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The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandated school districts ensure all students perform at proficiency or above on state assessments. The charge forced educators to take a closer look at every child's learning style and identify tools and strategies to guarantee academic success. This quasi-experimental, single group, pretest and posttest study focuses on the True Colors Basic Awareness Workshop, a tool which identifies and lends explanation to personality, communication, motivation, and learning styles, as an effective tool in increasing student perceived self-efficacy and final course grade. The specific efficacies examined include academic, peer learning, and help-seeking. In relation to academic performance, the theoretical background for this study included self-efficacy, learning style, and personality. Students completed pretest survey questions adapted from A Manual for the Use of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991) and participated in the True Colors Basic Awareness Workshop. Immediately following the workshop, students completed the same survey questions as a posttest. A paired t-test was utilized to compare the pretest and posttest perceived self-efficacy scores. Final course grades from the sample group who participated in the True Colors Basic Awareness Workshop were compared to the final course grades of students who completed the courses a year prior to this study. Though the mean of each efficacy result increased, the increase was not determined to be statistically significant. The 2011 final course grade mean showed a decrease. The decrease was not determined to be statistically significant. The researcher recommended the study be replicated with extended time between the True Colors Basic Awareness Workshop to allow for implementation of True Colors strategies in day to day lesson plans. The researcher also recommended a mixed methods approach be conducted to provide for triangulation of data.
Advisor: | Smith, Thomas |
Commitee: | Engelhardt, Mark, Hillhouse, Edward |
School: | Missouri Baptist University |
Department: | Education Division |
School Location: | United States -- Missouri |
Source: | DAI-A 74/05(E), Dissertation Abstracts International |
Source Type: | DISSERTATION |
Subjects: | Educational psychology, Secondary education |
Keywords: | Academic self-efficacy, Help-seeking-efficacy, Peer learning-efficacy, Self-efficacy |
Publication Number: | 3548998 |
ISBN: | 978-1-267-85068-3 |