Education Commons^™

Factors That Facilitate Or Inhibit Interest Of Domestic Students In The Engineering Phd: A Mixed Methods Study, Michelle C. Howell Smith

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Given the increasing complexity of technology in our society, the United States has a growing demand for a more highly educated technical workforce. Unfortunately, the proportion of United States citizens earning a PhD in engineering has been declining and there is concern about meeting the economic, national security and quality of life needs of our country.

This mixed methods sequential exploratory instrument design study identified factors that facilitate or inhibit interest in engineering PhD programs among domestic engineering undergraduate students in the United States. This study developed a testable theory for how domestic students become interested in engineering PhD programs …

Implicit Beliefs About Writing: A Task-Specific Study Of Implicit Beliefs, Kyle R. Perry

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study investigated students’ implicit beliefs about a writing task. Implicit beliefs are defined as the unconscious cognitive constructs that influence motivation, behavior, and affect (Bruning, Dempsey, Kauffman, & Zumbrunn, 2011). Studies regarding implicit beliefs are applied to many constructs, ranging in specificity from domain-general beliefs such as epistemological beliefs (Schommer, 1990) to domain-specific beliefs such as reading (Schraw & Bruning, 1999). In the present study, implicit beliefs about a specific writing task are compared to implicit beliefs about intelligence, demographic information, and participants’ educational background experiences. Research is reviewed pertaining to a variety of studies of implicit beliefs. One …

A Theatre-Based Youth Development Program: Impact On Belonging, Developmental Assets, And Risky Behaviors, Denise A. Craig

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study investigates if Nebraska Improvisational Theatre (Improv) increases a sense of belonging, positive identity, positive values, and decreases risky behaviors in participating youth. Improv is a positive youth development program focusing on health promotion through theatre. Training involves building teamwork skills, theatre skills, and self-esteem building. This work adds to research on youth development programs. It also expands on previous qualitative research on the Improv program (Knox, 1998.)

Youth were surveyed before Improv training, one week later, and six months later. Data is analyzed from three different trainings in 2002 with 50 participants completing all surveys. Participants are ages …

Examining The Efficacy Of Conjoint Behavioral Consultation For Health Behaviors Of Children With Obesity, Carrie Alisha Semke

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

An estimated 17.1% of children and adolescents ages 2-19 are obese (Ogden et al., 2006). Obesity is linked to adverse physical, psychosocial, and academic consequences for children. Treatments that collaboratively involve individuals in the child’s microsystems (e.g., home, school) result in improved health outcomes. Few studies have mutually involved both parents and school personnel in treatments. Conjoint Behavioral Consultation (CBC; Sheridan & Kratochwill, 2008) is an indirect service-delivery model that joins microsystems to address child concerns, and provides a model for delivering comprehensive treatments to improve the health behaviors of children with obesity. No previous studies have investigated CBC for …

Determining The Longitudinal Effects Of Acculturation Orientation On Elementary-Aged Spanish-Speaking English Language Learner Students' Reading Progress, Courtney M. Leclair

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the reading progress of Spanish-speaking English Language Learner students differed depending on their acculturation orientation. Participants included 85 students in 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade in two school districts in the rural Midwest. All participants were Latino and qualified as “English Language Learner” students. Measures included the Brief Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican-Americans II (B-ARSMA-II), the easyCBM Passage Reading Fluency (PRF) scale, and an author-created Parent Demographic Form. In addition, the participants’ teacher’s adherence to the core reading program (Reading Mastery) was monitored by staff from the National Institute …

An Investigation Of The Potential Use Of Advanced Placement Examination Scores In The College Admission Of Transfer Students, Andrew Callahan Dwyer

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Faced with making college admission decisions on an increasingly large number of applicants, many higher education institutions have begun to consider using additional information to assist with those decisions. Unlike college admissions practices for the population of first-time freshmen, however, admission practices for the population of transfer students have been largely ignored in the literature. There is evidence that the transfer student population is growing and will likely continue to grow for the foreseeable future, which emphasizes the need for colleges and universities to find additional suitable information to use in transfer student admission. Using data from the University of …

