Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Education students'

This dissertation examines nontraditional online students’ perceptions of Tinto’s four student success conditions: expectations, support, assessment, and engagement. Expectations include those of the student, the faculty and the institution. Support includes academic, social, and financial support. Providing early and meaningful assessment and feedback to students is crucial during their educational career. The fourth success condition in Tinto’s model includes the involvement or engagement of students with their peers (and faculty) in both an academic and social contexts. Nontraditional student perceptions of each of these institutional conditions of success was uncovered through demographic survey, interviews, syllabi and website artifacts.This qualitative study provided a rich, detailed description of the lived experience of the nontraditional online student to add to the paucity of research on this understudied population. The three main themes emerged from the data: (a) nontraditional students identified in an asynchronous environment did not find the success conditions to be consistently present and reported that they would have benefitted from them if they had existed both academically and socially; (b) nontraditional students identified key elements for success, which included flexibility in their schedule and the opportunity to receive a degree from a reputable institution that would lead to career enhancement; (c) students reported developing a strong, positive academic relationship with their advisor. The advisor served as a substitute for faculty-student relationships and was the primary role for providing academic, social and financial support.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of student organization membership on the development of leadership practices among traditional-aged undergraduate students. Specifically, the influence academic-related student organizations have on the leadership development of its student officers and members. This quantitative study explored the transformational leadership behavior of student officers and members of academic-related student organizations at a large research I public university in the mid-west. The student version of the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) was utilized to provide self-reported assessments of the leadership practices of the student organization officers, student organization members, and of students not involved in student organizations.

Analysis was completed to determine the level of practice of the five leadership practices identified by the Student Leadership Practices Inventory and to compare these levels of practice between students involved in academic-related student organizations and students who were not involved in a student organization. The study documented a significant difference for all five leadership practices between students who served as academic student organization officers and students who were not involved in a student organization. The results for the comparison between students who were members of an academic student organization and students who were not involved in a student organization found no significant difference for all five leadership practices identified by the Student Leadership Practices Inventory.

Analysis was also completed to determine any differences in leadership practice based upon sex. The majority of these comparisons showed no significant difference. However, there was a significant difference between student organization officers and students not involved in a student organization. Female student organization officers self-reported higher scores in the practices of Inspire a Vision, Challenge the Process, and Enable Others to Act. Male student organization officers self-reported higher scores in the practices of Model the Way, Inspire a Vision, and Challenge the Process. There were no significant differences within study groups.

This case study examines the effect of a yearlong place-based educational project on a single class of middle school students aged 11-14 at a public charter school in Santa Rosa, California. Of particular interest in this case study was the development of the concepts of belonging and place through the perceptual lens of the middle school student and through the vehicle of place-based education. This study utilizes qualitative methods including participant observation, interviews and pre and post surveys. The findings of this study suggest that the outdoor environment was very engaging for learning. Students reported that the development of a sense of place spurred from repeated visits to the nature preserve over long periods of time. These students indicated that a sense of belonging emerged to the preserve because of the stewardship aspect of the place-based educational project. Students felt a sense of stewardship toward the land after the project, and that sense of stewardship characterized a feeling of belonging. Cosmology was also a factor in understanding how these young adults came to define what it means to feel a sense of belonging to their local natural place.

Keywords: place-based education, sense of belonging, sense of place, stewardship, cosmology or new cosmology, community action, alienation or isolation, ecopsychology, biophilia hypothesis, placelessness, and constructivist curriculum-culture model.

Despite meeting admittance standards, there are many college students who struggle to be academically successful, which sometimes results in them being placed on academic probation. Colleges implement various programs and interventions to help probationary students achieve success at their institutions. Student success courses (SSC) are one type of intervention used; however, much of the literature on the efficacy of SSCs focuses on first semester freshmen. Currently, there are only a few empirical studies on the effectiveness of SSCs with probationary students, but the results of these existing studies are promising. At Copper University (CU), there were limited college-wide supports available to students on probation, leaving them at great risk for academic failure. In an attempt to better support probationary students, a semester-long SSC called Dynamics of Student Success (DOSS), for first- and second-year students on academic probation was piloted in the fall of 2016. DOSS was designed to assist probationary students gain the college success skills necessary to increase their grade point averages. This study assessed the effectiveness of DOSS by comparing the archival data of probationary students who participated in DOSS in the fall of 2016 to those who did not participate. Participants in the treatment and control groups saw gains in their semester GPAs after the fall 2016 and spring 2017 semesters; however, the results of two simultaneous multiple regressions revealed that course participation was not a significant predictor of semester GPA at either point in time. As a result, the researcher concluded that it was other factors, not DOSS, that positively influenced the changes in semester GPA demonstrated by the sample.

