Education Commons^™

The Perceived Influence Of Value-Added Metrics On Urban Middle School Teachers’ Job Satisfaction And Motivation, Angela Jones

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Value-added metrics or models (VAMs) are an important component of the teacher evaluation process that evaluators use to determine the value teachers add to their students’ academic achievement. VAMs are used to arrive at a score that is derived from the number of the teachers’ students who pass and/or fail a standardized assessment. While prior research has focused on VAMs with respect to impact on student success and performance, little is known about how teachers experience the implementation of these metrics and how those experiences may influence teachers’ job satisfaction and motivation. The purpose of this interpretive qualitative study was …

Professional Dispositions And Perceptions Of Principals About Inclusion In Senior Secondary Schools, Desmond Prince, George Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractProviding inclusive education for children with special educational needs and disabilities entails educating these students in general education classrooms. There are no consistent practices or regulations for administering programs for such students in general education classrooms in Sierra Leone. This problem is supported by the lack of literature about administrative inclusive education practices. This basic qualitative study was conducted to explore the professional dispositions, perceptions, and rules or regulations that school principals hold for administering programs for students with special educational needs and disabilities in general education classrooms. The conceptual framework of the study was based on moral leadership and …

Family Child Care Providers’ Experiences Of California’S Quality Rating Improvement System, Ansina Shante' Green

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

U.S. policy makers continue to struggle with identifying inclusive strategies that effectively support the needs of individual family child care (FCC) providers, who tend to have low quality rating improvement systems (QRIS) scores. To ensure program quality, there is a need to identify supportive strategies and evidence-based practices that build on FCC programs' strengths and learning contexts. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore the perspectives of FCC providers about the factors that contribute to the number of low-quality, low-tier rated FCC programs that are part of California’s QRIS initiative. The conceptual framework was based on Blasberg’s …

Middle School Teachers’ Perceptions Of Student Disengagement And Its Role In Low Academic Achievement, Georgia Ross-Holmes

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractDisengaged students display boredom, low achievement, and high dropout rates. The problem addressed in this study was the need for a better understanding of teachers’ perceptions about disengaged students, which is essential in developing interventions to support students’ school completion. This basic qualitative study explored teachers’ perceptions of the underlying reasons for student disengagement and explored how teachers perceived the role of disengagement in student academic achievement. The self-system motivational theory lens was the framework used to guide the research and address the research questions, which asked about middle school teachers’ perceptions of the underlying reasons for student disengagement and …

Educators’ Perspectives On The Use Of Restorative Practices In Urban High Schools, Janora Michelle Holmes

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

African American youth are suspended and expelled at a higher rate than their nonminority (White) counterparts. Punitive processes such as zero-tolerance policies result in suspensions and expulsions, removing African American youth out of the classroom, and increasing the risk of dropping out and diminishing opportunities for academic success. The purpose of this study was to explore the role of restorative practices in urban high schools through the perspectives of urban educators. For the purpose of this study, the term urban was defined as predominantly African American. The theoretical foundation of this basic qualitative research was Canter and Canter’s assertive behavior …

Juntos Luchamos: A Postcritical Ethnographic And Photovoice Study On Latinx Student Civic Engagement Practices At A Hispanic-Serving Institution, Liliana Diaz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Situated at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), this postcritical ethnographic and photovoice study sought to explore how Latinx students define and practice civic engagement. Theoretically framed by Latino Cultural Citizenship (LCC), the study explored how current Latinx student civic engagement practices inform a Hispanic-Serving Institutions’ civic engagement efforts. Data collection took place over the 2021-2022 academic year and an exhibition of the study’s findings was made publicly available at the culmination of the study. Findings from the study indicate that Latinx postsecondary students define civic engagement as knowledge and resource sharing (KRS) and achieving success. Findings for how Latinx postsecondary students …

Policymaker Discourse In Colorado Public Higher Education Appropriations, Nathan Willers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

State funding for higher education is one of the most pressing issues facing both institutions and policymakers in 2022. Colorado has seen significant declines in the amount of state funding per student over the past two decades, resulting in increases in student burdens for tuition. Policy discourse analysis through a poststructural and neoliberal lens provided insight towards the legislative process and the discursive themes utilized by Colorado policymakers during the 2021-22 legislative budgeting cycle. Twelve artifacts were analyzed, including a mix of policy briefs, hearings, and budget and appropriations reports, for discursive data related to the state’s appropriations for public …

Pulling Back The Veil: What Determines Hbcu Campus Enrollments, James V. Koch, Omari H. Swinton

Economics Faculty Publications

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are among the least researched sectors of American higher education. This article addresses a portion of this knowledge deficit by focusing on the determinants of the full-time equivalent enrollments of 50 HBCUs between fiscal year FY 2005 and FY 2018 and then comparing them to a broad sample of 182 non-HBCUs. The most noteworthy specific results generated by our analyses are: (1) increased recruitment of white students by HBCUs may not hold the key to HBCU enrollment success; (2) the incomes of the households from which students emanate have a major positive influence on …

Cultivating Family Empowerment In Schools: The Experiences Of Marginalized Families In Special Education, Rachel-Marie F. Sinco

