an extensive amount of research on the slasher genre and the way that it indirectly promotes both violence against women and further emphasizes the imbalanced sexual power dynamics between genders