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This study examined undergraduates’ perceptions of their secondary gifted programs on collegiate academic achievement. A semi-structured interview utilized a descriptive case study approach with seven participants. This grounded theory study sought meaning and experiences from a purposive sample of undergraduate college students who participated in a secondary gifted program. The contextual framework of challenge, choice, academic self-efficacy, appeal, and meaningfulness (Gentry & Owen, 2006) provided the basis of analysis and coding of common themes of each participant’s story. The research questions guiding this study included the following: • In what ways (if any) do students who have participated in secondary gifted programs perceive these programs as they have progressed to higher education? • In what ways do students perceive that their participation in secondary gifted programs now influence them academically as college students? • In what ways might varying secondary gifted program models influence participants’ future college experiences? The three common themes that emerged were the ways in which diverse program models, former teachers, and the participants’ motivating academic passions in secondary gifted education programs informed collegiate academic achievement.

The number of first generation college students enrolling in higher education is one the rise. These students often struggle with the transition to a new environment, that they often do not understand, and many also lack the support groups and systems that are needed to be successful. Understanding why these students are coming to college and how to assist them is of the utmost importance. A qualitative study was conducted to determine the motivations and support systems of first generation college students within the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (CASNR). A basic interpretive qualitative method was selected, and interviews were conducted to obtain data. Nine respondents from the six departments of CASNR and one respondent as a representative from the Texas Tech PEGASUS Program were interviewed and data was collected. It was determined that three factors lead to their enrollment at Texas Tech – parental/family and teacher encouragement, and self-motivation. The researchers also found that the students were involved in several organizations. These included association with at least one departmental/college organization, affiliation with a religious group, involvement with a university program, and/or a connection with a first generation college student group. It was also found that these students depended upon three major support groups and systems, such as parental, friend and adviser/professor support. The researchers also sought to determine how satisfied the students were with their experiences with CASNR and Tech. One over-arching theme was found – high satisfaction.

xi, 108p. :ill., The study seeks to investigate the motivational factors that have beenresponsible for teachers’ high output leading to excellent student performance in private Junior Secondary Schools in the Ga District of the Greater Accraregion. The study involves 150 teachers sampled from 25 schools. The descriptive survey design was used because it is practical and versatile and indicates how data are collected, organised and displayed in tables and graphs. Teacher motivation and teacher competency instruments were administered, from which the following findings were made: teachers were highly motivated and were satisfied with their job in terms of relationship among colleagues, recognition by stakeholders, supervision and involvement in decision making. However the study reveals that teachers were dissatisfied with their salary levels and conditions of service. High student and teacher performance were also due to effective supervision and administration. The private schools have clear set goals, unalloyed persistence in ensuring quality results from pupils and the resolve to demand quality work from teachers. It was recommended based on the findings and conclusions that private school heads should incorporate teacher welfare in their planning. Secondly the GES must raise its salary levels since most private schools use their salary scale in paying their teachers. Thirdly, teachers should be involved in all decisions taken that would help make the school sustainable.

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Developed by Gregory Ulmer, euretics is a pedagogical approach that increases the possibility for creative work to be produced following exploration and metaphorical interpretation of abstract art. This dissertation tests the effect of euretics on the creativity of architectural student designs when using images of abstract expressionist paintings. These are compared with architectural designs using images of noted architectural projects as motivational tools. Creativity measures were assessed by Donald W. MacKinnon's five criteria of creativity used in his work on personality assessment. The criteria include: originality, adaptiveness of the design to reality, sustaining the concept, and aesthetic content, as well as creating new conditions and principles of human existence. The study also investigates whether the euretics method using abstract expressionist painting produces creative ideas more quickly than when students use familiar architectural projects or do not use any motivating images at all.

Every teacher faces unmotivated students at some point in his or her career. Teachers must effectively communicate to not only ensure student comprehension, but to motivate students to participate in class and want to learn. Scholars report a positive relationship between teacher use of relevance and teacher clarity behaviors, immediacy behaviors, and student motivation. However, scholars fail to provide student reports of what teachers say and do to make information relevant. Researchers need to examine what strategies students perceive as making information relevant and how the use of these strategies influences student motivation. These were the objectives of this study. Data were collected through qualitative methods of open-ended questionnaires and focusgroup interviews. Findings were analyzed inductively to discover recurring themes across student reports.

Flow is an optimal psychological state during which people become so intensely involved and the experience so enjoyable that they will do it for its own sake. When people reflect on how it felt, they often mention these aspects:(a) sensing skills and challenge in balance, (b) engaging in a goal-directed activity, (c) receiving clear feedback, (d) feeling in control, (e) intensifying concentration, (f) merging action and awareness, (h) losing self-consciousness, (h) distorting time perception, and (i) experiencing great enjoyment. Flow theory argues that environmental factors, such as challenge, goal, control, feedback and concentration, has major influences in motivation. These factors provide a theoretical congruence between flow and instructional design in general, and motivation design in particular. A problem in the study of flow is its complexity. Constructs must be examined together, and their interactions inspected. Surfing on the Internet frequently induces a sense of excitement similar to flow. The vividness and interactivity of hypermedia appear to enhance flow by increasing user concentration and control. Technology affects presentation, but not the content. Searching for information induces flow because it is challenging and goal directed. This study investigates the effects of content relevance and presentation quality, and their interaction, on students' flow experience while engaging in computer-based information access activities. A better understanding in the dynamic of flow can lead to better instructional design that provides positive experiences and improves motivations. Flow state scale indicates no significance in the main effects, but strong statistical and practical significant interactions. Presentation quality enhances flow in low content relevance tasks, but impedes flow in high content relevance activities. It shows that multiple channel stimuli enhance experience until the cognitive capacity is stretched. From the instructional design perspective, it implies that multimedia elements must be integrated into lesson design carefully, or it may have negative consequences. While content and presentation do interact to influence flow experience, much is still not know about the model. Flow is indeed a complex phenomenon and warrants further investigation.

What is a good teacher? Essentially, an effective teacher is one who aids students in all kinds of learning (Andersen, 1979). This concept seems simple, but what becomes more important is how a teacher can most effectively aid those students in the learning process. Educational research has spent time and energy on trying to figure out what it takes to be effective in the classroom. Research shows that teacher behaviors have a significant impact on all areas of learning.

The purpose of this study is to describe ways in which self-esteem of at risk Hispanic elementary students are affected by discouragement and encouragement. An ethnographic approach and participant observer method make it possible to document the lives of two students within the educational setting of the classroom so that the researcher can look at the ways in which classroom life affects their self-esteem. Thus, observations by die researcher can be described and contextualized (1988; Eisner, 1991; Erickson, 1986; Wolcott, 1988).

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