The Effects Of Simplifying Assumptions In Power Analysis, Kevin A. Kupzyk

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In experimental research, planning studies that have sufficient probability of detecting important effects is critical. Carrying out an experiment with an inadequate sample size may result in the inability to observe the effect of interest, wasting the resources spent on an experiment. Collecting more participants than is necessary may unnecessarily put too many participants at risk and potentially detect an effect size that is not clinically meaningful. Therefore, obtaining the most accurate estimates of necessary sample size prior to applying for research funding and carrying out experiments is of utmost importance.

Educational studies often select whole classrooms for participation. When …

Value Added By Mixed Methods Research: A Multiphase Mixed Methods Design, Courtney Haines

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The overall purpose of this study was to examine the perceived value of mixed methods research for graduate students at a Midwestern university. A multiphase mixed methods design was used to measure graduate students perceptions of the value of a study’s methodology. The study consisted of three phases. Phase I was conducted in order to construct passages and the goal of Phase II was to create a survey. These two phases were then combined to create Phase III. Part one of Phase III was an experiment that looked at the effect of a study’s methodology on the value of the …

Peer Relationships: Links Between Victimization, Participation, Depressive Symptoms And Achievement In The Classroom, Tiffany R. Murray Sydzyik

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study examined the relationship between forms of victimization on participation, achievement, and depressive symptoms. Participation was hypothesized to mediate the link between victimization and achievement and internalizing symptoms such as depression. Two forms of victimization (overt and relational) were hypothesized to predict participation. Participation was also hypothesized to predict achievement and depression. Conducting a model estimation using structural equations modeling (SEM) showed that overt victimization had a significant negative relationship with participation, which means that for example, as overt victimization rates were higher, participation tended to be lower. These results also indicated that participation and achievement had a significant …

Medical Students' Attitudes Toward The Medical College Admission Test, Cassie J. Connealy

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The following study analyzed the attitudes held by pre-clinical medical students about the Medical College Admission Test or MCAT. One hundred and eighty first-year and second-year medical students at a public Midwestern medical university participated in this study. Participants completed the “Medical Students Attitudes toward the Medical College Admission Test” survey during their morning lectures near the end of their spring semester. A composite scale score of the Likert items of the survey was computed and the proportion of students with attitudes ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree was calculated. For six of the twelve Likert items the largest …

An Investigation Of Interpersonal Disruptions And Secondary Traumatic Stress Among Mental Health Therapists, Rachael Ann Robinson-Keilig

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Mental health therapists who work with victims of trauma are often exposed to vivid descriptions of traumatic events and strong emotional expressions from their clients. Research within the last fifteen years has started to explore the impact of this indirect form of trauma exposure on therapists who treat trauma clients.

The purpose of this study was to explore the prevalence of interpersonal and sexual disruptions as symptoms of secondary traumatic stress/vicarious trauma among practicing mental health therapists, to understand how various therapist characteristics predict interpersonal and sexual disruptions, and to explore the role that gender and prior trauma history play …

Improving Irt Parameter Estimates With Small Sample Sizes: Evaluating The Efficacy Of A New Data Augmentation Technique, Brett P. Foley

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The 3PL model is a flexible and widely used tool in assessment. However, it suffers from limitations due to its need for large sample sizes. This study introduces and evaluates the efficacy of a new sample size augmentation technique called Duplicate, Erase, and Replace (DupER) Augmentation through a simulation study. Data are augmented using several variations of DupER Augmentation (based on different imputation methodologies, deletion rates, and duplication rates), analyzed in BILOG-MG 3, and results are compared to those obtained from analyzing the raw data. Additional manipulated variables include test length and sample size. Estimates are compared using seven different …

Nurturing Young Students' Writing Knowledge, Self-Regulation, Attitudes, And Self-Efficacy: The Effects Of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (Srsd), Sharon Zumbrunn

