ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Gamification Instruction on the Roles of Perceived Ease of Learning, Enjoyment, and Useful Knowledge toward Learning Attitude
Author: Lin, Jonathan
Date: 2022-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Game Based Learning,Student Attitudes,Elementary School Students,Foreign Countries,Attitude Change,Instructional Effectiveness

This study has separated into two stages. In the first stage, we interview with nine students and discover three crucial elements, perceived ease of learning, enjoyment, and useful knowledge, which will affect students' learning attitude. Then we develop a series of gamification curricula for those learners. In the second stage, we adopt gamification instruction in this semester and intend to verify the changes in learning attitude. To assess the effects of perceived ease of learning, enjoyment, and useful knowledge, toward learning attitude and the changes in learning attitude, an experimental design is employed in gamification curricula of a primary school in Taiwan. From the experimental results, we find out that perceived ease of learning, enjoyment, and useful knowledge all have positive effects on learning attitude. Besides, we have also verified the significantly positive effects of the gamification curricula in learning attitude in comparison with conventional curricula. Two contributions are in this study. First, perceived ease of learning, enjoyment, useful knowledge and two concepts of adopting mobile devices and competition strategy are the prerequisite elements while developing curricula. Second, students gain functional and behavioral competencies and utilize them into practical field.
Teachers as Market Influencers: Towards a Policy Framework for Teacher Brand Ambassador Programs in K-12 Schools
Author: Saldaña, Christopher M.
Date: 2021-08-30
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Marketing,Corporations,Educational Technology,Computer Software,Ethics,Conflict of Interest,Teacher Role,Public Schools,Elementary Secondary Education,Social Influences,Commercialization,Privatization,Public Policy

Marketing in schools has a new twist, and teachers are at the center. Corporate firms, particularly those producing education-technology products, have contracted with teachers to become so-called brand ambassadors and micro-influencers. Scant research, however, has examined these brand ambassador arrangements, leaving policymakers uninformed about the implications for students, teachers, and schools. In this article, we delve into what it means to be a teacher brand ambassador (TBA) and micro-influencer by examining the context in which these programs arose and studying current examples of TBA and TBA-like programs offered by Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. We review how these recent instantiations of marketing compare to similar practices used to sell prescription drugs to and through doctors, and we explore ethical, legal and policy issues associated with the recruitment and contracting of teachers as brand ambassadors. Further, anticipating the need for the protection of students' and teachers' interests as TBA programs grow as a presence in public schools, we offer a model policy framework to regulate the use of these marketing practices in schools.
Education in Times of Global Crisis: How Private Actors in Germany Gain Power through Twitter
Author: Schuster, Johannes
Date: 2021-11-29
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Social Media,COVID-19,School Closing,Pandemics,Kindergarten,Home Schooling,Social Networks,Social Change,Educational Policy,Political Attitudes,Corporations,Computer Mediated Communication,Learning Processes,Specialists,Consultants,Educational Change,Elementary Secondary Education

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to enormous societal changes worldwide and touched many different areas of daily life. One of the most serious restrictions to contain the pandemic was the closure of schools and kindergartens. Particularly in countries with comparatively low levels of digitalization in schools, this situation opened up opportunities for private actors to gain importance and influence in the education sector. For this article, we draw on policy network approaches and network theory to analyze Twitter discussions around digital learning and homeschooling during the period of school closures in Germany due to the COVID-19 crisis. We use social network analysis to identify the actors involved and their influences in the issue-specific Twitter communication network. In recent years, Twitter has been increasingly used for exchanges on education policy content, mainly by political and civil society actors. Our study shows that with respect to digital learning and homeschooling, it was primarily individual experts and consultants as well as corporations which influenced the discourse. In particular, it appears that Twitter is used as a forum to promote corporations' own products and platforms, including by globally operating corporations such as Microsoft and YouTube, while public actors remain barely visible.
Can Curricular Reform for Coherence and Efficiency Occur Quickly in Higher Education
Author: Zubov, Lynn Roch
Date: 2021-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Change,Curriculum Development,Action Research,Efficiency,Department Heads,Undergraduate Students,Universities,College Faculty,Teacher Attitudes,Questionnaires,Educational Finance,Black Colleges

