Digital Commons Network^™

Quiz Web Application, Dipti Rathod

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The Quiz web application is designed to facilitate the process of quiz creation and participation. This web application mainly consists of three roles: Admin, Instructor, and Student. Each role has specific features, functionalities, and permissions. With a user-friendly interface, the admin role can handle the departments, courses, and instructors. This web application also ensures smooth quiz management, allowing the instructors to schedule the upcoming quizzes, create the questions, and manage the students with ease. Student roles have features like taking quizzes and seeing their results. Additionally, this web application includes a significant feature to prevent cheating during online tests, ensuring …

Establishing A Sense Of Community While Meeting The Needs Of Online Adjunct Instructors, Melissa Weber

Dissertations and Theses

As online adjunct instructors continue to fill an instructional role and meet the needs of online learners, university leaders need to look for ways for professional development to increase online adjunct instructors’ sense of community and meet their diverse needs. The critical problem of this study recognized that online adjunct instructors have different needs than those of on campus faculty; these needs are not being met by traditional means currently used in university settings. Therefore, the overall goal of this qualitative phenomenological study sought to explore how university leaders could establish a sense of community while meeting the professional development …

An Evaluative Pilot Study Of An Online Facilitator Professional Development Program, Alana Elkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With a rapid increase in higher education online course offerings, many institutions are hiring part-time faculty to meet the demand of online learning. However, a lack of professional development in online course facilitation has proven to limit the effectiveness of facilitation and hinder the foundational quality standards the courses were built upon. An evaluative pilot study was conducted on a professional development framework provided to a group of online course facilitators that were hired to teach the course but did not participate in the online course developments. Since many course facilitators are not online faculty developers, they have limited knowledge …

Inviting Entry-Level Composition Students To Interact With Their Instructor Outside Of The Classroom: Influences, Trends, And New Perspectives, Alyssa K. Knight

MSU Graduate Theses

This study enters the discourse surrounding student-faculty interaction through an investigation of out-of-class interactions within an entry-level composition course. Empirical studies have found students and instructors in undergraduate courses often communicate infrequently, but most studies gathered quantitative data on interactions through student reporting. This study investigated influences on undergraduate students’ desire to interact with the course instructor outside of the classroom through the lens of both the instructor and the students. This study addressed the potential differences between students’ perceptions and the course instructor’s observations and found that the instructors’ demeanor, course content, and instructional delivery impact the number of …

College Students’ Perceptions Of Instructors Whose Primary Language Is Not English, Takiyah A. Clay

Honors Theses

It is common to see instructors at universities in America who are foreign born and, as a result, have a foreign accent. Since foreign accents can influence the perceptions of people, the researcher designed this study to discover any perceptions that college students may have toward instructors with foreign accents. In addition, the researcher wanted to discover if those perceptions influenced the students’ actions in class. In order to reveal these perceptions, the researcher surveyed 205 students both in-person and online. The researcher determined that although a majority of the participants had difficulty comprehending the lectures of instructors with foreign …

Learning Assistant And Instructor Communication: Impacts On Perceived Efficacy, Jahangir Rassouli, Laura Ríos

Physics

The Learning Assistant (LA) Model was co-developed by Richard McCray and Valerie Otero at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2003. In this model, senior undergraduate students serve as facilitators for group discussion in lower-division courses, and employ evidenced-based practices for promoting inquiry and active learning [1]. Since its inception, the LA model has grown to various departments, disciplines, and universities.

At California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), the LA program in the physics department is still in its early stages. As such, it is an environment rich for exploration into the affordances, limitations, and benefits of …

The Role Of Corporate Healthcare Instructors' Credentials And Experiences In Corporate Training, George Edmond Napier

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Corporate healthcare education has changed drastically in the last few decades with few rules for compliance or standardization. A large healthcare company in the Southeastern United States was experiencing inequitable training due to differing teaching styles and instructor skill levels. Guided by Bandura's theory of self-efficacy, the purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how corporate healthcare instructors' credentials and experiences affect their perceived self-efficacy and teaching style. Interviews were conducted with 11 purposefully selected corporate healthcare instructors from a physician education team; collected data were then coded and themed. Findings revealed 3 major themes: (a) credentials enhanced the …

An Analysis Of Online Faculty Training Practices In The Illinois Community College System, Melissa Andrews

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study investigated existing training practices for online faculty and instructors in the Illinois community college system. From 2004 to 2014, higher education showed a 60% increase in online enrollment, with 1.9 million students enrolled nationally in online courses at public two-year institutions. In the state of Illinois, public two-year institutions enrolled 32.9% of all distance education courses . As online learning continues to alter the educational landscape, new issues confront instructors and students. Preparing faculty to teach online is an important component for student success in online programs but professional development for online instructors varies in different universities.