Every year millions of students drop out of school. Research indicates that student engagement is a major indicator of whether a student will or will not complete high school (Jackson, 2015). A student’s decision to drop out is not an instantaneous event, but one that occurs because of a developmental process of withdrawal (Finn, 1989). Student engagement is a student’s feelings of connectedness, belongingness, and valuing of school, developed early in a student’s academic career (Voelkl, 1997). Increased student engagement offers students a chance to increase their achievement in school. One measure of student engagement is increased participation in school (Finn, 1989). Staff members who take the time to build relationships foster a greater sense of connectedness to the school for the student. A greater sense of connectedness may increase the levels of participation in the school thus resulting in greater achievement. The current study found that the engagement levels of at-risk middle school students in grades six through eight with and without disabilities increased after a staff-led mentoring program. The current study used the Identification with School Questionnaire (Voelkl, 1996) to measure student engagement. In addition, the current study analyzed the staff-mentor perceptions of the mentoring program and found that the staff-mentors valued the relationships with the students, that they wanted to meet periodically to collaborate on ways to better reach the students, and that most of the staff contacted parents as a natural part of the mentoring process.

This qualitative research study explored student affairs administrators’ spirituality and leadership. In light of recent research into the spiritual lives of students and faculty in higher education, this study sought to explore if student affairs administrators could articulate any connection between spirituality and their leadership, as well as how they view and support the spiritual concerns of their students. By interviewing 8 participants, 4 themes emerged, (a) I know who I am, (b) different paths to leadership, (c) working with others, and (d) supporting student spiritual concerns. These 4 themes demonstrate how student affairs administrators articulate their spirituality, how that spirituality influences their leadership, and how they support the spiritual concerns of their students. This study adds to the research on spirituality in higher education, and offers recommendations for further exploration into the spirituality of student affairs administrators.

The focus of this research is in the area of Response to Intervention (RTI) and its effect on academic achievement in elementary schools in rural Missouri. In light of the regulations within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 and its accountability requirements for schools, this study is important and timely in order to provide valuable examples of effective RTI processes. The research approach adopted in this dissertation was a quantitative approach; therefore, quantitative analysis was utilized during a statistical comparison of elementary schools in Missouri and a review of information from a survey distributed to elementary principals in Missouri. The findings from this research were statistically significant in relation to improved academic achievement after the implementation of RTI processes. The goal of school administrators and teachers is to implement strategies to meet the educational needs of students. The RTI processes may serve as a viable strategy for this goal to be achieved.

International students constituted 3.4 to 3.6% of the total student population in U.S. degree-granting institutions (NCES, 2008). Research efforts on this population have been divergent and disparate, thus findings cannot be systematized for theoretical consistency (Pedersen, 1991). Student interaction with faculty has been identified as one of the strongest factors relating to student persistence (Tinto, 1997), student satisfaction and other positive educational outcomes (Astin, 1999). Guided by Astin's (1991) Input-Environment-Outcome Model, this quantitative study utilized data from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) to explore how international students' interaction with faculty impacted their academic outcomes. Results indicated that international students interacted with faculty frequently. These interactions had significant impact on international students' academic outcome (College GPA, self-perceived academic ability and intellectual self-confidence), success and satisfaction. Regression analyses identified that getting encouragement for graduate school and receiving a letter of recommendation from faculty were consistently a factor associated with positive academic outcomes and student satisfaction. In addition, advice about education program, opportunity to discuss coursework outside class and opportunities to apply learning in the real world were factors associated with student success. Faculty and student service professionals should become aware of international students' unique needs and challenges and facilitate positive student-faculty interaction for this population.