The purpose of this research was to investigate whether a mid-sized public university could create a more coherent and efficient undergraduate curriculum over a short period of time with minimal resources. We pursued this question using an action research design. Using a curriculum model, we developed that focused on foundational, breadth, and depth of knowledge as a framework, we asked academic programs at the targeted university to evaluate and reform their degree programs for coherency and efficiency. Data were collected using a summary data template for curriculum framework during the planning year and then again after two years of reform. Data were also collected on the number of program and course revisions implemented throughout the study. Additionally, using the Stages of Concern Questionnaire and an ad hoc survey, we gathered faculty and department chairs' perceptions about the process. The results indicate that systemic change to a university's curriculum can occur relatively quickly and with limited financial investment. However, the study suggests that for significant change to occur, faculty must be given time to process the paradigm shift. Additionally, when engaging in curriculum renewal, department chairs require opportunities to discuss the process with their peers and often need individual, targeted assistance.
Delivering the Promise of the Liberal Arts through Curricular Coherence and Integrative Advising
Author: Babyak, Joyce Kloc
Date: 2021-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Liberal Arts,Undergraduate Students,Higher Education,Holistic Approach,Academic Advising,College Curriculum,Curriculum Development,Portfolio Assessment,Electronic Publishing

Liberal arts colleges promise undergraduates a holistic education that builds life-long skills such as critical thinking, written and oral communication, and quantitative and information literacy by encouraging students to engage in courses across the curriculum. Yet too often, we do not offer students enough support in developing coherent pathways and integrating what they learn, and that promise is diminished. With Teagle Foundation support, The Five Colleges of Ohio (Denison University, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University, and The College of Wooster) and Allegheny College joined together over four years to investigate and implement structural supports to help students create a broader and more coherent roadmap to their educational experiences, including first-year gateway courses to introduce pathfinding techniques, course concentrations to emphasize connections across fields of study, and online mapping and advising tools linking courses, co-curricular opportunities, and careers. The collaborators also involved faculty in rethinking their crucial advising roles in a more integrative way. This instructional article describes the fundamental shifts institutions made to enhance curricular coherence and integrative advising as well as the lessons learned from setbacks and successes that informed ongoing initiatives.
Empowering Faculty to Build Meaningful Curricula to Enhance Student Success
Author: Cho, Kit W.
Date: 2021-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Curriculum Implementation,Time to Degree,Barriers,Curriculum Design,College Faculty,Teacher Empowerment,Educational Change,Success,Undergraduate Study,Communities of Practice,Student Attitudes,Teacher Attitudes

The increasing costs of college have led higher education institutions to place greater emphasis on the implementation of curricula changes that facilitate timely degree completion. Institutional barriers to timely degree completion may be found in course registration processes and course availability, program design, and university-wide resources and initiatives. Although students typically rely on faculty for such information, not all faculty are aware of these issues and university initiatives. Curricula changes and university initiatives can also fail from lack of involvement and buy-in from faculty. The purpose of this article is to describe our approach to engaging faculty in reflective and collaborative processes to raise awareness of these issues to impact curriculum design and coherence within and among the undergraduate degrees by creating a faculty learning community. The strategies used to empower faculty to discuss and initiate curricular changes include: (a) clear ownership and leadership of the process by faculty; (b) opportunities for open and minimally structured discussion about student success and university processes; (c) identification and distribution of student success data; (d) targeted cross-disciplinary review of degree plans; and (e) integration of student and advising staff perspectives to maintain focus on understanding the student experience with the programs and system. Preliminary results of our work demonstrate success in generating faculty participation and interest in the conversations, the data, and ways to refine their curricula to improve student success.
Discourse Analysis of LGBT Speeches: Discursive Formations and the Constitution of Subjects and Meanings
Author: Fiss, Dóris Maria Luzzardi
Date: 2021-12-06
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Discourse Analysis,LGBTQ People,Speeches,Sexual Orientation,Sexual Identity,Experience,Foreign Countries,Attitudes

