Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure Academic Resilience in Mathematics

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shanna N. Ricketts ◽  
George Engelhard ◽  
Mei-Lin Chang

Abstract. The purpose of this study is to describe the development and validation of a scale designed to measure academic resilience in mathematics (ARM). The ARM scale includes nine items and was administered to 528 7th and 8th grade students in a low-income urban school in the United States. The Many-Facet Rasch model was used to investigate the psychometric quality of the scale. Students responded to a six-category rating scale with responses ranging from 1 (= strongly disagree) to 6 (= strongly agree). The overall reliability of person separation was good (Rel = .79), and the scale exhibited good model-data fit. The data indicated that there were no statistically significant differences in student perceptions of their academic resilience by socioeconomic status (SES) or by performance levels on a statewide-standardized mathematics assessment. There were, however, statistically significant differences in student perceptions of their academic resilience by gender and teacher-assigned grades. The ARM scale is a promising addition to the array of instruments for measuring affective and motivational states of students. This study supports the inference that individual perceptions of academic resilience can be measured in a meaningful way. The ARM scale holds promise as a tool for examining academic resilience in future research.

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 876-876
Author(s):  
Setarreh Massihzadegan ◽  
Jan Mutchler

Abstract Utilizing the first set of 5-year American Community Survey data available since the United States’ legalization of same-sex marriage in mid-2015, this poster investigates the economic security of older adults (age 50+) in same-sex marriages compared to those in same-sex partnerships who are cohabiting but not married. Viewed through the lens of cumulative disadvantage theory, we consider differences in the economic circumstances of same-sex couples by gender and by geographic location. Findings point to gender differences in economic well-being, but relatively few differences based on marital status. For example, rates of low income are somewhat higher among female couples than among their male counterparts, but marital status differences are not substantial. These findings suggest that the benefits of being married that have long been recognized among older adults may not extend equally to same-sex couples. Findings are discussed with respect to the emerging salience of marriage within the LGBTQ older community, future research opportunities, and important policy implications.


2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 366-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler L. Renshaw ◽  
Clayton R. Cook

The present studies report on the initial development and validation of the Youth Internalizing Problems Screener (YIPS), which is a 10-item self-report rating scale for assessing general internalizing problems and identifying depression and anxiety caseness within the context of school mental health screening. Results from Study 1 ( N = 177) demonstrated that responses to the YIPS yielded a single-factor latent structure, that scores derived from the scale had concurrent validity with scores from measures of student subjective well-being and problem behavior, and showed that scores derived from the YIPS demonstrated incremental validity in comparison with scores from another common internalizing problems screener for predicting self-reports of broad student functioning. Findings from Study 2 ( N = 219) confirmed the latent structure and internal reliability of responses to the YIPS, demonstrated that scores derived from this scale had strong associations with scores from criterion measures of depression and anxiety, and showed that YIPS scores had good-to-excellent power for accurately discriminating between youth scoring at or above the clinical caseness thresholds on criterion measures of depression and anxiety. Taken together, results suggest the YIPS shows promise as a technically adequate instrument for measuring general internalizing problems and identifying depression and anxiety caseness among secondary students. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.


2007 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 268-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bret P. Smith ◽  
Gail V. Barnes

The purpose of this study was to develop a factor-derived measure of orchestra performance achievement and to test its validity and reliability for the evaluation of secondary school orchestras. We assembled a pool of 49 statements used in evaluating middle and high school orchestra performance, paired them with a 9-point Likert-type scale, and asked 63 experienced orchestra teachers to evaluate 63 secondary school orchestras. Factor analyses on data from the 189 completed rating sheets identified seven factors: Ensemble, Left Hand, Position, Rhythm, Tempo, Presentation, and Bow. For the reduced scale, we chose 25 items with factor loadings greater than . 64, which showed Cronbach's alphas ranging from . 73 to . 91. Two rounds of validation showed high correlations with MENC's adjudication form and a ranking task; the initial factor structure was not exactly duplicated, indicating directions for future research.


