Digital Commons Network^™

Experiences Of Women Trustees: A Qualitative Multi-Case Study Of Women Trustees At Private Religious Colleges In The South, Amanda Main

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

In the United States, women are underrepresented on college governing boards and trusteeships, occupying only about one-third of those positions (Madsen & Longman, 2020). In the Southern United States, female representation is dramatically lower, with women holding somewhere between 11-15% of those board positions (Madsen & Longman, 2020). Feminist research identifies persistent sexism as the reason for the continued gender inequities. Sexism in social and organizational structures may present as microaggressions, a lack of agency, lack of female role models and mentors, explicit and inherent gender-based biases, lack of flexibility in work arrangements, and women being assigned work that does …

Navigating Place And Gender: A Multicontextual Critical Narrative Inquiry Of Rural Trans* Student Experiences, Jessie Lynn O'Quinn

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The purpose of this critical narrative study was to understand how rural West Virginia trans* students navigate cultural norms of their rural home communities and higher education contexts. An essential part of this critical narrative was to provide rural trans* students with an avenue to share their unique experiences and give them a platform to share their voices. The resulting narratives suggested that the normative tensions rural trans* college students experience across contexts stemmed from negative regional experiences that reinforced traditional gender norms. Negative home contexts and experiences forced students to feel like they had to build walls and distance …

Closing The Gender Gap In Entrepreneurship Education, Carolyn J. Rodeffer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Entrepreneurship education in higher education has been cited as a key strategy in filling the entrepreneurship talent pool, preparing students with the skills and confidence needed to start new ventures (Westhead & Solesvik, 2016). However, outcomes of entrepreneurship education for female students are less positive than for their male counterparts (Shinnar et al., 2012; Westhead & Solesvik, 2016; Wilson et al., 2007). Working within the frameworks of Bandura’s self-efficacy theory (1977), Azjen’s theory of planned behavior (1991), and Steele and Aronson’s stereotype threat theory (1995), this quantitative study utilized an experimental research design to assess the impact of role model …

Factors For Success Of International Female Doctoral Students In Science In The United States, Maria Patricia Cantu

Theses & Dissertations

Factors for Success of International Female Doctoral Students in Science in the United States

Many international doctoral female students in the sciences in the United States do not obtain a degree despite their large investment in time, effort, and financial resources. The loss of highly prepared and credentialed international female doctoral students, who have a genuine interest in science but who choose not to pursue their studies to graduation or switch careers due to real or perceived barriers, signifies such a loss not just for the women themselves and their families but for their countries of origin, their hosts universities, …

Relationships Between Dual Enrollment Parameters, College Completion, And Time To Completion At Tennessee Community Colleges, Victoria N. Mellons

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative study was to evaluate the relationships between completion of high school dual enrollment courses and subsequent success of first-time, full-time community college students as measured by completion of an associate degree and the time it took to complete the degree. In addition to comparing dual and non-dual enrollment student performance, the effects of the number of dual enrollment courses completed and the subject areas of those courses was evaluated. Student subgroups reviewed included gender, race, socioeconomic status, and prior academic preparation (ACT score). The focus of this study was all first-time, full-time students at …

Making Meaning Through Leadership: An Exploration Of College Men, Masculinity, And Motivation To Lead, Katharine Stango

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In my previous role as the Assistant Director for Campus Programs at the University of Vermont, (UVM) I noticed fewer and fewer college men pursing leadership opportunities during their time in college. Student affairs practitioners and scholars recognize the benefits and enhanced outcomes students gain by participating in meaningful activities in college (Astin, 1984; Dugan, 2006; Komives et al., 2005; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Quaye et al., 2019; Tinto, 1987). When college men are responsible for higher numbers of conduct violations, sexual misconduct issues, and high risk drug and alcohol use in college (Harper & Harris, 2010; Young et al., …

Undergraduate Classroom Incivility From The Faculty Perspective, Erin M. Bunton

Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations

Classroom disruption, more recently referred to as civility, changes the in-person classroom experience. This study investigated the impact of gender, race, age, and teaching experience on faculty perceptions of classroom incivility.

Faculty at a large, public institution in the Southeastern United States participated in the research for this study. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to understand the relationship between the demographic variables of the participants and their perception of classroom incivility.

Study findings yielded significant results, with positive relationships between the demographic variables and perception of classroom incivility. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

Effects Of Gatekeeper Course Modality, Age, Gender And High School Gpa On Kaplan Subject Area Exam Scores, Vernon Hoffman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The question of equivalency regarding course modality has plagued and intrigued educators for as long as multiple modalities have existed. In the modern world of academia, the two prevailing modalities are face-to-face or traditional courses and online courses. A multitude of factors have contributed to the increase in online course offerings, including increasingly dependable technology and fiscal pressures on institutions of higher learning.