This article discusses the interpretive gestures of LGBT subjects and their identification processes. It also performs a discursive listening of their statements about themselves and conditions of production and analyzes the processes by which subjects and meanings are (un)done, considering the constitutive heterogeneity of the statement. We then pose the questions: How do LGBT subjects produce statements about themselves? What meanings are evident when they are invited to talk about their experiences? What does it mean to be part of this group? The main theoretical framework was based on the works of Michel Pêcheux (1997, 2024), among others. The empirical work involved semi-structured interviews addressed to two gay men, a bisexual woman, and a non-binary transvestite who identified herself as pansexual, aged between 20 and 50 years. We conclude that, affected, in a contradictory and tense way by normativity and by the insistence to exist despite it, the subjects are constituted from their identification, or not, with circulating knowledge in antagonistic discursive formations that are a manifestation of an ideological formation of customs. From the relation of forces between the discursive formations, effects of purge, curtailment, hope and humanity resonate.
School Desegregation, School Re-Zoning, and Growth Management in Two Maryland Counties
Author: Bierbaum, Ariel H.
Date: 2021-12-06
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Zoning,School Desegregation,Population Growth,Land Use,Public Policy,Racial Composition,Racial Bias,Counties,School Districts,Regional Characteristics,Regional Planning

This article examines how school and non-school policies interact to reinforce or disrupt school segregation in the context of suburban communities and how these systems are maintained by structural and institutional mechanisms. Methodologically, we use a case study approach to delve deeply into the interpretation and implementation of school attendance zone redesign and non-school policies, specifically land use policies and tools. We draw on neo-institutionalist theory and Ray's (2019) framework of racialized organizations to make sense of school districts, planning agencies, and their policies. We find that school district rezoning policies provide a weak regulatory framework for desegregating schools because school zoning decisions are not made in a vacuum but rather are shaped by policies and actions taken by other actors in a multi-level governance structure. School zoning policies themselves prioritized capacity over desegregation, and regulations and norms governing the public engagement processes privilege opposition to desegregation. Our study points to the importance of greater coordination across governmental levels and policy arenas, and underscores how desegregation policy is part of a political and relational process between advocates, elected leaders, families, and youth across policy sectors.
&quot;Witch Doctors&quot; or Professionals? The Graduates of Mexico&apos;s First Intercultural University and the Struggle for Legitimacy
Author: Lloyd, Marion
Date: 2021-11-22
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Indigenous Populations,Intercultural Communication,Universities,Student Experience,Graduates,Undergraduate Students,Student Empowerment,Equal Education,Cultural Awareness,Multicultural Education,Administrator Attitudes,Mexicans,Administrators,Dropouts,Negative Attitudes,Social Bias,Labor Market,Stereotypes

Since 2003, the Mexican government has opened 11 intercultural universities serving a total of 15,000 students, a majority of whom are members of Mexico's Indigenous minority. While there is a growing body of work analyzing the intercultural model from public policy and theoretical perspectives, few studies focus on the experiences of the students and graduates of these institutions. In this article, I share the findings of one such study of the Intercultural University of Mexico State, the pioneer of the intercultural universities. Through interviews with graduates, students, and deans of three undergraduate intercultural programs, I seek to answer a central question, which is rooted in critical and decolonial theory: To what degree does the intercultural model achieve its stated mission of empowering Indigenous students and to what degree does it contribute to the reproduction of inequality? In general, the findings are mixed. While many students share experiences of discrimination in the workplace, and even being derided as &quot;witch-doctors,&quot; they argue that attending an institution with a critical mass of Indigenous students has empowered them personally and professionally, transformed their cultural identities, and given them a new appreciation for their Indigenous roots.
Resilience in Higher Education: A Conceptual Model and Its Empirical Analysis
Author: Durso, Samuel de Oliveira
Date: 2021-11-22
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Resilience (Psychology),Undergraduate Students,Student Characteristics,Anxiety,Foreign Countries,School Holding Power,Institutional Characteristics,Student Attitudes

This research analyzes how the resilience of higher education students is shaped during the undergraduate program by personal and contextual factors. In this research, the resilient student is one who faces a high burden of stress and/or adversity during their undergraduate course but manages to reach the end of the program satisfied and/or committed to the chosen career. Based on the literature review, we developed the Academic Resilience Model (ARM), which explains the sources of stress and/or adversity, as well as the protective mechanisms and/or factors that affect students throughout the program. We empirically test this model by conducting a phenomenology-based qualitative study at a public university in Brazil. The results of ARM validation indicate that the main sources of stress and/or adversity and protective mechanisms and/or factors come from individual, academic and external systems. Examples of sources of stress/adversity were the low initial motivation for the program, personal health problems, faculty didactic-pedagogical deficiency, difficulties in relationships with peers, and competing professional demands. On the other hand, the main protective mechanisms/factors identified were the capacity of adaptability, self-control, personal organization, good relationships with the faculty, integration with peers, and support of family. The research enabled identification of how resilience helps students to overcome barriers in higher education, generating important results for future education policies.
Policy and Principal Turnover: The Impact of the Texas Special Education Cap
Author: Mandel, Zoë
Date: 2021-11-15
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Policy,Principals,Labor Turnover,Special Education,Access to Education,State Legislation,Students with Disabilities,Enrollment,School Districts,Financial Support,Administrator Responsibility,Educational Legislation,Equal Education,Federal Legislation,Ethics,Job Satisfaction,Predictor Variables,Accountability,At Risk Students,Elementary Secondary Education,Work Environment