Honors Theses

The provision of special education services to special needs students is largely upheld by federal and state policies and regulations, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) which ensures that children with disabilities have the opportunity to access a free appropriate public education (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2004). However, marginalized families of low-income and linguistically diverse backgrounds continue to face barriers and challenges to effectively participate in their child’s education and secure the necessary and appropriate services for their child. Family Empowerment Centers on Disability (FECs) in California provide a policy solution to assist families navigate …

Book Review: Teacher Diversity And Student Success: Why Racial Representation Matters In The Classroom, Aubrey Scheopner Torres

Journal of Catholic Education

No abstract is published with book reviews

The Axis Of Access: A Quantitative Ethnography Of Presidential Discourse On The Construct Of College Access In The United States, Pamela M. Donnelly

Theses and Dissertations

Federal discourse pertaining to college access requires clarified definition. Use of the college access construct has become commonplace, yet no unified refinement of meaning exists. This study, which covered U.S. presidential communications from January 2009 to October 2021, addressed the abstraction of language as leaders presented ideas, policies, and opinions. Observable trends impacting social mobility for students from underserved populations were of central interest. The research methodology, Quantitative Ethnography (QE), used the tool of Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA). Eight codes were identified through grounded analysis: Affordability, Pathway Program, Underserved Populations, Class Systems, Upward Mobility, Career Readiness, Trajectory, and Career Technical …

Do They Make A Difference? Twin Cities Magnet Schools In The Heart Of Metropolitan Inequity And Segregation, Scott A. Thomas

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Magnet schools have served as one of the most important and widely-used desegregation tools throughout the United States. Each district, region, and state have varying degrees of implementation, policies, and goals for such schools; however, robust evidence of their effectiveness is needed. This study examines a single school district in Minnesota that uses magnet schools to meet a state desegregation order where five elementary magnet schools and five control schools were identified to understand the impact the magnet “treatment” has on achievement for students of color, English learners, and students receiving special education services. This multivariate comparative study uses the …

“Si No Yo, ¿Entonces Quién?”: Testimonios Of Latino/A Catholic School Teachers In Under-Resourced Urban Catholic Schools, Antonio Felix

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

There has been a significant increase in the number of Students of Color attending Catholic schools in the United States in the last forty years. However, only 17% of the professional staff in Catholic schools nationally are Teachers of Color (with about 9.6% identifying as Latino/a) (McDonald & Schultz, 2020). The racial gap between Students and Teachers of Color is a social justice issue (Berrios, 2016), and yet, research on why Teachers of Color are choosing to teach in Catholic urban schools and the motivating factors that sustain their work in hard-to-staff Catholic schools is limited.

This qualitative research study …

Opportunities For Autism Information Shared Through Professional Conferences, Amelia Anderson, Selena Layden, Crystal Stang (Ed.), Jennifer L. Branch-Mueller (Ed.)

STEMPS Faculty Publications

With prevalence most recently reported at 1 in 44 (Maenner et al., 2021) children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the United States, school librarians can and should expect to see these children in their schools and in their libraries. However, previous work indicates that school librarians are not being provided with an adequate education about this in their graduate coursework (Layden, Anderson, & Hayden, 2021). This study expands upon previous work to explore the preparation of school librarians about autism by examining the previous five years of state library conference programs.

Practice With Feedback Makes Permanent: Ecoaching Through Online Bug-In-Ear During Clinical Experiences, Annemarie L. Horn, Marcia L. Rock

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

Federal mandates (e.g., Every Student Succeeds Act [ESSA], 2015) require special educators to use evidence-based practices (EBP) when working with K-12 students. However, for this expectation to become a reality, teacher educators must make changes in educator preparation program (EPP) curriculum, policy, coursework, and clinical experiences (Kolb et al., 2018). The need for changes
in EPP clinical experiences has been underscored by the Council for Exceptional Children’s (CEC’s) shift from knowledge to practice-based standards for special educators (CEC, 2020). Real-time performance feedback (PF) delivered via online bug-in-ear (BIE) technology is an EBP (Sinclair, 2020) for coaching and supervising during early, …

The Program To Reduce Implicit Bias In Carroll Hospital Center Using The Implicit Association Test, Katherine E. Traynor

Capstone Showcase

Natural brain processes make all individuals susceptible to unconscious bias; however, stressful, fearful, or anger-evoking situations as well as the negative influence of media and social surroundings increase the risk of holding obstructive bias, and there is a greater risk of being negatively impacted by this phenomenon when belonging to a minority population (Rose & Flores, 2020). As a result, high rates of infant mortality (10.2 deaths per 1,000 live births for the Non-Hispanic Black population compared to 4.1 in the White population) and cardiovascular related diseases (190.0 cases per 1,000 in the Non-Hispanic Black population compared to 161.3 in …

The Evolving Identities Of Hsi And Differentiated Funding, Amanda K. Burbage, Chris Glass

Educational Foundations & Leadership Faculty Publications

To achieve Higher Education Act Title V funding goals, policymakers must reconsider approaches, respond to Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) diversity, and prioritize servingness. This study investigated HSI heterogeneity across traditional performance metrics and student-engagement indicators using data sources previously only examined independently. A multi-step TwoStep cluster analysis revealed six clusters of HSIs. The two most important predictors of cluster membership were years with an HSI designation (transitioning and established) and institution type (associate, bachelor, and special focus). Key quantitative metrics may be useful for policy actors seeking an equity-minded Title V award strategy that considers HSI heterogeneity and prioritizes HEA Title …