College student success outcomes have become increasingly significant to many stakeholders as student attrition has proven costly for students, institutions of higher education, and the economy (Foss, Foss, Paynton, & Hahn, 2014; Jobe & Lenio, 2014). Historically, a positive relationship between college students who live on-campus and retention has been found (Astin, 1993; Bronkema & Bowman, 2017; Chickering, 1974; Pike & Kuh, 2005; Schudde, 2011; Soria & Taylor Jr., 2016; Walsh & Robinson Kurpius, 2016). However, commuter students now make up most of the current college student population (Skomsvold, 2014). The purpose of this mixed methods study was to advance the understanding of the commuter student phenomenon within the context of the institution. Quantitative data included first- to second-year retention rates and six-year graduation rates for the three most recent cohorts of commuter and residential students at one Midwest university. The first- to second-year retention rate was 63.21% for commuters and 66.07% for residential students; the six-year graduation rate was 35.07% for commuters and 33.68% for residential students. There were not statistically significant differences in the first- to second-year retention rates or six-year graduation rates of commuter and residential students. Qualitative data were gathered using student focus groups and faculty interviews, including 16 and nine participants respectively. Responses were reviewed through the lens of Strange and Banning's (2015) campus ecology model, and four themes emerged: getting from here to there, the double-edged sword of convenience, independence, and it is who we are. Based on the findings, higher education leaders should continue to observe and assess student groups within the context of their own unique institutions.

In the United States, colleges and universities are under pressure from multiple sources to improve course completion and graduation rates and to reduce the cost of obtaining a degree. This qualitative phenomenological case study, underpinned by the social constructivist perspective, explored second-year manufacturing degree students’ perceptions of the impact of their teachers’ servant leadership behaviors on their successful course completions at a Midwest technical college. Servant leadership was the theoretical base for the study, which consisted of Q sorts by, and interviews with, students from two manufacturing degree programs. One program had higher course completion and graduation rates and the other had lower course completion and graduation rates. The responses were coded using data from an extensive literature review and were analyzed for themes according to the perspectives of the participants’ Q sorts and responses to interview questions. While the study did not reveal a simple, straightforward solution to the very complicated student success problem in technical college manufacturing programs, it did identify the elements of an emergent model recommended for manufacturing teachers: servant teaching.

Post-secondary student retention and persistence is on the minds of professionals at various higher learning institutions due to the disparities in educational attainment. These disparities may lead to inhibited social mobility, and lack of cultural and social capital. This study examined what factors Southern Connecticut State University sophomore students perceived as aiding or impeding their degree path. It questioned how underrepresented students shaped their perception on their educational attainment and how this compares to the existing research and literature on the success practices of underrepresented students in higher education. The study was conducted using open-ended semi-structured interview questions administered to second year sophomore students at Southern Connecticut State University. Specifically, they were underrepresented students defined as being low-income, racial minority, and first-generation students. This study aimed to explore the narrative of underrepresented students by exploring why college access doesn’t necessarily result in college completion.

This study examines college entry experiences (enrollment, orientation, assessment, and support services) and their contribution to the persistence of nontraditional students enrolled in community colleges. By reviewing the current retention research and models on academic integration, social integration, involvement, engagement and the construct of resilience, college entry experiences were identified and correlated to the work of Tinto, Astin, Kuh, and other researchers. Based on the findings of each of the four college entry experiences, this study provides insights and offers recommendations to community college presidents, deans, community college leaders, professors, student advisors, and enrollment specialists to establish innovative and highly effective intrusive advising support structures, nontraditional retention framework considerations, and cohort learning models to increase student engagement, reach optimal student persistence term to term, and produce cutting-edge degree completion rates.

Lao American college students' holistic identity development was examined in this study. The research utilized modified grounded theory methods to generate a model of holistic identity development for Lao American students whose families immigrated to the United States after 1978 as a part of the third wave of Laotian immigrants. Chickering and Reisser's (1993) psychosocial identity development theory and Kodama, McEwen, Liang, and Lee's (2002) negotiating identity and development task model for Asian Americans were utilized as an a priori theoretical foundation. Interviews explored participant perceptions and lived experiences as related to the elements of these two theories. Grounded theory development techniques were utilized in the analysis to explore the nature and interactions of various elements of the a priori theories. Data were collected using one exploratory focus group followed by in-depth interviews. Each participant was a child of parents who were refugees; all but one was born in the U.S. Findings center around three themes related to Lao American college students' holistic identity development: (a) the enmeshment of purpose and identity, (b) the influence and integration of family and culture influences, and (c) the fluidity of community influence. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of implications for theory, policy, and practice.

