1,098 research outputs found
Attitudes Toward Women as Administrators in the Des Moines, Iowa Public Schools
No full text113 leaves. Advisor: Dr. Richard LampshireThe problem. In a profession dominated in numbers by women, few women find their way to the top. There are relatively few women in positions of leadership or administration in education. The purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes of the school related community toward women as administrators in the Des Moines, Iowa public schools.
Procedure. Five segments of the Des Moines community were the population for this study. Sample groups were taken from: (1) students in fourth, eighth, and eleventh grades;
(2) parents of children in these grades; (3) teaching faculty from the schools attended by these students; (4) present administrators in these buildings; (5) personnel from the College of Education, Drake University. Sample groups were given an opinionnaire prepared by the author and consisting of twelve statements which describe tasks, roles or characteristics of administrators. Results were tabulated and the data analyzed. Textual summaries and tables appear in numerical and percentage form for ease of interpretation.
Findings. The study shows that men and women are considered equally able at public relations, at having ambition and a career commitment, at having insight into the needs of people. Women are perceived as working as well under women as under men, as being able to satisfy the community in assuming principalship of a school. Men and women are viewed as being equally able to make decisions and to organize effectively. Males are believed to be better disciplinarians by parents, students and older teachers, not, however, by the majority of the teaching faculty nor by administrators. Women are considered to be more sensitive, taking things more personally than men. Most segments of the study believed that young girls need successful women as models to emulate, and most segments also do not perceive the Des Moines schools as having a particular problem of sex bias or discrimination.
Conclusion. The findings of this study, when viewed as a whole, do not show any consistent negative attitudes toward women as administrators in the Des Moines, Iowa public Schools. On most of the questions asked, men and women were regarded by the subjects as equally able to perform tasks of leedership
A Study Reviewing Motives for Participation and the Postenrollment Transition After Completing A Graduate Degree Program
No full textvi, 58 leaves. Advisor: Thomas S. Westbrook.The Problem: The purpose of this study is to compare the initial leaning objectives to the objectives achieved after completing the degree and to identify the postenrollment transition adults make after completing their degree.
Procedures: The author interviewed twenty graduates of a Training and Development graduate degree program. The author asked each participant about his/her initial learning objectives and the objectives achieved after completing the graduate program. The author also asked each participant about his/her postenrollment transition after completing the graduate program.
Findings: Twenty participants indicated they met their initial learning objectives and many derived unexpected benefits fiom participating in the graduate degree program. Each individual's postenrollment transition varied depending on the his/her personal situation.
Conclusions: Most students meet their initial learning expectations. Upon completing a graduate degree program, some students may derive unexpected benefits. Students experience a wide range of feelings in conjunction with the postenrollment transition associated with graduation.
Recommendations: Research should be conducted that surveys participants prior to the learning experience and again after the learning experience has been completed to compare the initial learning objectives to the derived benefits. Likewise, during the postenrollment transition period, the researcher should contact the subject to track the transition over time. Finally, additional research is needed to determine if various demographic variables impact the student's postenrollment transition
Marriage Counseling : Definitions and Correlates of Success and Failure
No full text60 leaves. Advisor: Lawrence FanningThe problem. The author sought to analytically describe definitions of success and failure in marriage counseling held by those in the private
practice of marriage counseling. Additionally, the author attempted to have practitioners identify client characteristics they believed to be associated with success and failure in marriage counseling.
Procedure. Twenty-seven randomly selected private -practice marriage counselors were interviewed by the author. The data obtained from the interviews were supplemented with data obtained from journals and monographs.
Findings. Two discrete definitions of success and failure were held by the marriage counselors who were interviewed. One definition focused on whether or not the presenting and/or
subsequently delineated marital problems are ameliorated. The other definition focused on whether or not the clients are able to release or acquire certain interpersonal and intrapersonal attributes and skills, Among the correlates of
success and failure in the counseling experience identified by the practitioners were clarity and individuation of self, empathy, acceptance of
social and psychological differences between self and marital partner, education, intelligence,
support systems, third-party involvement, psychopathologies, level of pain and motivation, narcissism, value systems, and degree of marital homogeneity.
Conclusions. There is among professional marriage counselors significant agreement on definitions of success and failure in the marital counseling experience. Likewise, there is significant agreement concerning the correlates of success
and failure.
Recommendations. Research should be conducted among those who have experienced marital counseling to determine how clients define success and failure and to determine the degree to which
client and practitioner definitions are congruent.
