Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Education, Higher – Research – Canada'

Prior studies have demonstrated that most college dropouts happen at the transition to the third semester of college. Using a state dataset that includes student data for the 2013-2014 time span in the state of Oklahoma, the researcher examined the validity of students’ background characteristics, high school performance, and financial aid status in predicting first-year college performance and persistence beyond the second semester of college.

Data from 116,991 degree-seeking first-year students enrolled at research universities in Oklahoma from fall 2013 to fall 2014 were entered in the SPSS software for data analyses, which include both multiple linear regression and multiple logistic regression.

The researcher finds that students’ enrollment status and federal Perkins loans do not yield strong predictions of how students will perform academically or whether they will return to the second year of college. For tuition waivers, the associations with college performance and persistence are stronger, but still not significant. In contrast, spring GPA, Oklahoma’s Promise, high school grade point average, American College Testing scores, and gender are useful for predicting persistence to the third semester, and have a strong association with their college performance.

These findings might reflect current efforts by the Federal Government, State agencies, institutions and schools to promote student success, help them pay college tuition, and increase students’ pre-college performance.

Current literature confirms that self-efficacy, academic self-concept, and participation in undergraduate research influence the academic performance and aspirations of students. However, a gap in the literature remains as research has yet to explore whether students who have participated in research have a higher sense of research self-efficacy and academic self-concept than students who have not participated in these activities. In addition, it is unknown whether undergraduate researchers pursuing STEM degrees differ from students pursuing non-STEM degrees, nor if they vary by gender.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the research self-efficacy and academic self-concept of undergraduate researchers, compare these beliefs to non-researchers, and to examine how these measures differ by gender and field of study (i.e. STEM and non-STEM fields) among undergraduate researchers. Additionally, this research identified various factors that predict research self-efficacy and academic self-concept.

This quantitative study was conducted at a public university located in the Southeast region of the United States. Using survey methods participants’ background information, academic self-concept, and research self-efficacy was collected. Participants were students who had participated in undergraduate research as well as students who had not participated in research activities. Both groups completed the same survey. This study gained insight into the research self-efficacy, academic self-concept, field of study, and gender differences among undergraduate researchers and how they compare to non-researchers. Research findings may assist colleges, universities, and offices that promote undergraduate research in recruiting students to participate in research activities. Findings also contribute to literature supporting undergraduate research as an element that contributes to student success in undergraduate education.

“Arguing against globalization is like arguing against the laws of gravity.” This statement by Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan acknowledges the growing pervasiveness and seeming inevitability of global economic and cultural interdependence that characterizes globalization. The benefits and detriments of this phenomenon continue to be debated widely across political, social, cultural and national spectra. Globalization is the set of larger socio-economic forces shaping our world and internationalization is how institutions respond. More specifically, internationalization describes the operational, organizational and strategic processes, policies and practices that institutions put in place in response to globalization. Manifestations in higher education include enhanced study abroad programs, branch campuses, public and private partnerships and increases in international student engagement strategies.

In order to better understand internationalization in higher education, this study explores how, why and in what ways internationalization has evolved at three large, highly selective U.S.-based research institutions: Cornell, University of California in Berkeley and New York University. The undertakings at each reflect the unique history, willingness to innovate, organizational culture and aspirations of these highly complex, diverse, public and private institutions. The study explores disparate strategic elements, challenges, obstacles, and opportunities as well as the common and disparate drivers for changing internationalization strategies over time at each and across the three institutions. The findings underscore common themes, such as the importance of linking institutional identity and culture to the strategy; the careful consideration, selection and negotiation of partners; and the serious process and operational planning that need to be made in order to accommodate the new strategy and sustain the altered operation. The findings further affirm that although the approaches are distinctive and one size definitely does not fit all, several broad domains of emphasis emerge as framing mechanisms and shared experiences that might benefit others interested in exploring and understanding internationalization in higher education.