Medical dosimetry education occupies a specialized branch of allied health higher education. Noted international shortages of health care workers, reduced university funding, limitations on faculty staffing, trends in learner attrition, and increased enrollment of nontraditional students force allied health educational leadership to reevaluate current admission practices. Program officials wish to select medical dosimetry students with the best chances of successful graduation. The purpose of the quantitative ex post facto correlation study was to investigate the relationship between applicant characteristics (cumulative undergraduate grade point average, science grade point average, prior experience as a radiation therapist, and previous academic degrees) and the successful completion of a medical dosimetry program as measured by graduation. A key finding from the quantitative study was the statistically significant positive correlation between a student’s previous degree and his or her successful graduation from the medical dosimetry program. Future research investigations could include a larger research sample representative of more medical dosimetry student populations and additional studies concerning the relationship of a prior history in radiation therapy and the impact on success as a medical dosimetry student. Based on the quantitative correlation analysis, allied health leadership on admissions committees could revise student selection rubrics to place less emphasis on an applicant’s undergraduate cumulative GPA and increase the weight assigned to previous degrees.

Supportive relationships between teachers and their students help create an environment for student success, but there remains a need for additional understanding about how to effectively promote positive teacher-student relationships in order to support stronger policy and practice in modern schools. In this qualitative analysis, I seek to deepen the research about supportive teacher-student relationships by analyzing how students, teachers, and principals described their experiences in early college high schools (ECHS) in North Carolina. Early college high schools represent a relatively new school model in which high school students earn college credits while working toward their high school diplomas. Quantitative analyses of the performance of ECHS students suggest students in early college high schools outperform their peers from comprehensive schools on a variety of measures. One important design element of these schools suggests that teachers must know students well to help them achieve academically and it is my assertion that supportive teacher-student relationships may contribute to ECHS students’ success.

For this study, I analyze qualitative data previously collected as part of a larger longitudinal study from students, teachers, and principals studying and working in 19 early college high schools in North Carolina. I employ Giddens’ theory of structuration as a lens for understanding the relationships between the agents (students, teachers, and principals) and the social structures that influence the experiences of those in the schools. I consider the leadership practices of the principals to promote supportive teacher-student relationships as well as teacher practices, and compared the adults’ claims to the students’ perceived experiences with their teachers. My findings reveal three elements in the social systems of the ECHS contribute to supportive teacher-student relationships which include the following: (1) the beliefs of teachers, students, and principals; (2) deliberate actions of principals and teachers; and (3) programs that create social spaces for such relationships to grow.

Special education students with many different disabilities are taught in today’s classrooms, and since the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, they are required to take the same standardized assessments as their regular education peers (Resmovits, 2013). Within this study, data were analyzed to determine the perceptions of two groups, which included third-grade regular education teachers and special education teachers of special education students who took the same standardized assessments as their regular education peers. In addition, data were also examined to determine if there was a relationship between how teachers from the two groups responded to survey statements and how students actually scored on the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) for the years 2012-2014. Finally, data were analyzed to determine the perceptions of the two groups on the use of special education students’ assessment results for teacher evaluations. Sixty-three (N = 63) teachers, 30 regular and 33 special education teachers, from the Southwest Missouri region participated in completing a survey. Results indicated teachers in both groups negatively viewed the idea of special education students taking the same standardized assessments, with or without accommodations, as their non-disabled peers. In addition, a statistical relationship was found between the regular education teachers’ perceptions and special education students’ MAP scores in the area of communication arts (2013, 2014), and a statistical relationship was found between special education teachers’ perceptions and special education students’ MAP scores in the area of communication arts (2012) and math (2013). Finally, the data showed teachers in both groups negatively viewed the idea that special education students’ MAP scores should be used in teacher evaluations.