Attempts should be made to determine what client
characteristics are, in fact, correlated with client-perceived success and failure in the counseling experience
Smile More: A Subcultural Analysis of the Anchor/Consultant Relationship in Local Television News Operations
No full textiii, 209 leaves. Advisor: Michael CheneyThe problem: Few television stations in the United States remain untouched by the influence of news consultants. To become a news anchor for a local television station, a journalist is likely to
receive specialized training from these consultants. The author will analyze the relationship between anchors and consultants
within the framework of an occupational subculture to better understand that relationship,
Procedure: The author uses qualitative research to explore the situation described; specifically, a series of structured interviews with randomly chosen American television news anchors and several representative consultants. Contents of the interviews are analyzed within an occupational subculture paradigm.
Findings: As subcultural outsiders, station consultants can cause irritation and anxiety for news anchors, but the skills they teach are valued by the modern television industry. Some anchors
may be willing to compromise traditional news culture values to survive in their careers, but this compromise may be offset by new perceptions of their social responsibility.
Conclusion: While the skills taught by a consultant may be valued within the television news subculture, his or her role as an outsider
can contribute negatively to the subculture. The hypothesis drawn from qualitative analysis is as follows: If journalistic norms constitute a strong subculture, then those who receive coaching from within the subculture will report a more positive
experience than those who are coached by consultants.
Recommendations: Quantitative research can now be pursued to test the preceding hypothesis
The Effects of a Social Concept Unit on the Developing of Positive Concepts of Self, Among First Grade Students at Colfax, Iowa
No full text63 leaves. Advisor: Carol BurdenThe problem. The problem of this study was to
ascertain to what extent instruction of a social-concept unit would change a child's self-image; and if a change was evident, was it of a positive nature.
Procedure. Two self-contained classrooms of first grade students in Colfax, Iowa, were chosen as the population for this study. The author was the instructor for the experimental group and the regularly employed classroom
teacher was the instructor for the control group. The two samplings were pre-tested before the unit's instruction began. At the conclusion of the project, the same students
were post-tested.
Findings. The results of this study showed that
there was no significant difference in self-concept measures between the control and experimental groups. Based upon this research, the author must conclude that the conscious teaching of a social-concept unit did not change the children's self-concept any more than the usual activities of another classroom teacher who did not employ a specific curriculum.
Recommendations. While the results of this study did not show a significant positive change in self-concept development when the groups were considered as a whole,
individuals did make sizeable gains. The evidence of this research indicate that a change in self-concept can take place. (The direction of the mean difference in each case
was in favor of the experimental group.) Therefore, there is a need for further studies to investigate who makes what kind of gains under what kind of conditions. The author
recognizes the need for a more applicable form of self-concept appraisal and recommends the continued search and development of a more refined measuring device
An Analysis of the Fiction of Charles W. Chesnutt
No full text115 leavesSummary of Author: Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) is a black short story author and novelist whose two volumes of short stories and three novels of purpose depict racial tensions present in the South during the
post-Reconstruction era. He addressed a culture
dominated by the myth of white superiority and black inferiority.
Chesnutt's purpose in his fiction is to present a perspective of racial tensions and social issues confronting Southern whites and blacks that differed from the perspective presented by writers of the plantation tradition fiction.
Rationale: Since black authors from 1853 to the 1890s basically reflected the themes of plantation tradition fiction and thus ignored social and political issues facing blacks in the 1890s, this analysis of Chesnutt's
fiction is made to determine whether he did present a differing perspective of slavery and of white-black issues in the South.
Procedure: This study is based on the reading and analysis of primary sources--The Conjure Woman, The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, The House Behind the Cedars, The Marrow of Tradition, and
The Colonel's Dream--as well as his letters collected by Helen, his daughter. Material from the Charles Chesnutt Collection was also incorporated into this study.
Secondary sources include articles by Chesnutt's contemporaries as well as articles and books by later scholars.
Findinqs: Charles Chesnutt is the first black American author to ask his publishers for the freedom to treat social and racial issues from a black's perspective: issues such as racial intermarriage, the franchise, and convict labor practices. He also explored the ramifications of "passing" into white society and other problems confronting people of mixed-race in the South and in the North. He pleaded for a quickening of conscience and
for moral renewal in the hearts of Southern whites.
Conclusions: Chesnutt projects a sense of optimism for racial acceptance in The House Behind the Cedars and to a lesser degree in The Marrow of Tradition. However, his third novel, The Colonel's Dream reflects his
frustration concerning the absence of meaningful change in the South in 1905. Negative responses by white supremacy groups and apathy on the part of Northern whites are two factors which led to his decline as an
early twentieth-century novelist
Iowa High Schools: Meeting the Challenges of Educating Limited English Proficient Students
No full textiii, 132 leaves. Advisor: Kathy Fejes.The recent influx of immigrants and refugees in Iowa has caused an increase in the population of Limited English Proficient (LEP) students in the schools of Iowa. The condition of education of Iowa secondary LEP students in mainstream classrooms has not been studied extensively. Valid and reliable tools for studying the education of LEP students have not been developed.