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of implementing the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model of instruction (Graham & Harris, 2005; Harris & Graham, 1996) on the writing skills and writing self-regulation, attitudes, self-efficacy, and knowledge of 6 first grade students. A multiple-baseline design across participants with multiple probes (Kazdin, 2010) was used to test the effectiveness of the SRSD instructional intervention. Each participant was taught an SRSD story writing strategy as well as self-regulation strategies. All students wrote stories in response to picture prompts during the baseline, instruction, independent performance, and maintenance phases. Stories were assessed …

Writing Motivation Of Students With Specific Language Impairments, Kyle Lee Brouwer

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study was designed to compare the writing motivation of students with specific language impairments with their non-disabled peers. Due to the cognitive and linguistic demands of the writing process, students with language impairments face unique difficulties during the writing process. It was hypothesized that students with specific language impairments will be more likely to report lower levels of perceived writing competence and be less autonomously motivated to write. Students in grades 3-5 in 11 schools (33 with specific language impairments, 242 non-disabled peers) completed self-report measures, designed from a Self-Determination Theory perspective, which measured the degree that students are …

Student Writing Performance: Identifying The Effects When Combining Planning And Revising Instructional Strategies, Amanda K. Schnee

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of the current study is to identify the impact of teaching students to revise their stories on writing production (Total Words Written; TWW), writing accuracy (Percent Correct Writing Sequences; %CWS), number of critical story elements included in stories, and quality of writing. Three third-grade and one fourth-grade student who were experiencing difficulties in the area of writing were involved in the study. The students were first taught to plan their stories using the evidence-based program, Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD), which has frequently been implemented to teach students to plan their stories. Students were then taught to revise their …

The Embodied Mind In Early Development: Sitting Postural Control And Visual Attention In Infants With Typical Development And Infants With Delays, Regina T. Harbourne

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

As infants learn to sit between the ages of 5 and 8 months, they undergo many changes in their bodies as well as in their minds, creating conditions for the emergence of skills that allow greater interaction with their environment. The present study focused on the interaction of developing postural control in sitting with cognition, exemplifying the concept of the embodied mind. Look time, or the time an infant looks at an object, served as a proxy for the construct of cognitive processing. Three experiments examined developmental changes in sitting postural control and looking. The first experiment examined archival data …

Exploring The Complexities Of Learning Motivation In Pre-Service Teacher Education Students: A Grounded Theory Approach, Kristin K. Grosskopf

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This qualitative, grounded-theory study investigated learning motivation differences among three achievement groupings of undergraduate students enrolled in the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Nine students participated in in-depth interviews that explored their reasons for pursuing their degree, their learning experiences in a university setting, their perceptions about meaningful learning experiences, and the nature of factors that both enhance and challenge their learning motivation. Participant responses conveyed strategies and conditions that were coded and analyzed, and a theoretical model was developed describing causal conditions that underlie students’ motivation to learn, phenomena that arose from those …

The Influence Of The Family Context And Intervention Implementation Integrity On Child Behavior During Conjoint Behavioral Consultation, Michelle Swanger-Gagne

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of the study was to determine the role of family context variables (i.e., parenting stress and positive parenting practices) as possible moderators and mediators of the relationship between conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC) and change in child problem behavior in the home setting. Another aim of the study was to evaluate the mediator roles of two dimensions of intervention implementation integrity (i.e., adherence to interventions and full engagement in the plan implementation phase) on parenting stress and change in child problem behavior for families involved in CBC. Participants were 203 parents, 81 teachers (81 classrooms), and 203 children who …

A Correlational Study On Parental Attachment And Moral Judgment Competence Of Millennial Generation College Students, Deidra Graves Stephens

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Theorists and observers have speculated that Millennial Generation college students may progress through cognitive-structural models differently than previous generations. These models, such as Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, require individuals to shift from accepting authoritarian views to making their own meaning of the world. Millennials are deferential to the role of parents in their lives, accepting authority, convention, and structure, and acquiescing to rules, order, and expectations. On the other hand, some have predicted that Millennials’ unique view of the world and their place within it may generate more advanced levels of cognitive development than previous generations.

This quantitative …