Education Commons^™

Behavioral Intervention Teams: An Exploration Of Team Member Perceptions At Oklahoma Regional Universities, Sheila J. Self

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this study was to examine Behavioral Intervention Teams from the perspective of twelve team members at four regional universities in Oklahoma. This study strengthened the knowledge base regarding team-member perceptions of Behavioral Intervention Team effectiveness, functioning, resources, needs, state factors, and campus impacts, and added qualitative data to the existing body of literature. Behavioral Intervention Teams were designed to be a tool for preventing campus violence and addressing behaviors of concern through information gathering, analysis, and intervention. While it may never be known how many acts of violence, suicides, or other student issues have been prevented or …

Potential Relationships Of Community College Faculty Credentials And Measures Of Instructional Effectiveness: Student Survey Of Instruction And Grades, Marc Alan Willis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to determine what, if any, relationship existed when considering instructor credentials in relation to student surveys of instruction (SSOI), instructor credentials in relation to grade distribution, and the relationship between SSOI and grade distribution. The case study college is a two-year rural institution in Oklahoma employing 53 full-time faculty in Fall 2016. Eighteen of those faculty lack the adequate credentials as required by the Higher Learning Commission, the accrediting body for the college. Very little information was discovered verifying the impact of credentials on effectiveness, and what was located was anecdotal rather than data …

College And Career Ready Through Personalized Learning: Business And Industry Perspective Of The Don Tyson School Of Innovation, Joe R. Rollins

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative research study describes perceptions of Northwest Arkansas’ business, industry and post-secondary institutions as to the Don Tyson School of Innovation (DTSOI) and its ability to prepare students for Northwest Arkansas’ college and career needs. Designated as one of the first schools of innovation in Arkansas through ACT 601 of 2013 by the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE), the DTSOI employs Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in every aspect of curriculum. The DTSOI represents the first school in Arkansas to hold the distinction of holding both school of innovation status as well as being a public, district- conversion …

The Impact Of A Positive Environment And Shared Leadership To Empower Collegial School Culture, Ben Pretz

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to develop an empowered collegial school culture to systemically improve the function of the academic institution through the impact of a positive environment and shared leadership. When compared to the other middle schools in the district, Eagle Middle School had the lowest math achievement growth index during the 2014-2015 school year. The discrepancy in math achievement is one element that has created a culture problem for the building. Additionally, the building has a reputation of poor customer service and not serving the community effectively. Because of the poor culture the staff had a lack …

Presidential Fundraising: A Multiple Case Study Of Rural Serving Oklahoma Community Colleges, Jason Daniel Falkner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Community college presidents serving rural populations in the state of Oklahoma have been forced to take on new responsibilities related to institutional fundraising due to multiple economic challenges including continued budgetary shortfalls and limited resource allocation. Review of the academic literature addressing this subject exposed a wide variety of rationales associated with this leadership shift, as well as successful presidential approaches to fundraising in modern higher education. This qualitative study of rural community college presidents in Oklahoma examined the rationale for expanded presidential roles in fundraising, while outlining a number of other essential roles, characteristics, professional backgrounds, and stressors that …

The Perception Of The Freshman Transition: Taking A Closer Look At The Freshman Academy, Frankie Jo Lizar

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine teacher, student, and parent perceptions of the high school transition program within a Freshman Academy at one Midwest high school using a mixed-methods approach with a convergent design. Interviews were done with teachers that teach primarily freshman students, and perception surveys were used with teachers, students, and parents to answer the following research questions:

a) How do freshman teachers believe the Freshman Academy interventions influence students’ successful transition into high school?

b) What are staff’s perceptions of the Freshman Academy in preparing students for success in high school?

c) What are students’ …

Gender Gaps In Math Performance, Perceived Mathematical Ability And College Stem Education: The Role Of Parental Occupation, Lina Anaya, Frank P. Stafford, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Employment opportunities in occupations related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, the so-called STEM fields, are predicted to continue growing through time. In addition, STEM occupations also enjoy higher wages on average. Despite these advantages, women remain under-represented in STEM college degree completion and occupations. Encouraging women into the STEM fields has become an important policy concern. We use longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to study gender differences in math achievement and self-perceived math ability and how they may differ by parental occupation type, specifically science related versus non-science related parental occupations. We then study their …

Does Private Islamic Schooling Promote Terrorism? An Analysis Of The Educational Background Of Successful American Homegrown Terrorists, M. Danish Shakeel, Patrick Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Some commentators argue that private religious schools are less likely to inculcate the attributes of good citizenship than traditional public schools, specifically proposing that private Islamic schools are relatively more likely to produce individuals sympathetic to terrorism. This study offers a preliminary examination of the question by studying the educational backgrounds of Western educated terrorists. While data are limited, in accord with prior work findings indicate the vast majority of both Islamic and reactionary terrorists attended traditional public schools and had no religious education; hence findings suggest that early religious training and identification may actually encourage prosocial behavior.

