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With current trends in K-12 education toward curriculum centralization and high-stakes test-based accountability, teachers are in a position of increasingly adapting their practices to demands that originate beyond the classroom. A synthesis of literature on the relationship between these external influences and secondary social studies teaching suggests that indirect accountability echoes and direct school-institutional pressures reinforce pedagogical practices that are not well aligned with empirical evidence of how adolescents learn, particularly in the well-researched discipline of history. Not surprisingly, variations abound in how teachers filter external controls into the curricular and pedagogical decisions that manifest in the classroom. What follows is an examination of how an early-career and an experienced social studies teacher engage in pedagogical reasoning and activity under two concurrent yet distinct sets of curricular conditions: one in which the external controls of mandated curricula, instructional tools, and summative high-stakes tests are present, and another in which they are not. Two overarching questions are central to this study. First, what patterns of pedagogical reasoning and action manifest in each curricular context? Second, how do the teachers negotiate the various personal and external influences on their pedagogies as they work within and across the two markedly different contexts? I chose an instrumental case study methodology as a means of vicariously representing the experiences of the two participants and generating small-scale theories about factors that impact teachers' mediation of different curricular structures within the current political-institutional context. Via this research, I posit two key arguments: 1) that teachers' epistemic stances and school-political positions are consequential to their ways of reasoning and acting pedagogically amidst the rising tide of test-based accountability; and 2) that teaching within flexible curricular contexts can provide a framework for critiquing the effects of, and tools for adapting to, tightly controlled contexts. Positing a link between the development of teaching expertise and an adaptive, pragmatic approach to pedagogical reasoning and action, this study's findings make a meaningful contribution to current conversations about the roles of social studies teachers as curriculum arbiters and how, why, and to what extent their decisional capital ought to be cultivated. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The development of skills needed to regulate one’s own behavior are increasingly recognized as crucial for children’s successful development, and promoting these skills in early childhood has become a high priority. Parents are thought to be a primary influence on the formation of these skills. This study was an experimental investigation of the parenting behavior known as autonomy support and its effect on children’s self-regulation. We observed parents (half mothers, half fathers) interacting with their 3-year-old children (N pairs = 128). Parent and child typical behavior was measured at baseline. Then, in the manipulation phase, parents were randomly assigned to receive instructions to interact with their child in either a high autonomy supportive or highly controlling way. Child behavior was again measured at post-test. Results showed that mothers and fathers had similar parenting quality at baseline and there were few differences in their effect on child self-regulation. In the manipulation phase, parents in both conditions were able to change their behavior based on the instructions given. Changes in parenting affected child behavior during the manipulation puzzle, although it did not affect child post-test behavior. These results indicate that parent autonomy support is a promising target for interventions focused on improving child self-regulation skills.

Mathematical modeling is an effective tool when maximizing revenue in hotels. With over 120,000 different combinations of variables and elements to consider when maximizing revenue, the process of finding the most lucrative combination can be time consuming and costly to hotels. An effective mathematical model assists in reducing the guesswork involved. This study will demonstrate how the implementation of discounts reduces revenue loss by forcing pre-payment and increasing occupancy levels. In an effort to reduce revenue loss, hotels have implemented many strategies such as using credit card guarantees, demanding pre-payment, and offering discounts, all of which are used to reduce the no-show rate. A careful balance must be found, as offering a large discount to reduce the no-show rate can result in as much revenue loss as a high no-show rate. A mathematical model, used in combination with good judgement and managerial expertise, can assist in finding the discount necessary to maximize a hotel's daily revenue.