A great deal of scholarly research has compared modalities using within-course measures such as course grades and comprehensive final exams. Most of these studies have found the two modalities equivalent. However, a dearth of research exists which …

Job Satisfaction Among Faculty Members At Cccu Institutions, Heather C. Vaccaro

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

The purpose of this research study was to determine whether any significant differences existed between generational cohorts, gender and employment status, and reported levels of job satisfaction among faculty at institutions within the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). This study aimed to influence institutional objectives and values to make any necessary adjustments in the attraction and retention of faculty members. The Academic Setting Evaluation Questionnaire (ASEQ) was used to survey participants. The data suggested factors that impact job satisfaction among faculty members within CCCU institutions are not those related to generational cohort, gender, or employment status. This study …

Learning To Fail? Student Experiences In Remedial Mathematics In Community Colleges, Margaret P. Fay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Referral to remedial coursework in mathematics is a significant barrier to degree attainment for community college students, which in turn has serious consequences for their employment and earning prospects. Students are placed into remediation when they are deemed unprepared to engage in college-level coursework, most often based on a score on a placement test. Nationally, 59% of community college students are placed into remedial math courses. Of these, only 49% complete remediation and gain access to college-level coursework. Because a college-level math course is often a degree requirement, many students who fail to complete remedial math courses are forced to …

An Analysis Of Degree Completion Among Female Students At Utah Valley University: A Demonstration Case For An Individualized Analysis Model In Higher Education, Tara S. Ivie

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Higher education institutions are facing low degree completion rates on an epidemic scale. The role of a bachelor degree completion in the well-being and future life of college students is of paramount importance, impacting physical and mental health, financial stability, relationship satisfaction and duration, safety, and community engagement.

Institutions must be critical of and act to address barriers to degree completion. In addition to an intrinsic investment in the success of their students, institutions may be
motivated by institutional improvement, performance-based funding, and the ethical ambition to create an educated society. Understanding when and why students drop and stop out …

College Choice, Consumer Behavior, And Gender Enrollment Patterns: A Mixed Methods Case Study Of Marathon University, Jessica I. Prach

Theses and Dissertations

Gender and enrollment patterns in higher education have changed over the past 40 years, where women are now the majority of students enrolling in colleges and universities nationally each year compared to men (U.S. Department of Education, 2018b). Despite enrollment trends indicating a dramatic increase of female students at colleges and universities, Marathon University has experienced the opposite. The purpose of this concurrent, mixed methods case studies was to identify why female students are choosing not to enroll at Marathon University, despite relatively even rates of application and admission compared to male students. The intent of this study was to …

Stretching The Dollar: Exploring The Lived Experiences, Multiple Identities, And Class Politics Of Poor And Working-Class Women At The University Of Kentucky, Rachael Deel

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

In the climate of prioritizing retention and pressure to move an increasingly diverse undergraduate population towards degree, it is critical that educational research consider the multiple, overlapping identities of students and how that influences their experiences on campus. The number of low-income students entering four-year institutions is growing each year, including at the University of Kentucky. This study aims to extend our understanding of social class beyond the material and focus on the affective dimensions of class including language, comportment, and leisure activities in an effort to better understand how poor and working-class women contend with the constraints they encounter …

Fathers' Experiences With Their Premature Infants Or Unhealthy Neonates, Lisa Cummings

Dissertations

Author: Lisa Cummings PhD RN

Fathers’ Experiences with Their Premature Infants or Unhealthy Neonates

Purpose and Background/Significance: Fifteen million babies worldwide are born prematurely each year, impacting a multitude of fathers. The importance of an early close father-infant relationship has been identified as central for the development of the child. Fathers influence on a child’s emotional and cognitive development and their physical well-being and health. Many times, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is the initial contact environment between a father and his premature infant. Studies have shown that the NICU can be a stressful environment for parents, producing emotional …

A Comparative Study Of Student Engagement Among Stem Majors At Women’S Colleges And Coeducational Institutions, Julie A. Mazur

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Women’s colleges are currently struggling to remain solvent and germane to today’s higher education landscape. Despite the struggles, women’s colleges have provided inimitable, valuable, and engaging experiences for the students who enroll at these traditionally small, liberal arts focused institutions. As the small number of women entering STEM majors and, in turn, STEM fields continues to be an issue, women’s colleges may be able to provide an engaging, distinctive experience for women who choose to pursue these majors as compared to coeducational institutions. Women continue to be underrepresented minorities in many STEM majors including but not limited to: physics, math, …

Gender And Organizational Citizenship Behavior In Library Technology: Mixed Methods Study, Sharon Whitfield

