Education Commons^™

Mis-Specification Of Functional Forms In Growth Mixture Modeling: A Monte Carlo Simulation, Richa Ghevarghese

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Growth mixture modeling (GMM) is a methodological tool used to represent heterogeneity in longitudinal datasets through the identification of unobserved subgroups following qualitatively and quantitatively distinct trajectories in a population. These growth trajectories or functional forms are informed by the underlying developmental theory, are distinct to each subgroup, and form the core assumptions of the model. Therefore, the accuracy of the assumed functional forms of growth strongly influences substantive research and theories of growth. While there is evidence of mis-specified functional forms of growth in GMM literature, the weight of this violation has been largely overlooked. Current solutions to circumvent …

Engagement And Development Of Professional Skills Among Low-Income, High-Achieving Students: A Structural Equation Model, Nasser Alresaini

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation tested the effect of academic engagement and social engagement on developing soft professional skills for low-income, high-achieving students in higher education. Using the publicly available data of GMS scholarship, the analysis was consisted of EFA and SEM. The general effect model gave a general idea about the tested population, whereas the conditional model highlighted the groups' specific significance. Low-income, high-achieving students continued their academic and social engagement growth during their school years. Academic engagement positively enhanced students' soft professional skills for students who did not receive the GMS scholarship, students from educated and uneducated parents, Asian and Hispanic …

A Grounded Theory Inquiry Into The Pedagogical Socialization Of Graduate Students Within Graduate Quantitative Methods Courses, Amanda Kay Thomas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Quantitative methods are one of the most highly technical fields of study within social sciences graduate programs. Although classroom pedagogy is an important factor connected to student success within graduate quantitative methods courses little is known on the pedagogical socialization experiences of masters and doctoral students. The purpose of this grounded theory inquiry was to discover graduate students perspectives on their pedagogical socialization experiences and the norms, values and role expectations transmitted during the teaching and learning of quantitative methods. Narrative data was collected from in-depth interviews among a theoretical sample of 31 masters and doctoral students enrolled in introductory, …

Social Support Among Undergraduate Students: Measure Development And Validation, Heather M. Blizzard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Being born into circumstances of low-income, having a racial minority status, and/or non-college educated families dwindle the opportunities for many students to obtain a college degree (Cox, 2016; Engle & Tinto, 2008; Jenkins et al., 2013). While many institutions of higher education have diligently worked to develop programs geared towards attending the educational inequalities among diverse student populations, there is still a great need for programs centered on the inequalities surrounding social support (Cox, 2016; Ward et al., 2012; Soria & Stebleton, 2012).

The purpose of this study was to develop and assess a measure to examine perceived social support …

Surveying The Soul: Shaping Auto-Criticism With Reflective Arts-Based Inquiry To Assess A Female Doctoral Experience, Monica Fain Rezac

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an arts-based auto-criticism assessing the author's experience in her doctoral program. It is also perhaps the first dissertation elaborating on a method called auto-criticism, as derived from educational criticism and connoisseurship. The process of inquiry is rooted in arts-based methods of representation and theories of educational criticism and critical theory in the humanities. Philosophical approaches to artwork and the use of it in these methodologies was inspired by the independent arts practices of intuitive artists. The purpose of this project is for the author to develop, articulate, and create a sense of what auto-criticism entails in the …

Classification Of One-Year Student Persistence: A Machine Learning Approach, Ben Siebrase

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Multilayer perceptron neural networks, Gaussian naïve Bayes, and logistic regression classifiers were compared when used to make early predictions regarding one-year college student persistence. Two iterations of each model were built, utilizing a grid search process within 10-fold cross-validation in order to tune model parameters for optimal performance on the classification metrics F-Beta and F-1. The results of logistic regression, the historically favored approach in the domain, were compared to the alternative approaches of multilayer perceptron and naïve Bayes based primarily on FBeta and F-1 score performance on a hold-out dataset. A single logistic regression model was found to perform …