10.28945/4179 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 085-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Tolman ◽  
Juliann S McBrayer ◽  
Deborah Evans

Aim/Purpose: This study examined doctoral faculty of educational leadership within the state of Georgia in the United States. The aim was to illustrate the academic qualifications and practitioner experiences of the faculty that develop students in educational leadership programs to be scholarly practitioners and future educational leaders. Background: Faculty of educational leadership programs prepare their students to hold imminent senior leadership roles in P-12 school administration and higher education administration. In this apprenticeship model, doctoral faculty utilize their academic qualifications and/or practitioner experiences to develop students into scholarly practitioners. Methodology: A descriptive quantitative study utilizing content analysis was conducted to examine faculty of doctoral programs in educational leadership (n=83). True to this methodology, the inquiry of this study sought to better understand the academic qualifications and practitioner experiences of doctoral faculty in the field of educational leadership. Contribution: This study serves as a primer for faculty and researchers to visualize the doctoral faculty of educational leadership programs. It can serve as a catalyst to encourage empirical studies of educational leadership faculty and their effectiveness in preparing scholarly practitioners. Findings: Key findings included that nearly 2/3 of the faculty have their terminal degrees from a Research 1 institution, 3/5 hold a PhD, and 3/4 have practitioner experience in their respective field. Recommendations for Practitioners: Doctoral programs should examine the diversity of the academic qualifications and practitioner experiences of their faculty and develop strategies to enhance their programs with these complimenting skill sets. Recommendation for Researchers: Descriptive studies effectively “dip our toe” into a new area of inquiry. Considerations for future research includes examining student perceptions of their faculty who hold either a PhD or Ed.D, as well as those who are academics versus practitioners to better understand their effectiveness. Impact on Society: True to the work of John Dewey, education serves as the vehicle to promote a democratic society. Recognizing these doctoral faculty are preparing the future leaders of education, understanding the experiences of faculty will allow for better insight into those who are ultimately shaping the future of education. Future Research: Future research should focus on empirical studies that explore the effectiveness of faculty based on their academic qualifications and practitioner experiences through the lens of student perceptions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia Snodgrass Rangel ◽  
Carlos Monroy ◽  
Elizabeth Bell

There is a debate on students’ low science achievement in the United States, particularly among low income, African American students, and Latino students. An important part of the education community’s response to low achievement generally and in science specifically has been the implementation of high stakes accountability policies. Because of accountability’s emphasis on educator data use, much research has examined different facets of it throughout educational organizations, but research has not focused on the extent to which data use might be content-specific. The purpose of this paper, then, was to investigate the data use practices of science teachers. Drawing from a broader study of science teachers in grades 5-8 across six school districts, this study reports results from teacher surveys and interviews. The findings indicate that while there were examples of science-specific data use, most of the science teachers used data in ways consistent with previous content-agnostic research. Implications for future research, policy, and practice are discussed. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-28
Author(s):  
Guangbao Fang ◽  
Philip Wing Keung Chan ◽  
Penelope Kalogeropoulos

Using nation-wide survey data (N=2328) from China, this study investigates how social support from family, peers, and teachers influence low-income household children’s (from 13 to 15 years old) academic resilience, as well as how academic resilience mediates the relationship between social support and children’s academic achievement. Structural equation modelling was adopted to analyse the data. The results reveal that (1) low-income household children’s family, peer, and teacher support are associated with their academic resilience; (2) peer support and academic resilience of low-income household children significantly relate with their academic achievements; (3) academic resilience plays a full mediation role in teacher support and a partial mediation role in peer support on children’s academic achievement. The implications of this study on theory and practice, the limitations, and future research directions are discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Samuel Horvitz ◽  
Lisa R Garcia ◽  
Regina Garza Mitchell ◽  
Cheryl D Calhoun

Technical education programs in community colleges prepare students for many science and engineering-based jobs in the United States. An increasing number of technical education programs in community colleges are using online learning tools to teach courses. However, little is currently known about the ways these programs are integrating online learning in their coursework. This study examined fifteen National Science Foundation funded technical education programs that use online learning to partially or entirely deliver their courses. We conducted semi-structured interviews with key personnel from each project. Through analysis of this data, we found that technical education programs used a variety of instructional delivery approaches that can be categorized as follows: (a) a hybrid or blended course with asynchronous online lectures; (b) a hybrid or blended course with synchronous lectures; (c) a hybrid or blended course with a combination of asynchronous and synchronous lectures and discussions; or (d) a course that is fully online. We also found that online or hybrid technical education programs used a variety of different methods to give students experience in their field of study that can be categorized as follows: (a) pre-recorded video; (b) live video; (c) simulations; (d) equipment at home; (e) equipment in lab; and (f) professional site experience. We recommend that future research examine how well these approaches are working, incorporate student perceptions, and incorporate the views of employers of these programs’ graduates.