A …

Graduate Education Instructors' Motivation And Its Influences On Graduate Students, Katrina Lynn Reeder

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Researchers have discovered that a low level of instructor motivation can have negative effects on instructors, such as low-quality teaching and low engagement for the students. The purpose of this study was to explore university instructors' experience with motivation and how it might be important to their graduate students' experiences and success. This qualitative case study followed the conceptual framework of two motivational theories: the self-determination theory and the achievement goal theory. The research question explored instructor motivation and how students perceived that motivation. Furthermore, the research question and subquestions were designed to reveal ways instructor motivation influences graduate students. …

The Effects Of Instructors Discussing Alcohol In The Classroom On Student Perceptions Of Their Instructor, Nathaniel Swiech Brophy

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is comprised of two studies. Study I is a qualitative exploratory analysis which attempts to uncover students’ experiences with instructors discussing alcohol in the university classroom and how the appropriateness of this behavior is determined. How this mention of alcohol affects the students’ perception of the instructor, as well as the relationship between perceived appropriateness of the behavior and change in perception, are also investigated. Study I found that students have experienced their instructors mentioning alcohol in the classroom as normative student behavior, part of the formal curriculum, and their instructor disclosing personal alcohol use. Participants determined appropriateness …

Measurement Of Organizational Commitment In Adjunct Instructors Teaching Within A Mid-South Community College System Based On Hiring Orientation Characteristics, Jennifer Lee Knott

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United States community college student population is a broad demographic that continues to grow. The result is a higher demand for classes and an increasing reliance of college administrators on temporary, part-time adjunct instructors. Temporary employees are found to exhibit a low organizational commitment (OC) to their employers. The social exchange theory and the concept of reciprocity served as the framework for studying OC of adjunct instructors in a mid-south community college system. A regression analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between three hiring orientation characteristics and OC, while controlling for years of teaching experience. Each variable was …

College Students And The Rhetorical Dissent Goal: Associations Between Dissent Goal, Dissent Target, And Perceptions Of Instructor Power, Martin Glenn Heator

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Some college students who experience discontent with the instructional experience engage in a complaining and problem-solving behavior called instructional dissent. Three types of dissent have been identified: rhetorical, expressive, and vengeful. Student perceptions of instructor power influence if and how students dissent. This study explored the relationship between instructor power and rhetorical dissent. Previous studies measured rhetorical dissent as a single variable incorporating the goal for dissenting and the target for dissent expression, using the instructor in the class as the only target. This study measured dissent goal and dissent target as separate variables and included the instructor in the …

Student Attitudes On Social Media And Perception Of Instructor Social Media Use., Abi Mathew John

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to understand what student attitudes are toward using social media in the classroom and if those attitudes influenced how they perceive instructors using social media in the classroom. Implementing a mixed method approach, this study conducted focus groups to gain an in-depth understanding of what student attitudes were and why they held those ideas. A survey was then distributed to the students’ in a Midwestern University to see if there was a relationship between students attitudes and their perceptions of instructors who use social media. Results showed that students do hold a positive attitude …

Development And Initial Validation Of A Flipped Classroom Adoption Inventory In Higher Education, Taotao Long

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to develop and initially validate an inventory to learn about the critical variables involved in a higher education instructor’s decision to adopt a flipped classroom instructional model. A flipped classroom is an instructional model in which students’ learning is divided into two phases, the self-directed pre-class learning phase and the in-class student-centered active learning phase. Both phases are typically technology-enhanced. This study addresses a gap in the recent research regarding the identification and assessment of the critical variables that are related to a higher education instructor’s decision to adopt a flipped classroom instructional model. …

Faculty Perceptions And Experiences Of “Presence” In The Online Learning Environment, Anita Samuel

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological research study was to gain an understanding of how faculty who teach fully online courses perceive and experience presence. The 25 faculty participants in this study were drawn from a four-year institution of higher education in the Midwest. The faculty designed and taught their own courses. Data were collected through: (1) semi-structured in-depth interviews with each participant, (2) documentary analysis of two course syllabi from two different course offerings for each participant, and (3) observations of five participants’ online course sites over the duration of an academic semester (16 week course). Findings revealed that …

Considering The Crossroads Of Distance Education: The Experiences Of Instructors As They Transitioned To Online Or Blended Courses, David D. Hoffman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In the short history of online education research, researchers studying teacher experiences regularly relied on anecdotal examples or small samples. In this research, we sought to support and enhance previous findings concerning the best practices in online education by performing randomly sampled, nationwide survey of online and blended course instructors. The survey inquired about demographics (such as age, race, and gender), professional position (i.e. tenured professor), institution, department, and their initial and current feelings about teaching online education. It questioned if the respondents studied online as students, what resources administrators provided, their audience, length of instructional experience, and personal behaviors …