Alternative Measures Of Non-Cognitive Skills And Their Effect On Retirement Preparation And Financial Capability, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Social science, more than ever, is drawing upon the insights of personality psychology. Though researchers now know that non-cognitive skills and personality traits, such as conscientiousness, grit, self-control, or a growth mindset could be important for life outcomes, they struggle to find reliable measures of these skills. Self-reports are often used for analysis but these measures have been found to be affected by important biases. We study the validity of innovative more robust measures of non-cognitive skills based on performance tasks. Our first proposed measure is an adaptation, for the adult population, of the Academic Diligence Task (ADT) developed and …

Silencing The Seventh Trumpet: Analyzing The Effect Of Private Schooling On Voting Behavior, Ian Kingsbury

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The United States has one of the lowest election turnout rates in the developed world. Consequently, social scientists are perpetually seeking to expand upon their knowledge of what factors are associated with voting, or the lack thereof. Commonly identified factors including age, income, educational attainment and race have been studied extensively. However, there is one plausible factor associated with voting that might be underappreciated: the effect of private schooling. The limited literature that exists on the topic suggests that private schools, the majority of them Catholic, have a positive effect on civic outcomes, including voter participation. In using a rich, …

Does Private Schooling Improve International Test Scores? Evidence From A Natural Experiment, Corey A. Deangelis

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

I estimate the effect of private schooling on Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores of 62 countries across the globe from 2000 to 2012. I employ time and country-fixed effects regression models and also use the short-run demand for schooling within a country and year as an instrument for private share of schooling enrollment. I find evidence to suggest that increased private schooling leads to improved PISA scores around the world. Specifically, the model using control variables alongside country and year fixed effects finds that a one percentage point increase in the private share of schooling enrollment is associated …

Gendered Ambition: Career Advancement In Public Schools, Robert Maranto, Manuel P. Teodoro, Albert Cheng, Kristen Carroll

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

We explore the relationships between gender, career ambition, and the emergence of executive leadership. In Bureaucratic Ambition, Teodoro (2011) shows that public administration career systems shape bureaucrats’ ambitions, political behavior, and management strategies. But career systems are not neutral conduits of talent: administrators are more likely to pursue advancement when career systems favor them. This research proposes that women and men respond to gendered public career systems. Using national and state-level data on public school managers, we find marked gender disparities in the career paths that lead educators from the classroom to the superintendent post. Specifically, we find that female …

Does Regulation Induce Homogenization? An Analysis Of Three Voucher Programs In The United States, Corey A. Deangelis, Lindsey Burke

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

We employ school and year fixed-effects regression to determine the effect of voucher programs on the supply of private schools. In particular, we examine individual private schools in Washington, D.C., Indiana, and Louisiana as they transition into voucher program environments. We leverage the Private School Universe Survey to examine how schools self-identify before and after switching into voucher environments. We find that upon switching into school voucher programs, private schools in more heavily regulated programs are more likely to identify as less specialized than they were prior to entering the program, and that those schools in more lightly regulated environments …

The Play’S The Thing: Experimentally Examining The Social And Cognitive Effects Of School Field Trips To Live Theater Performances, Jay P. Greene, Heidi Holmes Erickson, Angela R. Watson, Molly I. Beck

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Field trips to see theater performances are a long-standing educational practice, however, there is little systematic evidence demonstrating educational benefits. This article describes the results of five random assignment experiments spanning two years where school groups were assigned by lottery to attend a live theater performance, or for some groups, watch a movie-version of the same story. We find significant educational benefits from seeing live theater, including higher levels of tolerance, social perspective taking, and stronger command of the plot and vocabulary of those plays. Students randomly assigned to watch a movie did not experience these benefits. Our findings also …

Factors Used To Determine The Teaching Load For Chairs In Public Community Colleges, Mandel G. Samuels

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the complexities of the departmental chair continued to increase, so did the importance of having a process to use to fairly assign the teaching load for departmental chairs. In 1982 Carolyn Branch conducted a survey to identify the factors that were being used. She received input from the chief academic officers that a process, procedure or formula was needed (Branch, 1982). The factors identified in Branch’s research did not lead to the development of a process for chief academic officers to use.

