1941 research outputs found
Sort by
A Theory for the Dissemination of Educational Change Founded on Development of Affective Values Using Adaptive Behavior
Get PDF75 leaves. Advisor: John HicksThe problem. Research into the value of art education within the curriculum has evolved a mode of instruction based on developing the individual student and his critical sensibilities, referred to as aesthetic education.
The mode of art instruction currently in wide use based on the beauty of the final product and facility in the use of a wide range of materials has proven resistant to change. The problem lies in changing from one philosophy of art education to another.
Procedure. Literature in the areas of aesthetic
education, creativity, the affective domain, and behavior modification were searched for relationships which would be useful in formulating a theory that would be effective in
changing teaching behaviors while developing a positive attitude about change.
Findings. A theory was developed with two attendant models for its use, that combined the following characteristics: 1) the adaptive behavior that developed a creative product was suitable for introducing and developing a value,
2) the durability of the change would be governed by the rewarding contingencies, 3) an environment that encouraged divergence promoted an open attitude toward change.
Conclusions. The successful assimilation of a new
educational practice will be based on the value of its use rather than the knowledge of its attributes. Continuing and increasing emphasis upon inservice programs, provision for model programs, and continual self evaluation of teacher
training programs regarding "theory into practice" are needed in the future
Discussion Behaviors and Quiz Performance as a Function of Points for Discussion
Get PDF22 leaves. Advisor: Earle L. CanfieldThe Problem: Social and point-token reinforcement were implemented to increase student question-asking and discussion behaviors.
Procedure: Three groups of university college students in small discussion classes were the participants in this study. Baseline data was collected
on frequency of student discussion behaviors and on accuracy scores on both an immediate and delayed review quiz.
Findings: Results demonstrate that social and point-token reinforcement were highly effective for increasing the rate of discussion behaviors. In addition, increased accuracy scores on the immediate review quiz following discussion of material to be contained in those quizzes were noted. No improvement on the delayed review quiz was observed.
Conclusion: Implications are that student interaction with academic
material in the form of discussion can increase academic performance.
Recommendations: It would appear that efforts should be made to
promote as much of this interaction as possible in the classroom
A Comparison of Correspondence Between Planned and Actual Study Time and Between Actual and Reported Study Time and the Effects of a Classed-Based Point System on Each for College Freshman
Get PDF20 leaves. Advisor: Kenneth E. LloydThe problem. The effect of a class-based point
system on planned, actual, and reported study time was evaluated in this study.
Procedure. Thirteen provisionally admitted university freshmen were required to earn 12,000 points to pass Education 12. Students could earn points at different times by one of the following means: planning to study a minimum of 15 minutes, reporting study a minimum of 15 minutes,
increasing the level of actual study to correspond to the level of planning or to the level of reporting. A study area was established in the library and a monitoring system was used to check to see if students were actually studying
according to their plans or reports.
Findings. The results of this study demonstrated
that a higher degree of correspondence exists between actual and reported study time than between planned and actual study time. The data showed that a classed-based point system was effective in increasing actual study time to
better correspond with planned and reported study time.
Conclusions. Actual study can better be monitored and controlled through reported study than planned study.
Recommendations. College counselors should attend
more closely to their students' reported study time rather than to their planned study time
A Comparison of Interactions Between Mothers With Their Normal Children and Mothers With Their Retarded Children
Get PDF22 leaves. Advisor: W. Scott WoodThe problem. To observe and compare interactions of mothers and their normal children with mothers and their retarded children including attempts to modify behavior and the comparative success of those attempts.
Procedure. Three mother-normal child pairs and three mother-retarded child pairs were observed in their homes for five hours each. The observer recorded and coded the following characteristics of each interaction: the originator, the intent to increase or decrease behavior, and type and the success of each interaction.
Findings. The results showed a difference in the
interaction patterns of mothers with a normal child and mothers with a retarded child: (1) Mothers of normal children attempted and were successful more often in controlling the behavior of their child, (2) retarded children were as successful as normal children in changing their
mothers' behavior but did not attempt to do so as often, (3) retarded children successfully controlled their mothers' behavior at a higher success rate per number of attempts to control, than did the mothers with mentally retarded children successfully control their children.
Conclusions. Unlike mentally retarded children and
their mothers, normal children and their mothers interacted with each other often and were successful enough in the interactions to continue a reciprocal interchange cycle.
Recommendations. It is recommended that behavior
management training procedures be further investigated for use in teaching mothers with mentally retarded children the principles and techniques of successful interaction patterns
with their children
A Community Needs Assessment for the Perry Community School District
Get PDF76 leaves. Advisor: Richard D. BrooksThe problem. The purpose of this study was to identify the major educational needs of the Perry Community School District as perceived by parents, teachers, students, and other community patrons, thereby assisting the Board and administration in making changes in the schools' programs necessary to meet those needs and aspirations of the people
of the community.