Postsecondary Online Students' Preferences For Instructor Feedback, Joseph John Gredler

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Misalignment between student preferences and instructor assumptions regarding feedback may impede student learning. Researchers have investigated postsecondary students' preferences for types of instructor feedback including written, audio, and video. However, postsecondary online students' preferences have not been explored in a large-sample study. This sequential explanatory mixed-methods study was conducted to describe postsecondary online students' preferences and the reasons for those preferences. Vygotsky's social-constructivist theory was used to frame instructor feedback as a scaffolding tool to promote self-regulation in student writing. A survey containing quantitative and qualitative questions was used to collect 93 responses from undergraduate and graduate students attending a …

Perceived Attributes And Factors Influencing Instructors’ Using E-Textbooks In Higher Education, Sirui Wang

Dissertations

As digital content, e-Textbooks display text on the screen, integrate multimedia within textual components, and allow reading on portable devices; which make learning highly interactive, flexible, and immediately accessible, increase students’ engagements in learning, and make learning content portable, transferrable, and searchable. Those advanced features did not bring prosperity in using e-Textbooks in education. The adoption of using e-Textbooks in higher education is still far from its confirmation stage. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the perceived attributes of using e-Textbooks by instructors and their actual use of e-Textbooks in higher educational settings, to discuss …

The Effectiveness Of An Intervention Designed To Increase The Positive To Negative Ratio Of Instructor Interactions During After-School Programming, Rikki K. Wheatley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this research was to assess the effectiveness of two interventions used to train instructors to increase PN ratios. The first intervention (workshop training) followed a didactic workshop-training model. The second intervention (coaching) included the components of the didactic workshop model with the addition of modeling, role-play, and performance feedback. In this study four instructors in an after-school program were randomly assigned to one of two groups to participate in training programs. These programs were designed to help them increase PN ratios when interacting with students during homework time in the after-school program. Group 1 received only the …

Communicating Value: Understanding Adjunct Typology, Job Satisfaction Levels, And Professional Development Interests, Lisa P. Davidson

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Higher education institutions are navigating budget cuts, changing enrollment, and the need to differentiate from the competition. Reductions in government funding and budgetary constraints are prompting universities to reduce the number of full-time, tenure-track faculty and rely more heavily on adjunct faculty to meet their demand for instructors. Therefore it is important to determine the distinct needs and satisfaction levels of this faculty group in order to provide appropriate resources and development opportunities for them. This study sought to determine if adjunct faculty job satisfaction levels differ based on adjunct typology (Gappa & Leslie, 1993) or institutional affiliation, and to …

Real Time Swim Instructor, Konrad Antoniuk

Electrical Engineering

Both competitive and recreational swimmers want an efficient swim stroke but often lack consistent feedback with technical insight. Competitive swimmers rely on coaches for instruction but have to stop swimming to listen. The Real Time Swim Instructor project provides live feedback to a swimmer so they can feel their stroke correction while they’re swimming. The developing swimmer feels the difference between correct and incorrect form instantaneously.

The project takes on the responsibility of measuring the moving body, accurately determining stroke improvement, functioning under water, and providing recognizable feedback. Additionally, the user can review their swim from data stored in memory. …

Physics Faculty Use Of Example Solutions In Teaching Introductory Physics, William O. Mamudi

Masters Theses

This study investigates how physics faculty perceive and use features of example problem solutions. Thirty physics instructors from diverse institutions participated in semi-structured interviews. In addition to open-ended questions, three example problem solution artifacts were used to focus on specific solution features. Data were analyzed to identify instructors’ goals for the use of example solutions and whether their goals were consistent with the solution features that they valued and used. The study concludes that many faculty have three major goals: keeping students cognitively involved, helping students become better problem solvers, and supporting students in learning physics. The study also found …

Explaining The Paradox: Perceived Instructor Benefits And Costs Of Contributing To Massachusetts Institute Of Technology Opencourseware, Preston Paul Parker

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) OpenCourseWare (OCW) project offers potential benefits and costs to three main categories of people: users, the
institute itself, and the instructors who provided the materials to the project. Little is known about the benefits and costs of the instructors, so that is what this study examines. Instructors put together the original educational materials and would seem to have the most to lose by contributing to OCW.

