Rozprawy doktorskie na temat „University education”

A gap in research on the impact of a university-based laboratory school on a campus-based educator preparation program and a decrease in the number of university-based laboratory schools requires current laboratory school programs to evaluate strengths and weaknesses to provide quality evaluative data to ensure continued viability. This qualitative study sought to expand the extant research by identifying perceptions of stakeholders, educator preparation program students, faculty, administrators, and laboratory school teachers, parents, and administrators—to examine the impact of a laboratory school on an educator preparation program. The case study outlined stakeholder perceptions at one university and one laboratory school and investigated the perceptions of stakeholders regarding the impact of a university-based laboratory school to a campus-based educator preparation program. Four major themes emerged related to the impact of a laboratory school on an educator preparation program include: experimentation, early practice and ability to bridge theory to practice, expertise of faculty and teachers, and safety and support of environment to practice new learning. A fifth overarching theme was identified as significant to research: complexity of the organization.

QC 20130107

As the number of international students studying in the United States continues to grow, there’s the need to know how they cope in a host country and the challenges they encounter both in the classroom and outside in order improve education and prepare students for the future. The purpose of this study is to know how international students relate with one another both inside and outside the school setting. The study findings were taken from observation and interview from both graduate and undergraduate classrooms.

The purpose of this study was to assess the goal intent and achievement of university students, during the Fall 2011 semester, at Blue Wave University, a high research activity public institution in the southeast United States. This study merged theories of motivation to measure goal setting and goal attainment to examine if students who chose to participate in a learning community program set goals at different levels than the students who chose not to join a learning community program.

This study investigated if there was a difference in motivation, by studying goal intent and goal achievement of Freshman Learning Community participants, Living-Learning community participants, or non-learning community participants at Blue Wave University. Data were collected for 363 students who were eligible and responded to the assessment, College Assessment of Readiness for Entering Students (CARES). CARES was developed by Blue Wave University as a pretest, CARES-I (intended) and posttest, CARES-A (achieved). This study analyzed whether or not students, who are classified as First Time In College (FTIC), in the studied groups, had a difference in their level of intended goals, (responses to CARES-I), achieved goals (responses to CARES-A), and the level of change from goal intent to goal achievement (the change in student responses from CARES-I to CARES-A), during their first semester enrolled at Blue Wave University.

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to investigate the change from goal intent to goal achievement; results revealed that the level of change was not significantly different for the three groups. All three groups of students achieved fewer goals than they intended. Although the Living-Learning Community participants did not achieve all the goals they set, the ANOVA indicated that the tests were significantly different as Living- Learning Community participants set higher goals and achieved higher goals than the Freshman Learning Community participants or non-learning community participants.

Moderation analyses concluded that none the seven contextual variables (choice of college, ethnicity, gender, high school grade point average, living on-campus, SAT score, and ACT score) moderated the difference in the level of change from goal intent to goal achievement in this study.

Kazakhstan's higher education system is based on the Soviet governance structure, limited academic freedom and no autonomy from the state. In such a system faculties are contract employees delivering predesigned courses with no incentive to bring new ideas and methods. But employers and the general public are concerned with the mismatch between market demand and curricula of universities. Qualitative research based on two case studies collected evidence on the opportunities for faculty to influence academic affairs of the two most prominent research universities in Kazakhstan. The study gave a detailed picture of state controls, hierarchical structures and limited role of faculty at the higher education institutions under investigation. The national universities of Kazakhstan were also compared with the University of West Florida, a public research university of similar size which is based on academic freedom, shared governance and faculty authority over academic matters. Conceptual framework for the analysis is based on the theory that university governance differs from other organizations in its involvement of faculty in decision making on academic affairs. The power is shared with faculty because of their recognized knowledge and authority in teaching and research in their particular professional fields.

The study identified that the national universities in Kazakhstan are established regulated and run like government organizations with a hierarchical structure. The existing centralized and stricter controlled environment results in frustrated and demotivated faculty who are not able to produce good quality teaching and research. Universities are required to produce similar academic programs and courses and offer a limited number of majors approved by the inter-ministerial committee. Structures of degree programs are set according to State Standards and contain certain share of mandatory courses which are provided by the Ministry. The universities are managed by the rectors who have wide powers especially in hiring and promotion of faculty as well as on other academic matters.