Theses and Dissertations

Academic librarianship continues to be a feminized profession, yet there are specializations within the profession that tend to be gender segregated, such as library technology. In this mixed methods study, women technology librarians' behaviors are examined through the gendered lens of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), which are discretionary, voluntary acts that are outside an employee's job description (Organ, 1988), but help shape the organizational culture and facilitate organizational functioning (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1997). This mixed methods study uses a survey to inform the extent of differences in organizational citizenship behaviors between men and women, and interviews to provide new insight …

The Perception Of Female Leadership: Impact Of Gender And Leader's Qualification On Leader's Effectiveness, Ala'a Fahad Al-Shakha

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined how gender and years of working with a female leader influence the gendered perception of female leadership effectiveness in Saudi Arabian higher education institutions. This study compared male and female leaders’ perception of female leadership effectiveness as well as highlighted the relationship between leader’s gender, experience working with a female leader and perceived female leadership effectiveness. To answer the research questions, four hypothesized models were proposed (simple direct model, mediation model, moderation model, and mediation moderation model). Data was collected from administrated leaders, who hold a position in five public universes located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with …

Multiple Representations Of The Fundamental Theorem Of Calculus As Enacted In The Curriculum, Sense-Making And Gender, Ileana Vasu

Doctoral Dissertations

Multiple representations of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus (FTC) are deemed essential to creating mathematical habits of mind, but not all classroom instruction includes them. This study articulates the relationship between college students’ experience with multiple representations of the FTC, gained through the enacted curriculum, and their use of multiple representations when problem solving or discussing the FTC. It suggests that students’ use of multiple representations directly relates to their curricular experience, which outweighs a student’s own inclination towards any particular representation. It further suggests that the relationship between classroom experience with a particular representation of the FTC, and its …

Student Success Behaviors And Gender: Exploring The Impact On First-Year Students, Sarah Ramage

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

College demographics are rapidly evolving, and one area of concern is the enrollment and retention rates of male students. The National Center for Educational Statistics reported that in 2010, 57 percent of undergraduate students were female (Weaver-Hightower, 2010). The same report stated that the percentage was projected to grow to 59 percent by 2018 (Weaver-Hightower, 2010). Between 1997 and 2007, female enrollment has risen dramatically faster than male enrollment, with a 29 percent jump in 10 years. Male enrollment increased by 22 percent in the same time (Weaver-Hightower, 2010). Over time, this growing gender imbalance in higher education has been …

Exploring Student Use Of Social Networking Services (Sns) Surrounding Moral Development, Gender, Campus Crime, Safety, & The Clery Act: A Mixed Methods Study, Haley Baum

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this explanatory sequential mixed methods study was to explore college students' use of social networking services (SNS); examining how and why they communicate about campus safety information. This study took place at Stockton University, a regional state institution in NJ. Undergraduate students took part in an online quantitative questionnaire and then follow up face-to-face qualitative interviews with a section of the questionnaire participants. Focus was placed on how and why students communicate crime and safety information to discuss how this may relate to their moral development and decision-making. Using Kohlberg and Gilligan as a guide to understand …

Breaking The Cycle Of Silence : The Significance Of Anya Seton's Historical Fiction., Lindsey Marie Okoroafo (Jesnek)

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the feminist significance of Anya Seton’s historical novels, My Theodosia (1941), Katherine (1954), and The Winthrop Woman (1958). The two main goals of this project are to 1.) identify and explain the reasons why Seton’s historical novels have not received the scholarly attention they are due, and 2.) to call attention to the ways in which My Theodosia, Katherine, and The Winthrop Woman offer important feminist interventions to patriarchal social order. Ultimately, I argue that My Theodosia, Katherine, and The Winthrop Woman deserve more scholarly attention because they are significant contributions to women’s …

The Influence Of Student Characteristics On The Preferred Ways Of Learning Of Online College Students: An Examination Of Cultural Constructs, Linda Barril

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

The ongoing popularity and increased availability of online college courses and programs has attracted a greater diversity of students. Along with continued female-majority enrollment, increasing numbers of students of traditional college age and students from a variety of ethnicity groups are taking online courses. The prevailing guiding assumptions that have informed much of the online pedagogical and instructional practices have primarily come from theories of adult learning, particularly andragogy, which has been heavily criticized for not acknowledging student diversity. As online education becomes ever more established in higher education, it is vital to examine the diversity of contemporary student populations …

Understanding Latina Doctoral Student Experiences: Negotiating Ethnic Identity And Academic Success, Omayra Arocho

