Digital Commons Network^™

Parents' Experiences At A Mathematics Workshop Focused On K-2 Content, Abigail W. Wilkerson

Honors College Theses

Parents’ beliefs towards math have been shown to impact their children’s academic achievement in the subject (Elliott & Bachman, 2018; Maloney et al., 2015). With the constant changing of math standards, the math taught in today’s schools may be different from the way parents were taught math. This change can lead to feelings of discomfort or nervousness when the subject is brought up. A parent workshop geared towards helping parents better understand the way math content is being taught can help them to feel more comfortable with math and more prepared to help their children. To help combat this issue, …

Mindfulness & Mindset: The Winning Combination? The Exploration Of The Unstuck Method® On Developmental Math Students: A Mixed Methods Study, Edite Birnbaum, Edith L. Birnbaum

Graduate Theses & Dissertations

Many students enter colleges having to take non-credit-bearing courses, and many do not pass these courses due to numerous factors, including anxiety and stress, especially in mathematics. Current literature shows how mindfulness-based interventions (Bamber, & Schneider, 2016; Dvořáková et al., 2017; Hidman, 2013; Miller et al. 2019; Regehr et al., 2013) and a growth mindset (Blackwell et al., 2007; Boaler et al., 2018; May, 2009) have a positive effect on student stress, anxiety, and academic success. This mixed-method study focused on the unSTUCK strategy’s impact, a mindfulness-inspired tool, on foundation math students. The unSTUCK strategy is a mindfulness-inspired program. The …

Enabling And Threatening Factors Affecting Persistence. A Qualitative And Quantitative Study On Rural First-Generation Stem Students’ And Stem Faculty's Perspectives., Travis A. Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This study focuses on the factors that enable and threaten rural first-generation STEM students’ persistence. Limited empirical studies are available that focus on rural first-generation STEM majors’ persistence. Quantitative analysis was conducted using Kruskal Wallis H and Mann-Whitney U tests to determine any significant differences with the survey results. Content and thematic analysis was conducted on the student and faculty interviews to determine themes of enabling and threatening factors affecting persistence.

Enabling factors affecting persistence were found to be: Drive or Motivation, Experiences and skills, and Support. These were both faculty and student interview themes whereas a …