In this study, the author developed a survey tool that measures how much mainstream teachers perceive themselves to be following the best practices as suggested by research in the areas of school policies and organization, curriculum issues, and instructional techniques.
The survey was sent to nine high schools in five school districts in Iowa. One hundred twenty-two teachers responded to the survey.
The results of the survey indicated that the participating Iowa high school teachers perceive themselves to be making efforts to accommodate LEP students in the area of instruction, whereas some improvement needs to be made in the area of curriculum accommodation. Needed most in Iowa secondary schools are curriculum articulation and collaboration between mainstream and ESL teachers, staff development opportunities for mainstream teachers, and a school system and structure that allows for these practices.
Content validity, parallel form reliability, and construct validity of the research tool were established in this survey. The results indicated that the survey tool is fit to be used for identifying the areas that need improvement in education of LEP students, and should be used in further educational research
The Realism of George Moore
No full text102 leaves. Advisor: Dr. Bruce MartinThe problem. The realist novels of George Moore are extremely unlike one another in content and technique. While scholars have studied in detail the French influences in Moore's writing,
the question of whether Moore was something more than an imitator of French fiction and whether he contributed something new to the English realist tradition has not been studied.
Procedure. The multifarious literary currents in England during the Nineties were examined. Then George Moore's realist novels were studied with respect to their links with the naturalism
of Zola. Finally, the novels of Moore were compared to those of Dickens, Eliot, and Hardy with regard to elements of realism. One typical novel of each author was examined in detail,
and references were made to other novels of the three writers.
Findings. It was found that Moore brought to the English novel a distinctly new creation in realism. His borrowing from French naturalism was selective and superficial. Moore created a realist novel that was highly objective in tone and technique, concentrating on the cerebral reality of the individual, who for the first time in English fiction, was not a representative
of a distinct and strong social environment.
Conclusion. While Moore's novels will probably never be ranked beside those of Dickens, Eliot, and Hardy as the great novels of the English language, Moore will be regarded as one who not
only sought and found inspiration outside of the English tradition but also contributed something new and different to the tradition of the realist novel
The Development of Music Writing and Reading Skills Through Singing with Elementary Students
No full textiv, 87 leaves. Back pocket also includes 5 levels of "Hands on Music Writing and Reading" instructional materials. Advisor: James Cox.Problem. The purpose of this report was to create an instrument through which elementary students in grades one through five could develop a systematic
approach to music reading and writing skills through singing.
Procedure. The set of "Hands On Music Writing and Reading" books were developed by the author to: 1) aid all children in the development of their
innate musical abilities, 2) make the language of music known to children; to help them become musically literate: and enable them to read,
write, and create with the vocabulary of music, 3) make use of the best children's literature in folk and art music of their culture and of the world,
and 4) give students opportunities to play classroom musical instruments while reading and singing the songs they have written.
Conclusions. The instrument developed by the author was a set of "Hands on Music Writing and Reading" books containing song materials which incorporate melodic and rhythmic skill development presented in a sequential order. The books address the problems of writing basic music notation and
introduce musical terminology appropriate for elementary students. The books also expose the students to the concepts of form, harmony, and
timbre.
Recommendations. This report suggests that these music workbooks are adaptable to any elementary music program. The systematic approach to building
literary skills in music through writing should complement the basic skills program. If music is to be considered as one of the basic skills, music
educators must provide goals and objectives which produce viable results
A Comparative Analysis of the History of Substate Districts in Iowa and Missouri
No full text69 leaves. Advisor: William AngrickThe problem. Prior to the completion of this
thesis, a written historical account of the establishment of substate districts in Iowa and Missouri did not exist. The severity of this fact intensifies considering that the political ramifications of substate districts will either directly or indirectly touch the lives of all of us.
Procedure. The data on Iowa and Missouri's substate districts was collected by the author from periodicals, books, personal interviews and letters. A large percentaqe of the historical facts noted in this paper are "primary source information," and had not been previously recorded. The gathered data was analyzed, compared, and recorded.
Findings. Both Iowa and Missouri were successful in implementing substate districts in their respective states. The primary reason for creating their substate districts was to become eligible for specific federal grant-in-aid monies. The methods employed by the two-states to establish their substate districts substantially.
Conclusions. Although both states achieved their goals of delineating their state into substate districts, Missouri's method of creating substate districts is comparatively favorable to that of Iowa's for substantial political reasons
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