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Latinas currently attain the lowest number of terminal degrees in the United States when compared to White, African American, and Asian American women. While Latina doctoral students share common struggles with other minority/female doctoral students, the unique cultural expectations associated with their racial/ethnic and gender related identities conflict with traditional American educational values in important ways and may be a contributing factor to their significant underrepresentation among women who have earned doctoral degrees in the U.S. Latina doctoral students experience cultural incongruity as they realize that the intrinsic principles that contribute to their ethnic identity are incompatible with those deemed …

Self-Authoring Gender Performance: A Narrative Analysis Of Gay Undergraduate Men, Casey Shadix

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

The perspectives of gay men on college and university campuses is informed by a rich gay social history and extensive roots of community politics. The experiences of gay undergraduate men have been illuminated in segmented ways in scholarly literature to date. This narrative inquiry develops and advances those efforts by exploring how gay undergraduate men construct, experience, and make meaning of their gender as a population ascribing to both liberationist and assimilationist viewpoints. Data for this qualitative study were collected at one public, four-year research university in the southeastern United States in the fall 2015 semester using recorded personal interviews …

Improving The Education Of Leaders: An Exploratory Case Study In An Undergraduate Business Leadership Course Focused On Gender, Kanina Blanchard

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This exploratory case study is conducted in an undergraduate leadership course at a business school in Ontario. The research develops an understanding of how former students value and are influenced by leadership education that teaches a breadth of knowledges (instrumental, hermeneutic and emancipatory) and focuses on participants’ perspectives of how gender and inequality continue to impact the practice of leadership in Canada. By using document analysis and semi-structured interviews, findings emerge which provide insights into how changes in curricula and pedagogy may better prepare students of leadership to navigate the ethical and social complexities in today’s workplace.

How Female Social Studies Department Chairs Navigate Their Roles As Leaders, Jeffrey C. Eargle

Theses and Dissertations

During the past four decades, state and federal education policy in the United States has focused on standardization and increased accountability. In contrast, education researchers advocate elevating the status of teachers through the professionalization of education. Teacher leadership is a concept that is used to reform schools and increase student achievement. The high school department chair is a formal teacher leadership role in the school hierarchy. Because research indicates that a majority of social studies teachers are male, female social studies department chairs are in a position to lead predominantly men.

A gap exists in the research on social studies …

Explaining Participation : An Explanatory History Of Select Gender Patterns In Undergraduate Stem, Michael Pasquale Mastroianni

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This explanatory study examines three focal periods in undergraduate STEM as related to the gender gap. Social, economic, and more general historical data are used to develop a clear and powerful explanation of baccalaureate trends in biology and engineering. Specifically, historical accounts are offered for 1) a ten-year period in undergraduate biology in which the number of baccalaureates awarded to men decreased 44 percent, while the number of baccalaureates awarded to women decreased one percent; 2) the start of a twenty-year period in which the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the biological sciences increased 150 percent—from 36,068 degrees in …

An Examination Of The Role Of Gender In Understanding Faculty Perceptions Of Student-Athletes At Ncaa Division I Institutions, Jana Thomas Spitzer

Doctoral Dissertations

Previous research has indicated that faculty hold negative perceptions toward male student-athletes. Studies have shown that faculty perceptions are most negative when the student-athlete competed at an NCAA Division I institution, in a high-profile sport, and was non-White. What remained unknown was the role of gender in understanding faculty perceptions of student-athletes. The current study considered this gap in the literature and determined if the gender of the student-athlete, the gender of the faculty member, or other characteristics of the faculty member influenced perceptions of male or female student-athletes. The study utilized the Situational Attitudes Scale (SAS) to compare faculty …

The Effects Of Student Engagement On Retention: Comparing Male Undergraduate Stem Majors To Non-Stem Majors, Tourgee D. Simpson Jr.

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Researchers suggest certain benchmarks of student engagement (i.e., student-faculty interaction, level of academic challenge, enriching educational experiences, active and collaborative learning, and supportive campus environment) positively influence student success. This study investigated the relationship between student engagement and the retention of male, full-time undergraduate students in STEM majors by comparing male, full-time undergraduate students in select science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors to male, full-time undergraduate students in non-STEM majors to identify best practices to improve retention and increase degree completion among men in STEM fields.

Students were invited to participate in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). …

Race, Gender, And Faculty Advancement At American Colleges And Universities, James Sharell Bridgeforth

Dissertations

Women and people of color are underrepresented in the American professoriate; although the presence of female faculty and professors of color is beneficial to the academy on various levels, these groups often face many barriers and challenges throughout the promotion and tenure process. This study was designed to examine whether race, gender, or a combination of race and gender made a statistically significant difference in reported opportunities for mentorship, faculty socialization, and scholarship in regard to faculty advancement in the academy. Data were collected from 650 tenured and tenure-track faculty through an online questionnaire. The data analysis revealed that women …