Digital Commons Network^™

Teaching The Introductory Public Relations Course: Pedagogical Recommendations, Lakesha N. Anderson

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

This article explores the foundations and the content areas that ground the introductory public relations course. Examples of two assignments designed to help students think critically, apply knowledge, and improve their writing skills are offered, as well as the identification of several challenges both students and instructors face and a brief discussion of the unique advantages provided by this course.

Instructor Sense Of Community And Instructional Practices As Predictors Of Student Sense Of Community: A Hierarchical Linear Modeling Analysis, Laurie K. Burgess

Dissertations

A positive sense of community (SoC) in the college classroom supports student learning and increases student engagement and motivation. While previous research has examined SoC, studies have typically investigated students’ perceptions. This quantitative cross-sectional study investigates both instructor and students’ perceptions of SoC in traditional undergraduate classrooms. Study participants include full-time instructors, and students from 36 undergraduate classes in three institutions located in a Midwestern state. Students completed Rovai’s (2002a) Classroom Community Scale; instructors completed a remodified Classroom Community Scale and the Postsecondary Instructional Practices Survey (Walter, Henderson, Beach, & Williams, 2016).

This study uses hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to …

Occupational Therapy Students In Norway: Do Their Approaches To Studying Vary By Year In The Program?, Tore Bonsaksen, Mikkel M. Thørrisen, Talieh Sadeghi

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Approaches to studying may be influenced by students’ age, maturity, and experience in higher education. Students’ approaches to studying may develop toward deep and/or strategic approaches and away from a surface approach as they move through the curriculum, which is generally considered a positive development. This study aimed to identify differences in approaches to studying among first-, second-, and third-year students enrolled in an occupational therapy program. Three cohorts of students (n = 160) from one university college completed the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) along with sociodemographic information. One-way analyses of variance were used to …

Master’S Of Occupational Therapy Student Perceptions Of Creative Thinking Across The Academic Program, Angela K. Boisselle, Mary F. Baxter

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

This study was part of a larger study to describe how master’s of occupational therapy (MOT) students define and perceive their own creative thinking across the academic program. This study involved a cross-sectional quantitative study based on the self-reflective creative thinking surveys completed by the MOT students at Texas Woman’s University (N = 136). Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce a large number of variables by finding which variables are redundant and measuring the same construct. The PCA resulted in three new components accounting for 68% of the variance. Three ANOVAs were conducted to explore possible differences in …

Conceptual Framework Alignment Between Primary Literature And Education In Animal Behaviour, Andrea Marie-Kryger Bierema

Dissertations

In 1963, Tinbergen revolutionized the study of animal behaviour in his paper On aims and methods of ethology (Zeitschrift Tierpsycholgie, 20, 410-433) by revamping the conceptual framework of the discipline. His framework suggests an integration of four questions: causation, ontogeny, survival value, and evolution. The National Research Council Committee (U.S.) on Undergraduate Biology Education to Prepare Research Scientists for the 21^st Century published BIO2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2003), which suggests alignment between current research and undergraduate education. Unfortunately, alignment has been rarely studied in college biology, especially for fundamental …

The Dissemination And Effective Use Of Physics Education Research In Undergraduate Instruction, Trevor Stefanick

Masters Theses

Based on the results of a national survey of physics faculty, a set of interviews was conducted of 70 physics faculty from a diverse set of institutions. The interviews included questions about the dissemination and effective use of curricula and instructional strategies based on Physics Education Research (PER), focused to obtain recommendations to the PER community that might help to spread the use of these PER-based materials. Approximately half of the interviews (those with faculty who indicated knowledge about or use of Peer Instruction) have been previously analyzed. This project is the analysis of the 38 interviews that were conducted …

Accelerated Degree Completion Programs: The Effects Of Core Professors In Nontraditional Higher Education, Dale Frederick Gadd

Dissertations

Nontraditional Accelerated Degree Completion Programs (ADCPs) became popular in the 1980s at many private, higher education institutions, and involved cohort groups facilitated by core or major professors. There has been little research addressing the effectiveness of a core-professor or multiple-professor approach within ADCPs, or research on how students view their learning experiences under this unique concept. This study therefore examines: (1) the effects of using a core-professor concept within nontraditional ADCPs, and (2) students' experiences under the core-professor and multiple-professor concepts.

Two sources of data were used, as obtained from students who had been involved in an ADCP program at …