2020 ◽  
Vol 135 (3) ◽  
pp. 1209-1318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel Hendren ◽  
Ben Sprung-Keyser

Abstract We conduct a comparative welfare analysis of 133 historical policy changes over the past half-century in the United States, focusing on policies in social insurance, education and job training, taxes and cash transfers, and in-kind transfers. For each policy, we use existing causal estimates to calculate the benefit that each policy provides its recipients (measured as their willingness to pay) and the policy’s net cost, inclusive of long-term effects on the government’s budget. We divide the willingness to pay by the net cost to the government to form each policy’s Marginal Value of Public Funds, or its ``MVPF''. Comparing MVPFs across policies provides a unified method of assessing their effect on social welfare. Our results suggest that direct investments in low-income children’s health and education have historically had the highest MVPFs, on average exceeding 5. Many such policies have paid for themselves as the government recouped the cost of their initial expenditures through additional taxes collected and reduced transfers. We find large MVPFs for education and health policies among children of all ages, rather than observing diminishing marginal returns throughout childhood. We find smaller MVPFs for policies targeting adults, generally between 0.5 and 2. Expenditures on adults have exceeded this MVPF range in particular if they induced large spillovers on children. We relate our estimates to existing theories of optimal government policy, and we discuss how the MVPF provides lessons for the design of future research.


2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (8) ◽  
pp. 1016-1022
Author(s):  
Tyler L. Renshaw ◽  
Clayton R. Cook

This brief report presents preliminary psychometrics of responses to the Youth Externalizing Problems Screener (YEPS), which is a 10-item self-report rating scale intended for use as a screening instrument. The YEPS was designed to function as a companion measure to the Youth Internalizing Problems Screener (YIPS), facilitating the screening of broad mental health problems among students in secondary school settings. Analyses presented herein were conducted with the same small, preliminary samples of urban high-school students as those reported on for the initial development and validation of the YIPS (Sample 1: n = 177, Sample 2: n = 219). Results suggest that responses to the YEPS showed a sound, unidimensional factor structure that is internally consistent, providing initial evidence for the purported internal structure of the measure. Findings also showed that YEPS scores had meaningful associations with other self-reported, theoretically relevant mental health variables, providing initial convergent evidence in favor of construct interpretation. Taken together, preliminary psychometrics support the validation argument for the interpretation and use of YEPS scores as a brief measure of adolescents’ general externalizing problems. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kathryn Hsieh

The purpose of this study was to understand how students navigate housing insecurity during their postsecondary experience. Emerging as a recent topic in scholarly discussion, how students address housing affordability and accessibility highlights an important discussion surrounding college opportunity. Qualitative interviews with 20 postsecondary alumni were conducted in a large public research institution in the United States. Through a resilience framework, this study explored how students navigated their housing challenges by leveraging internal and external factors. Housing challenges included living in overcrowded spaces, moving frequently, working significant hours, and reducing monthly expenses such as groceries to ensure housing affordability. The impact of these strategies increased a student's anxiety, negatively affecting their personal well-being and at times their academics. Despite these challenges, participants showed a strong resolve to persevere toward college completion. Themes of self-efficacy (internal) and supportive relationships (external) were important motivators to persist toward college completion in spite of housing challenges and barriers. Each participant was determined to overcome the stigma associated with their housing challenges to increase the social mobility of their family and counter stereotypes associated with being a low-income, minority, or first-generation college student. However, due to the negative perceptions associated with housing insecurity, participants would not disclose the extent of their housing challenges with campus stakeholders. Isolation from these experiences decreased a student's sense of belonging and established a belief that the institution could not provide support to address their housing challenges. Implications for policy, practice, and future research include reassessing financial aid packages, developing direct support offices on campus, and additional opportunities to examine housing insecurity from an identity-based lens.


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