There has been no published research on this topic since Branch’s research in 1982. Therefore, I decided …

Curricular Analysis Of The University Of Arkansas Composition I Pilot Course: Engl 1013, Community Ethnography, Morgan Lindsay Scholz

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes a new first-year writing course that is under consideration for implementation as the standard Composition I course at the University of Arkansas. The course utilizes an ethnographic approach to teaching critical writing skills to students. This thesis presents evaluation through a metacognitive lens and explores the course through a case study approach. This thesis also examines the expectations and concluding reflections of three stakeholder groups: students, instructors, and administrators.

Evaluating The Policies That Lead To Stem Educational Attainment At The University Of Arkansas For Transfer Students, Bryan Hill

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The US has a critical need to produce more STEM graduates and that need is exponentially more critical in Arkansas. Arkansas currently ranks last in the percent of STEM degrees conferred compared to overall degrees awarded. Students intending to pursue a STEM four-year college degree who start at a two-year college are significantly less likely to succeed in earning that degree. Arkansas passed Acts 672 and 182 aimed at strengthening the success of students who transfer from two-year colleges into four-year institutions. This study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the Acts by determining if the University of Arkansas (UA) …

The Wisconsin Role In The School Choice Movement, John F. Witte, Patrick J. Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson led a Midwestern policy revolution in the late 1980s and early 1990s centered on providing parents with more school choices. Since those early years, school choice in the forms of private school vouchers, public charter schools, and public school open enrollment have spread across almost all of the country. Longitudinal evaluations of the effects of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), the voucher program initiated by Governor Thompson, indicate that student achievement outcomes were not consistently affected by vouchers but other vital student outcomes, including educational attainment, civic values, criminal proclivities as well as parent and …

Factors Contributing To The Problem Of Student Absenteeism In A Rural School, Angela Denean Durborow

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Student attendance would seem to be a vital link in measuring student success in school. If students are not in school, they miss instruction from the teacher. Without instruction it seems incredibly difficult to complete the work needed to pass classes and be successful in school. The research explored the problem of practice of student absenteeism in a rural school. The study was conducted using mixed methods research methodology, specifically a sequential mixed methods research design. The research questions were as follows: (1) What explicit or implicit messages are parents and the school sending about school attendance? (2) What is …

Characteristics And Behaviors Of School Board Members In "Grade A" Arkansas Public School Districts, Bridget Lynn Polk

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to describe characteristics and behaviors of school board members in Arkansas school districts where 50% or more of their campuses earned a letter grade of “A” on the 2014 Arkansas School Performance Report (Arkansas Department of Education [ADE], 2015). This purpose was achieved through analysis of artifacts from selected school districts including: achievement patterns; board minutes; and board member professional development records. A web-based survey of school board members was also utilized to gather demographic and background information. Finally, personal interviews were completed with a small group of board members to collect …

Utilizing The Nsse To Examine Behavior And Characteristic Differences Between First-Year Students Who Persisted With First-Year Students Who Did Not Persist, Alice Ruth Griffin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the differences between first-year students who persisted with first-year students who did not persist to the second year at a mid-size, doctorate-granting, public, research university in the mid-south. Specifically, the study utilized the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) to compare the level of student-faculty interaction, experiences with the campus environment, and engagement in collaborative learning. Additionally, the study examined whether the differences in the three student engagement behaviors varied by gender, race/ethnicity, and first-generation college student status. Three theoretical frameworks were used as the foundation for the study including Tinto’s model of institutional action, Astin’s theory …

Understanding A Vicious Cycle: Do Out-Of-School Suspensions Impact Student Test Scores?, Kaitlin P. Anderson, Gary W. Ritter, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

A vast body of research has proven the correlation between exclusionary discipline (out-of-school suspensions and expulsions) and student outcomes such as lower test scores, dropout, grade retention, and involvement in the juvenile justice system, but there is no consensus on the causal impacts of exclusionary discipline. This study uses six years of de-identified demographic, achievement, and disciplinary data from all K-12 public schools in Arkansas to estimate the causal relationship. We conduct dynamic panel data models incorporating student fixed effects using Anderson-Hsiao (1981) estimation. We find, counter-intuitively, a null to positive impact of out-of-school suspensions on test scores. Therefore, while …

Examining The Impacts Of Middle School Disciplinary Policies On 9th Grade Retention, Elise Swanson, Heidi Holmes Erickson, Gary W. Ritter