Procedure. The community meeting technique was employed to determine the reactions by parents, teachers, students, and other community patrons. At the community meeting participants were asked to rate the importance of eighteen educational goals. Participants were then placed in groups
of four and each group was required to obtain group consensus on the rating of each goal. Finally, individual participants were asked to rate the schools' performance in meeting each
of the eighteen goals. The results were analyzed by computing the mean and variance of the group consensus ratings of each goal. Also computed for each goal were the median of the individual performance ratings, the relative percentages of
responses for each of five rating categories used, and the median performance rating of each goal for each of the different subpopulations.
Findings and Conclusions. The immediate purpose of
this study was to identify the major educational goals and needs of the school district and to obtain community perceptions of how well present school programs are doing in meeting those goals. Sixty-seven people participated in the community
meeting. The goals ranked most important by the participants centered around developing the basic skills of written and oral communication, gaining a general education, and developing a desire for learning. These goals received average ratings of 4.471, 4.235, and 3.941 respectively on a fivepoint scale with five the highest possible score. Community members are in agreement regarding the importance of the educational goals and are generally satisfied that present school
programs are meeting their expectations in achieving those goals. There are virtually no discrepancies between present school programs and those desired by the community.
Recommendations. The results of this study can be helpful to the Board in making those decisions for allocating resources and initiating programs and may serve as indicators as to what kinds of Board decisions will or will not receive public support
The Double-Vision of Imagination : An Appraisal of Surface and Substance in the Fiction of Henry James
No full text248 leaves. Advisor: Norman R. HaneThis study is concerned, primarily, with the faculty of the imagination, incidentally as a general concept, but chiefly in its application to the fictional and critical works
of Henry James. A number of these works have been consulted with the intention of deriving, and subsequently illustrating, a coherent inquiry into "the creative intelligence" as it fulfills its roles as a source of inspiration and a learning aid for the author, and as an ingredient of theme through which James urges his characters toward self-discovery and a wide
consciousness of the palpable and spiritual worlds outside themselves. Commensurate with this effort is the recognition (the implications of which are also shown) that the imagination, for James, was a double-chambered affair--one room containing the aesthetic "sense" and the other the capacity for a fine moral awareness--and that the "lucid reflector," the character most susceptible to enlightenment, must live simultaneously in both compartments.
The first chapter introduces and begins to trace the development of this dipolar imagination within one novel in particular, The Portrait of a Lady. This initial segment,
by enlisting a few philosophical assertions of
Immanuel Kant, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the psychologist, Carl G. Jung, also attempts to suggest the depth and breadth of the Jamesian purview of human nature and its potential for emotional and intellectual growth.
The second chapter concentrates upon the aesthetic stem of the imagination and, with evidence gathered from five novels and one long story--The American, The Tragic Muse,
Roderick Hudson, The Princess Casamassima, The Europeans and "The Aspern Papers"--examines the possible uses and limitations of an appreciation of beauty and a strong sense of
form and order among external appearances.
The third and final chapter incorporates analyses of six additional novels--The Sacred Fount, The Wings of the Dove, What Maisie Knew, The Spoils of Poynton, The Ambassadors
and The Golden Bowl--with the purpose of determining what constructive and/or destructive elements reside within the Jamesian characters who evince an operative familiarity with :"the moral sense." In conjunction with this investigation
of the imagination's second chamber, an attempt is made to describe, through example and proposition, the causes and effects of the creative synthesis whereby Henry James, through
his characters and through the painstaking exercise of his craft, unites the love of external beauty and formal harmony with a compassionate affirmation of inner meaning and human responsibility
The Effects of Contingency Contracting on Student Performance in a Personalized System of Instruction
No full text29 leaves. Advisor: W. Scott WoodThe problem. A large body of evidence indicates
that the self-pacing feature of PSI may result in a high frequency of incompletes and postponed work by students, oftentimes leading to a high withdrawal rate in personalized systems of instruction. In addition, student procrastination results in massed testing at the end of the semester, putting additional burdens on both students and staff,
thus reducing the effectiveness and efficiency of the system. The present study proposed to examine the effectiveness of contingency contracting across an entire semester in a PSI
course as a procedure to reduce procrastination, withdrawal rate. and logistic problems.
Procedure. Students determined their own deadlines for taking unit tests by making an appointment with the graduate assistant at the learning center for one test attempt at a time. A comparison was made of the performances
of students with low, medium, and high high school class ranks within and across semesters.