It appears that instructors recognize benefits of: (1) improved reputation, (2) networking, (3) supplementary opportunities, (4) improved course content, (5) course
feedback, (6) students accessing materials, and (7) …

To Share Or Not To Share: The Impact Of Disclosing Sexuality On Instructor Communication Apprehension, Instructional Effectiveness, And Student Relationships, Justin Rudnick

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Previous research has explored the role LGBTQ instructor sexuality plays in the classroom. However, little research explores the effects of disclosing LGBTQ sexuality on the individual instructor. This study examines how LGBTQ instructors report disclosures of their sexuality to influence their Communication Apprehension, Instructional Effectiveness, and their Relationships with Students. Qualitative interviewing methods were used to survey nine self-identified LGBTQ college instructors from mid-size Midwest universities, and a grounded theory approach was used to identify emergent themes pertaining to LGBTQ instructors' experiences with their sexuality in the classroom. Interviewees reported varying degrees of communication apprehension, instructional effectiveness, and heightened personal …

Putting Effort Into Learning: Do Evaluative Focus And Motivational Intervention Play A Key Role In Performance?, Rebecca Kelley

Honors Capstones

This study examined two factors hypothesized to affect performance in a learning environment. Participants completed a tutorial about evaluating arguments under varying conditions in a 2 (evaluative focus) x 2 (motivational intervention) between-participants design. A personal evaluation focus was emphasized for some participants and not for other participants. Moreover, some participants were exposed to a motivational intervention highlighting room for skill development whereas other were not. After participants completed the tutorial, they completed a post-test that assessed their skills. According to prior research, it was expected that participants who felt either personally evaluated or exposed to a motivational intervention would …

The Effects Of Power Distance, And Gender On The Use Of Nonverbal Immediacy Behaviors In Symmetrical And Asymmetrical Power Cond, Vincent Santilli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous cross-cultural research in nonverbal immediacy indicates that nonverbal immediacy behavior varies across cultures, and some researchers have suggested that power distance might serve as a moderating variable, however no research has systematically set out to determine whether that is the case. This study assessed the perceived use of nonverbal immediacy under symmetric and asymmetric power conditions, as well as gender, in three cultures: Brazil, Kenya, and the United States. Quantitative data was collected from 527 participants who completed a nonverbal immediacy measure and an individual power distance measure under either a symmetric or an asymmetric power condition. Results related …

Adjunct Faculty:A Boon Or Burden?, Donald E. Webb Jr

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this study was to investigate whether there is a statistically significant difference in quality of instruction as delivered by full-time and part-time adjunct faculty in community colleges by utilizing data obtained from the Kentucky Community and Technical College (KCTCS) student evaluation of instruction instrument at Southeast Kentucky and Hazard community and technical colleges. The evaluation instrument is used to rate the instructor in the following areas: (a) clarity of course goals; (b) clarity of attendance policy; (c) examinations being a fair measure of progress; (d) clear standards of grading; (e) presentation of course material; (f) clear and …

Instructor Perceptions Of Student Learning In Secondary And Postsecondary Algebra Classes., Jane Ann Houseman Jones 1940-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate various secondary to postsecondary mathematics transition issues for students. Making successful transitions from high school to postsecondary study has become necessary if our nation's young people are to obtain and hold good-paying jobs in the workplace. Knowledge of algebra is the critical gatekeeper for success in completing high school and postsecondary training. Nationwide 22% of entering freshmen at degree-granting institutions are under-prepared for college mathematics and must enroll in developmental mathematics classes that repeat the content of high school mathematics courses. Researchers have documented disconnects between secondary and postsecondary mathematics' expectations and …

The Benefits Of Optimism In A Student-Instructor Relationship, Johnathan Kyle Nelson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The positive psychology movement of the past decade has produced an impressive amount of psychological literature devoted to studying the best of human attributes such as resilience, commitment, and optimism. This dramatic increase in available literature on optimism highlights a heightened awareness and interest in human proficiency, when so much of psychology has been traditionally devoted to the study of human deficiency. This research has lead to an increased understanding of what characteristics of an individual lead to facilitate various activities such as problem solving, leadership ability, income, achievement, sales, and job satisfaction. This study explored the relationship between positive …

A Readership Study Of The Instructor Magazine, Vern Maeser Young

Theses and Dissertations

"The Instructor" magazine of The Deseret Sunday School Union of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1966. In a message of congratulations to the publication, the First Presidency of the Church pointed to the unique role "The Instructor" performs today in promulgating effective religious teaching. The message stated, "The articles contained therein, the editorials, and the Sunday School supplemental lesson material, have contributed much to the gospel training in the Church. It is a very superior magazine, being unsurpassed by any in its field." Because of this 100th anniversary and the unique role …