Accountability policies in education play a significant role for the principals tasked with facilitating the implementation of these reforms at the school-level. While these policies are most often intended to improve student outcomes, this is not always the case. In some instances, these policies can prove detrimental to schools, yet principals are still responsible for compliance. In Texas, a federal investigation found the Texas Education Agency (TEA) was restricting access to special education services by incentivizing districts to enroll fewer than 8.5% of students, utilizing these numbers as a measure of district performance. The implementation of the &quot;8.5% cap&quot; in 2004 resulted in a sharp decline in special education enrollment. Employing a sample of all principals in Texas before and after the 2004 law, this paper examines how the 8.5% cap impacted school leader attrition during its implementation. Prior to the implementation of the cap in 2004, we find little association between the proportion of students receiving services and principal turnover. After its implementation however, we find that principals in schools enrolling more than 8.5% of students in special education had a 0.39 higher odds ratio of switching districts and a 0.14 higher odds ratio of exiting the profession. We conclude by highlighting the scarcity of school labor market research that accounts for state-level education policies and note that policy may be more associated with principal turnover than student characteristics themselves.
Distance Education and National Teacher Training Policies: Implementation Evidence in a Multi-Level Perspective
Author: de Oliveira, Breynner Ricardo
Date: 2021-11-08
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Distance Education,Foreign Countries,Teacher Education,Teaching Methods,Instructional Design,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Educational Policy,Public Schools,Universities,Program Evaluation,College Graduates,Attitudes,Teachers

The &quot;Programa Nacional Escola de Gestores&quot; (PNEG) integrated the national teacher training policy and was financed by the Brazilian government. Ended in 2017, was part of a set of programs that elected distance education (DE) as its main strategy. The PNEG was designed to strengthen public school management. Based on graduates and PNEG instructors' perceptions of this program at one federal university, this article provides evidence on multi-level administrative and educational decision-making processes in distance education. Mixed methods were adopted. Data was collected through a survey applied to 216 graduates and 29 interviews with the PNEG team entailed five dimensions: (i) the training and pedagogical design implemented; (ii) the polyteaching training team; (iii) distance education and the use of digital information and communicational technologies (DICTs); (iv) the resources and infrastructure provided by the local support center; and (v) the interaction between the graduates and the polyteaching team in the PNEG training process. The analyses reveal that, in DE, pedagogical planning, the use of technologies, and the combination of resources that stimulate interaction among the actors play a decisive role in this process. Team supervision is another mandatory aspect. Mediated by technologies, DE teacher training programs funded by the federal government have redesigned curricular trajectories, tried out different pedagogical strategies, and proposed new skills to students and trainers.
Using Dyadic Observation to Explore Equitable Learning Opportunities in Classroom Instruction
Author: Lavigne, Alyson L.
Date: 2021-11-08
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Equal Education,Educational Opportunities,Achievement Gap,Teacher Student Relationship,Observation

Because of poverty, many children do not receive adequate prenatal care, nutrition, or early childhood education. These inequities combine to ensure that many students enter school with considerably less academic content knowledge and skills for learning than their peers. Teachers and schools did not create these gaps, but they must address them. The impact of schools in reducing gaps has been explored for decades only to yield inconsistent findings. One possible reason for these contradictory results is because these studies ignore classroom process. We argue for the inclusion of &quot;process&quot; in research on opportunity and achievement gaps to better articulate if schools provide inequitable learning opportunities. Further, we argue for &quot;dyadic&quot; (teacher to individual student) measurement of classroom process because commonly-used observation instruments only measure teachers' interactions with the whole class. These instruments obscure differential teacher treatment that may exist in some classrooms. To improve policy and practice, we call for supplementing extant measures of teachers' whole-class interactions (process) and student outcome (product) measures with those that measure dyadic interactions to learn how opportunities to learn in classrooms and schools are distributed among students to reduce, sustain, or enhance learning gaps.