Findings. The major effect that contingency contracting had on student performance was the steadier rate of unit completion for all groups, when compared to student performance in a non-contracting semester. The percentage
of students withdrawing from the course did not change with the contingency contracting system, nor was there a reduction in performance differences among the three different groups of students within each semester.
Conclusions. A contingency contracting procedure which retained the self-management aspects of PSI and was manageable within a large university course resulted in a
steadier rate of unit completion when compared to the pacing pattern of students in a semester without contracting. Classroom logistic problems were reduced to the extent that testing was more evenly distributed across the semester. However students in the low groups continued to perform less satisfactorily than other students in the course
The Development of Job Descriptions for Ballard Community School District
Get PDF54 leaves. Advisor: Dr. Richard H. LampshireThe problem. The purpose of this project was to
develop written job descriptions for the employees of the Ballard Community School District.
Procedure. The school board initiated the plan by
mandating that job descriptions be developed for all employees. A program coordinator was appointed and a format was followed that was developed after reviewing related literature. Supervisors were involved in developing guidelines
to follow in preparing the entire staff for the actual writing of job descriptions. Procedures were established to develop the job descriptions. The completed job descriptions were organized into a District Manual and presented to the school board for their approval.
Conclusions. Involvement of the employee is essential in the development of accurate job descriptions. The process created a greater awareness in both the employee and employer as to what is expected from a position. Communication
greatly influences a program of this type. Employees need to be informed of the uses of job descriptions. Job descriptions do not need to be elaborate or complicated in order to achieve their purpose. The finished job description
can be helpful in recruiting and hiring new staff members.
Recommendations. Every school system should establish a job description program. Specific methods of updating should be developed. Studies should be undertaken to determine the extent to which the establishment of job descriptions
affect performance. Other school districts could
utilize the procedures followed in this study, but not the specific job descriptions
Frequency of Reinforcement as a Determinant of Timeout Effectiveness
No full text37 leaves. Advisor: Mary Ann PowersThe problem: Reinforcement is by definition, an integral part of the punishment procedure termed timeout from positive reinforcement. The influence that different reinforcement requencies have on the effectiveness of a one minute timeout procedure was investigated.
Procedure: Four profoundly retarded adolescent males served as subjects in a classroom setting. Following baseline a sixty second timeout procedure involving sitting in a corner with a quietroom as a backup was administered contingent on each occurrence of specified disruptive behaviors. Reinforcement frequency for alternative behavior was then systematically varied using zero, ten, thirty, and sixty reinforcers per hour in a counter-balanced order across subjects.
Findings: For three of the four subjects a functional relationship between reinforcement frequency and timeout effectiveness (measured in amount of suppression of disruptive behavior) was demonstrated.
Conclusions: Reinforcement of alternative behavior is a major determinant of the effectiveness of a timeout procedure at suppressing undesirable behavior. High reinforcement frequencies may be used to overcome recovery during punishment phenomena without increasing the intensity of the punishing stimulus.
Recommendations: In order to achieve maximal suppression of target behaviors and avoid recovery during punishment, deceleration procedures should be accompaiend by a substantial frequency of reinforcement for alternative behavior
The Pragmatism of Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
No full text130 leaves. Advisor: Dr. Bruce MartinSamuel Butler, English Victorian man of letters, is best known for his work on evolution and his three didactic and often satirical narratives: Erewhon, The Way of All Flesh, and Erewhon Revisited.
In his writing Butler developed a philosophy of pragmatism, based on a belief in evolutionary progress, common sense, and the idea of a divinity expressed through human conduct.
Butler's scientific works lay the theoretical ground-work for his pragmatism. Evolution was purposive, self-initiated. Guided by the principles of "memory" and "unconscious knowledge," man achieves "grace" by committing himself to the product of his senses, living according to "instinct" in the ordinary world.
The natives of Erewhon live up to Butler's code of conduct, but his English protagonist, Higgs, fails to fully realize man's potential for enlightened progress. Erewhon is not as much a satire on the age of machines as a call to "instinct." Butler's pragmatism reaches new heights in the working out of his theories in human society.
In The Way of All Flesh and Erewhon Revisited, Butler's pragmatism is colored by his personal frustrations and by the failure of his two protagonists to live up to his code of conduct. The Way of All Flesh adds the test of time to Butler's theory as a standard for measuring the achievement of individuals and families, since Ernest Pontifex cannot come to grips with the evolutionary forces at work in his own life. The aging Higgs in Erewhon Revisited turns to his son, George, as a representation of Butler's gentlemanly ideal; but the young man is not match for a changing social order. Butler's pragmatism could not encompass the dawning twentieth century and Butler's own deepening sense of failure