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

In this paper we estimate the impact of exclusionary discipline given in 8th grade on the probability of 9th grade retention. We use a rich seven year, student level, panel dataset from Arkansas. We use a novel approach by limiting our sample to students who switch schools between 8th and 9th grade. This movement gives each student a fresh start, and removes the potential confound of a student’s reputation as a “problem student” that could influence teachers to be harsher on students who already have a disciplinary record. We find that students who receive exclusionary discipline in 8th grade are …

Evaluating School Vouchers: Evidence From A Within-Study Comparison, Kaitlin P. Anderson, Patrick J. Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) are the “gold-standard” for estimating causal impacts of educational programs. Students subject to lotteries, however, often are not representative of the broader population of students experiencing the educational treatment. With few exceptions, researchers are not able to determine how much selection bias exists when various quasi-experimental approaches are used in place of experimental ones within a school choice context. We are left wondering about the magnitude of the internal-for-external validity tradeoff that education researchers often face. This study assesses the extent to which methods such as propensity score matching or observational models with control variables can …

Do School Discipline Policies Treat Students Fairly? A Second Look At School Discipline Rate Disparities, Kaitlin Anderson, Gary W. Ritter

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Much work has documented that African-American students are more likely to receive expulsions and suspensions than their white peers. These disparities are troubling, but researchers and policymakers need more information to fully understand this issue. We use three years of student level discipline data for an entire state to assess whether non-white students are receiving different disciplinary consequences from their white peers in the same schools, for similar infractions and with similar behavioral history. We find that Black students received more severe (longer) punishments than their White peers in the state for the same types of infractions. These differences are …

Is Pre-Kindergarten An Educational Panacea? A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Scaled-Up Pre-Kindergarten In The United States, Corey A. Deangelis, Heidi Holmes Erickson, Gary W. Ritter

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

We synthesize the existing research and compute meta-analytic averages for the effects of scaled-up, publicly funded pre-kindergarten (pre-K) programs on student pre-kindergarten achievement in math and reading. Other systematic reviews of pre-K programs have focused on the effects for specific groups of students from various types of pre-K programs. We add to the literature by focusing on scaled-up pre-K often provided at the state level, which is of growing policy interest. Scaled-up programs are large state or district run programs that are available to a large portion of children before they enter kindergarten. We limit our analysis to state and …

More Graduates, Less Criminals? The Economic Impacts Of The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, Will Flanders, Corey A. Deangelis

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Although an abundance of research indicates that private schooling can benefit individual children through higher test scores, the effects on society are less clear. We monetize and forecast the social impacts of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) in the United States. We use existing literature on the impacts of the MPCP on criminal activity and graduation rates. Between 2016 and 2035, students who use a voucher in the MPCP will generate additional economic benefits of $473 million associated with higher graduation rates, and $26 million associated with fewer felonies and misdemeanors, relative to their traditional public school peers.

Does Choice Matter For School Choice? An Instrumental Variables Analysis Of The Effect Of Choice On Parental Satisfaction In Charter Schools, Corey A. Deangelis

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

I employ ordered probit regression, and a new instrumental variable, to compare the fall 2015 parental satisfaction survey results of open-enrollment charters to district-conversion charters. The results indicate that choice status in Arkansas charter schools is significantly beneficial to parental-satisfaction. In particular, after controlling for student and parent-level characteristics, parents with children in open-enrollment charters had between a 17-percentage point and 32-percentage point higher likelihood of grading their current school as an A or responding as Highly Satisfied in six of the quality categories: Overall, Teacher, Discipline, Learning, Safety and Parental-Involvement. Four of the relationships remain large and statistically-significant in …

State And District Fiscal Effects Of A Universal Education Savings Account Program In Arkansas, Julie R. Trivitt, Corey A. Deangelis

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Legislators in Arkansas have proposed a bill to increase educational choice through an Education Savings Account (ESA) program available to every child across the state. While many studies on the financial impact of existing ESA, voucher, and scholarship programs in the United States have found overall benefits to the state and individual districts, it may not be the case for a universally-accessible ESA since most existing programs are targeted to students based on need. A universal ESA would make ESAs available to all K-12 students in the state, so the fiscal impact is expected to be less beneficial than a …

Who Is More Free? A Comparison Of The Decision-Making Of Private And Public School Principals, M. Danish Shakeel, Corey A. Deangelis

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

While an abundance of school choice literature focuses on student achievement outcomes, little has been done to determine the mechanisms involved in producing such outcomes. We present a comparative analysis of private and public school principals using data from the School and Staffing Survey (SASS) 2011-2012. We add to the literature by examining the differences in private and public school principals’ abilities to influence important decisions at their schools. We conclude that private schooling may have a systematic advantage over public schooling since private school leadership exhibits more autonomy in influencing relevant decisions.