Student Decision-Making in the Classroom: An Examination of Existing Theories and a Model for Mainstream Implementation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Authors such as Bill Glasser, A. S. Neill, and John Holt have critiqued the compulsory nature of secondary schools and the inherent structure imposed on them by educational authorities. This structure limits student opportunities to make decisions regarding their own learning. This thesis examines the concept of student decision-making and its effect on student learning in educational environments. It argues for inclusion of more student-centred decision-making opportunities as part of a democratic education model. The thesis analyzes different educational theories and models that grant students, to varying extents, chances to make decisions about their own learning. The thesis presents an alternative to the current system: a model that questions imposed structures and places the student at the centre of the decision-making process, while asking educators to consider their roles as facilitators. The thesis begins by summarizing the prescribed Ontario Ministry of Education requirements, followed by an examination of the concept of decision-making itself, beginning with philosophical justifications through analysis of the works of authors such as Gutmann, Levinson, and Brighouse. Next, the thesis examines certain theories of education in order to give context for the proposed model. The existing theories selected range from liberal conceptions to critical pedagogy to “unschooling”; each theory is analyzed and discussed with respect to how student decision-making is supported. The next two chapters focus specifically on existing educational models where student decision-making is recognized through specific methods and strategies. Models include Glasser’s Choice Theory, the Montessori School method, self-determination theory, the Sudbury Valley School, and Summerhill School—the latter two affording students numerous decision-making opportunities in explicit and widespread ways. The thesis concludes with the proposed model, referred to as the Student Decision-Making Model, which could be implemented in Ontario high school classrooms, with considerations made regarding if and how changes to Ministry structure are needed. The model recognizes the student as the central character in the school decision-making process and is illustrated with an exemplar known as the Time Use Exemplar. The model’s combined focus on student choice and Ministry regulation allows it to reach the maximum number of students.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.016 | 0.016 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.007 | 0.043 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.015 | 0.015 |
| Open science | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".