The research identified a number of shortcomings and mismatches with international theory and international best practice. If national universities are to develop they have to be allowed to compete and have freedom to innovate. The national universities need the governing boards to be introduced. Increasing faculty participation will be central to promoting key values of higher education such as academic freedom, autonomy and transparency. Empowering faculty will contribute to their greater responsibility and engagement in developing higher education institutions and their core functions of teaching, research and community service.

Many universities have expanded from teaching only to include research goals, requiring shifts in organization behavior. An exploratory case study method was used to examine these dynamics among positive deviant researchers at the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech), the single case examined, from a social construction perspective. As a participant observer in the organization, the researcher engaged in marginality and its associated risks in studying UTech’s transition from low to higher research outputs to answer the research questions—significant norms influencing positive deviancy patterns of the researchers and, their perceptions and experiences during transition. A qualitative case report and mini-organization ethnography of UTech was produced to enhance contextual understanding of positive deviance among university researchers, an area not previously described in the literature. Several important organizational findings emerged from the analysis of interviews of 6 participants who received the President’s Research Initiative Award (PRIA), artifacts of the organization, and participant observation. The results detail early development of a descriptive typology of positive deviance during organization change, including motivation, feelings of being marginalized and coping strategies. Three patterns—(1) teaching versus research (2) disorder, and (3) personal resilience—and 9 interrelated themes enhance understanding of role adaptations and the meanings and beliefs that these faculty associate with their research environment. The results also indicate organizational factors and personal dimensions in a research subculture that is emerging amidst strong pivotal teaching norms and culture; social costs involved in such a transition, and; some challenges and opportunities for building a research culture and a high performance research environment at UTech. A construct of organizational and individual adaptation to stress was hypothesized, subject to future research. The main conclusions included that research is a peripheral norm; doing teaching and research involved tensions, challenges, incongruence, disequilibria as new identities and the implied research subculture are emerging at UTech; there are anti-research risks to the transition, and; organizational tradeoffs might be required. The findings, although not a template, are of potential usefulness in any organizational setting where organization growth and change are contemplated. Recommendations are made for UTech and future research.

According to a report published in 2015, the National Center for Education estimated that over 20 million students were forecasted to enroll in higher education in the 2016–17 school year, situating American universities as major institutional food retailers. Over the past two decades, corporate food providers have increasingly sought long-term public and private university contracts as a means to expand their reach into lucrative campus food landscapes (foodscapes), replacing in-house services with cheaper, more “efficient, and “productive” dining strategies. Companies such as Sodexo, Aramark, and Bon Appetit control the foodscapes of many university campuses across the United States, creating food environments dominated by corporate interests.

However, at the same time these corporate food service providers have colonized university food terrains, a growing movement of consumers concerned with ethical food sourcing have driven students across the United States to seek alternatives to dominant food sourcing strategies on their campuses. In a context of increased corporate control over their university foodscapes, student across the US have launched campaigns aiming to develop and establish student food cooperatives (SFCs), organizations seeking to assert the availability of sustainable, ethical, and healthy food options on campus in addition to pushing for more student decision-making power within their university food environments (Marsden, 2000).

It is within this context that my thesis aims to explore if and how student food cooperatives are creating new spaces for food sovereignty and if they are democratizing the control over their university food systems through campus based food initiatives.

Worry and rumination are implicated in various disorders and are believed to contribute to the symptoms that create and maintain psychopathology. The current critical review will examine worry and rumination in the context of depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). The review will focus on these two types of repetitive negative thinking more specifically the (a) definition, (b) process, (c) theories, and (d) maintenance of psychopathology; as well as similarities and differences between these two processes. A second emphasis will be on the importance of cultural considerations when treating individuals with emotional disorders. A third focus of the analysis will be on the rationale, overview, and literature associated with a transdiagnostic treatment named the Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders (UP) . Finally, this review will conclude by highlighting futures research studies that can be implemented to improve upon the existing UP research.

Keywords: Worry, Rumination, Anxiety, Depression, GAD, PTSD, OCD, SAD, Transdiagnostic, Culture, Unified protocol for transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders.

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.