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Traditional identification methods in schools for determining students at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders tend to rely on teacher referral. There is evidence that systematic approaches to screening for emotional and behavioral risk more effectively capture the full range of internalizing and externalizing symptoms and are less vulnerable to biases. The proposed study seeks to compare traditional identification methods for identifying youth with elevated behavioral and emotional risk (BER) with a self-report universal screening procedure in a school setting. The study will explore discrepancies between the two identification methods, including the degree to which they agree/disagree on “at risk” students, the racial/ethnic, socioeconomic status (SES), and language characteristics of identified students, and the presenting symptoms of students identified via the two methods. It is hypothesized that the two identification methods will frequently disagree on the risk status of individual students and that patterns based on racial/ethnic background, SES, language status, and symptom presentation will emerge. Data will analyzed using chi-squared goodness of fit, one-way repeated measures ANOVA, and Cohen’s kappa coefficient

This study investigated student teachers’ efficacy beliefs, pupil control ideologies, collective teacher efficacy beliefs, and perceived cooperating teachers’ efficacy beliefs. These student teacher beliefs were examined in conjunction with contextual factors, primarily the school setting (i.e., rural, suburban, and urban) but also the length and nature of the student teaching assignment, to determine if these contextual factors played a role in the development of the student teachers’ efficacy beliefs and pupil control ideologies. The research participants included 108 student teachers: 29 student teachers in the rural group, 45 in the suburban group, 28 in the urban group, and 6 that switched school settings at the halfway point. Participants completed surveys before, during, and after a 16-week student teaching experience. Results indicated that all three setting groups exhibited significant increases in teachers’ sense of efficacy following student teaching. School setting did play a role in the student teachers’ pupil control ideology (suburban student teachers were the only group to become more humanistic following student teaching) and perceived collective teacher efficacy (urban student teachers exhibited significantly lower perceived collective teacher efficacy scores than the rural and suburban student teachers). Additionally, a positive and significant relationship was found between student teachers’ efficacy beliefs and their perceived cooperating teachers’ efficacy beliefs. As for the nature and length of the student teaching assignment, the group of student teachers that did not switch placements at the halfway point showed significantly higher efficacy scores in the second eight weeks than the group that switched placements. Finally, significant increases in student teacher efficacy beliefs occurred at both the 8-week and the 16-week point.

The purpose of this study was to explore the use of EEG biofeedback in a school setting to assist students who had attentional challenges. The equipment for implementing biofeedback was relatively inexpensive and was easily integrated into the school setting. Twenty students ranging in age from 7 to 17 were recruited for this study. Data was used from 14 subjects, 12 males (2 Hispanic, 1 African American, and 10 Caucasian) and 2 females (1 Hispanic, 1 Caucasian.) The subject pool was reduced due to non-compliance or the students. moving from the school district. Significant effect size was obtained in the treatment group in areas pertaining to visual perception and motor coordination. However, significant effect sizes in other areas were obtained when the control group scores worsened. The inclusion of student subjects who, perhaps, did not meet stringent criterion of attention deficit may have skewed the results. The small number of students in the study may have hindered accurate measures of statistical significance. Conversely, the information obtained from this study may offer insight to school districts in providing their students an alternate/adjunct to psychopharmacological medication and a non- invasive method of helping students with psycho-social challenges.

This study examined how male and female teachers reason about violence. More specifically, this inquiry used a Cognitive Developmental Domain (CDD) Theory framework to examine how teachers balanced different moral and non-moral components when reasoning about hypothetical school fights. The potential impact of teachers' attributions towards the gender of both the intervening teacher and the fighting students was examined. The location of the situation of violence was manipulated (within and around the school) to ascertain whether where violence occurred impacted a teacher's reasoning patterns. The school setting (elementary or middle school) was also manipulated to determine if teachers' reasoning about a fight varied when the setting was changed. These questions were examined by integrating research from teacher morality, environmental psychology, criminology, women's studies, architecture and urban planning, and school violence into a CDD theory framework. One hundred and seven teachers were interviewed for this study from 7 schools (2 middle schools and five elementary schools) in two urban communities in Southeast Michigan. Nonparametric statistical analyses were utilized to analyze teachers' judgments and justifications. An important feature or this sample (and analyses) was that male and female differences could be examined within the same setting (middle school) as well as differences between females across settings (elementary and middle school). The study found that there were differences in the ways male and female teachers reasoned about violence. Male middle school teachers expressed more conflict and concern when reasoning about whether the gender of the intervening teacher or the fighting student impacted a teacher's response. Female teachers reported significantly more school areas that they perceived to be unsafe or avoided than male teachers. This study also found that there were differences in the ways teachers reasoned across school settings. Female middle school teachers appeared to be more conflicted about intervening in a fight than female elementary school teachers, as evidenced by their higher likelihood to express multiple moral and social conventional concerns. When the location of violence was manipulated female middle school teachers were once again more conflicted than female elementary school teachers when intervening in different school locations. Limitations and implications for both future research and schools are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to explore teaching for meaningfulness in a school setting. I feel that a better understanding of teaching for meaningfulness can support the practice of teachers who desire to teach for meaningfulness. I elected to do a case study using qualitative methods while focusing for five months on a teacher's literacy program. Through this look at the everyday life of one public school teacher and her class a picture of an exemplary example of teaching for meaningfulness could be painted. Interviews, fieldnotes, journals, observations, various site artifacts, and a brief teacher autobiography comprised the primary data collection sources. Informants included a third grade teacher, eighteen third grade students, and a school language arts coordinator.