This study examines the organizational and contextual factors associated with faculty mentoring programs in academic medicine within major research institutions in the United States, and explores the usefulness of organizational behavior theory in understanding these relationships. To date, many formal faculty mentoring programs are in operation in higher education, yet little is known about why certain practices are favored or thought to be more effective than others, as differentiated from mentoring programs in the business sector. The original conceptual framework of this qualitative multiple cross-case study was based upon faculty mentoring program success factors gleaned from the literature being grouped by one of three perspectives of organizational behavior theory, i.e., structural, political, or symbolic, and examining these variables through the perspective to which they were assigned. Using this approach, very few organizational similarities were found among the twelve faculty mentoring programs in this study. However, by reversing the conceptual framework, and examining each program variable from the three organizational perspectives, six multi-dimensional organizational themes emerged that transcend the program variables: commitment, expectations, responsibility, accountability, community, and transformation. Three of these themes are evident across all organizational perspectives: commitment, expectations, and responsibility. Accountability is evident from a dual structural/political perspective. Community is evident from a dual structural/symbolic perspective. And, transformation is evident from a dual political/ symbolic perspective. Although specific “how to” advice is limited, this study provides support for a multi-dimensional theoretical framework for academic organizations to optimize formal faculty mentoring relationships. This study demonstrates that maximizing these six dimensions within a faculty mentoring program, to the fullest potential within organizational constraints, provides the ideal faculty mentoring program format for that particular academic culture. This model also situates these six dimensions within an academic culture, which allows faculty development professionals to identify the organizational domains that exert the most influence over these dimensions within their faculty mentoring programs. The redesign of how organizational behavior theory was applied within this study revealed a new organizational understanding of faculty mentoring programs within academic cultures. This discovery provides a promising new direction for further study.

The Chief Research Administrator (CRA), also known as the Vice President, Vice Provost, or Vice Chancellor for Research, plays a key role in the research university. It is a position of power and not only affects the mission of the institution, but also controls a very large and vital percentage of external funding. The lack of information on how to prepare for the position makes it difficult to plan a career path for those who aspire to the position. This study was designed to obtain information to define the persona and career path(s) of the CRA at research universities in the United States. Survey data related to career pathways resulted in the emergence of four main pathways; Faculty/Academic, Administrative, Private Industry, and a Combination of the first three pathways. The results indicated that the most highly cited pathway to the position of the CRA was the Faculty/Academic (83%). The least traveled pathway to the position of CRA was found to be Administrative, that is, beginning at the lowest levels of a research office or administrative position and progressing through the ranks of the research office.

This exploratory study examined the knowledge, experience, attitude, and perceptions of drugs reported by international students from mainland China (N = 97) studying on the West Coast of the U.S. and Canada. Chinese students currently constitute the largest group of international students at universities on the West Coast, which is also the epicenter of a major shift in the legal and cultural status of cannabis. Participants’ knowledge, exposure, use, attitudes, and norms of peers’ use of five drugs (cannabis, heroin, ketamine, methamphetamine, and Adderall) were elicited through an online survey. Data were analyzed quantitatively (descriptive statistics, means of paired samples, correlations). Many correlations existed between participants’ attitudes, comments they heard others make, and their beliefs about their peers’ drug use. Participants were most familiar with cannabis; their exposure to others’ comments about and use of cannabis in North America were starkly different than what they had experienced in China. About 10% of the sample had tried cannabis in North America. Students were familiar with heroin and methamphetamine from their experiences in China, and those drugs were viewed extremely negatively. Use of and exposure to ketamine and Adderall were rare, and all drugs were viewed much more negatively when asked in the context of living in China than in North America. Given the current and recent changes in drug laws around the world and students’ reported experience with cannabis, this study underlines the urgency of educating international students regarding drug use as well as informing educational policy at the university level.

The purpose of this dissertation was to document, analyze, understand, and describe how the environmental virtue ethics of undergraduate students were impacted after participating in a service-learning project designed to establish a new university garden. This service-learning project occurred during the fall semester of 2011, on the campus of Lighthouse University, a mid-size Catholic college campus that is located in an urban area of Southern California. The service-learning component was embedded within one environmental ethics course. Over the course of one sixteen-week academic semester, thirty undergraduates, between the ages of 18-23, each volunteered ten hours in this new on-campus garden. In addition to the student volunteer work, one of the complimentary course components required students to attend a speaking engagement hosted by Dr. Vandana Shiva, a world-renowned environmentalist. The action researcher, served as the catalyst, recorder, and facilitator of this service-learning project. In these roles, the action researcher mobilized members of the university, volunteers from the broader community, and local master gardeners to work side by side with the undergraduate students in the garden. After a qualitative analysis was conducted through the procedures of action research, local recommendations were generated in order to assist future garden-based curricular and co-curricular activities.