Browsing by Author "Dr. Kenneth Brinson, Jnr., Committee Chair"

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    The Effects of a Cross-age Tutorial Program: Hispanic Students Who Are Not Proficient In Reading Tutored By Non Hispanic Students Who Are Proficient In Reading
    (2004-11-10) Daniels, Laverne Jones; Dr. Peter Hessling, Committee Member; Dr. Richard Haley, Committee Member; Dr. Dennis Daley, Committee Member; Dr. Kenneth Brinson, Jnr., Committee Chair
    The purpose of the research has been to examine the effects of a cross-age tutoring program aimed at assisting Hispanic students in comprehension and fluency reading skills. The research process included exploring previous research on the topic and closely observing outcomes of students participating in the cross-age tutorial program. The tutorial program consisted of twenty-four sessions that lasted thirty minutes. Each lesson contained reading practice as well as related games and activities planned by the tutors. The ten Hispanic participants who were tutored were third graders performing at a level II in reading according to the North Carolina End-of-Grade test. The students who were used to tutor the third graders were ten level IV readers in the fifth grade. The research questions that drove the study were: 1) What are some effects when Hispanic students who are not proficient in reading are tutored by non-Hispanic students who are proficient in reading? 2) What are good reading strategies for Hispanic students? The study concluded with all twenty participants passing the End-of-Grade test in addition to other positive effects that will assist in gaining literacy skills. The study does not indicate the cross-age tutoring program alone contributed to students passing the End-of-Grade tests or gaining the positive effects observed.
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    The Relationship Between North Carolina Middle School Academic Growth And The Implementation Level Of Key Middle School Practices: A Study For Middle School Decision Makers
    (2005-04-08) Williams, Judith Lynn; Dr. Kenneth Brinson, Jnr., Committee Chair
    Without hard data on the impact on student academic achievement, decision-makers are wary of fully implementing key middle school practices. To provide hard data for middle school decision-makers, this study was conducted. The aim of this study was to provide an accurate description of the status of middle schools in the state of North Carolina and to determine the relationship that exists between the degree of implementation of key middle school practices and student academic growth when controlling for school location, school size, student body race/ethnicity, and student body socioeconomic status. Study findings revealed that North Carolina middle schools with grade configurations 5-8 or 6-8 that participated in this study are implementing many of the key middle school practices as outlined in middle school literature and the majority of the participating schools indicated that they have been implementing key middle school practices over five years. In addition, two findings were identified by statistical analyses. First, analyses indicated that the implementation level and the number of years a North Carolina middle school met expected academic growth was not statistically significant. The second finding was that the degree of implementation of key middle school practices was a predictor of expected academic growth for one of the years in this study. Although other programs for that school year might have played into the North Carolina middle schools expected academic growth rates, this finding is relevant to North Carolina middle school decision makers. One year of testing data can be explored to see what key middle school practices were implemented that led to the increase of student academic achievement.