Education Commons^™

Undergraduate Student Satisfaction: Investigating The Measurement, Dimensionality, And Nature Of The Construct Using The Rasch Model, Paul Stephens

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Of the many potential and espoused outcomes of higher education, it was satisfaction that rose to prominence for Alexander Astin, stating, “it is difficult to argue that student satisfaction can be legitimately subordinated to any other education outcome” (1993, p. 273). This high endorsement of the construct of satisfaction is backed by a plethora of arguments of its importance for college and university decision makers. A thorough and accurate rendering of student satisfaction measurement is requisite.

To calculate student satisfaction as the magnitude of item endorsement leaves a measure that is sample specific. The goal of a universal and unidimensional …

Exploring Faculty Adoption And Utilization Of Blackboard At A Community College In The Kentucky Community And Technical College System, Brent A. Eldridge

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

The study explored the faculty adoption and use of a Blackboard at a community college in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. A cross-sectional survey design was constructed through the lens of Rogers’s Perceived Attributes of Innovations and Chickering and Ehrman’s Implementing Seven Principles: Technology as a Lever to investigate perceptions and opinions on faculty members’ use of Blackboard in their courses. The survey was piloted, modified and deployed to a population of 932 central Kentucky community college faculty who were recruited to participate in the online survey. Descriptive demographic items (gender, age, highest degree attained, years of teaching …

The Impact Of Institutional Complexity On The Implementation Of The English-Medium Instruction (Emi) Reform Concept In Three Northern European Universities, Becky Unites

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

This study examines university English-medium Instruction (EMI) reform implementation approaches from a comparative organizational perspective. Over the last decade, the number of master’s degree programs instructed exclusively in English in non-Anglophone Europe increased dramatically. Europe is an interesting case as it actively promotes multilingual learning; however, many European policies over the last twenty years accelerated the rise of monolingual EMI reforms, especially at the graduate-level. The purpose of this exploratory study is to contribute to our understanding of how widespread EMI reforms impact structures and behaviors at the organizational level in European universities in ways that respond to the organization’s …

The Law Comes To Campus: The Evolution And Current Role Of The Office Of The General Counsel On College And University Campuses, Jason A. Block

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Much has been written in the literature of higher education on the history and current role of presidents, provosts, and deans. However, higher education scholars have, for the most part ignored the role of institutional in-house attorneys on college and university campuses. Those who have written on the subject of institutional counsel have proffered the idea that in-house general counsel offices were established as a result of the increased regulation of higher education by state and federal governments, and litigation resulting from the faculty and student rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s. This project seeks to provide a detailed …

Internationalization, English Medium Programs, And The International Graduate Student Experience In Japan: A Case Study, Kristen N. Wallitsch

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

This research is a case study on the lived experience of international graduate students in the Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies (GSAPS) at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Using cultural globalization and internationalization as a lens, this research positions international graduate students as local actors in an abroad community and addresses, 1) how and why students decided on an English Medium degree in Japan, and 2) the lived academic and social experiences of this particular group of students while in Japan. In-depth interviews with 17 degree seeking international graduate students explore graduate students’ past educational and professional experiences and …

Social Learning In The Co-Curriculum: Exploring Group Peer Tutoring In College, James D. Breslin

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

In a time of upheaval in American higher education, student retention continues to be a chief concern on most campuses. Peer tutoring, like other peer-based programming, is asked to serve multiple functions as a low-cost, high-impact model. This study explored the cultures of these semi-structured, co-curricular, academic-social spaces and sought to understand what happens in a group peer tutoring context that impacts students.

Data was generated with students on two campuses during the spring 2014 semester using a two-phase qualitative approach. Data generating activities included observation of students and peer tutors in the tutoring spaces on each campus. The second …

Sex And Gender Identity: A New Perspective For College Student Development, Steven Ray Wise

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

One of the goals of college student development professionals is to help undergraduate students develop a meaningful sense of personal identity. Early in the history of the profession, practitioners borrowed freely from related fields such as sociology and psychology to guide their practice, but beginning around the 1960s, scholars began in earnest to develop their own unique body of literature. In this work I examine the development of that scholarly work as it relates to identity development—specifically the evolution of understanding around the issues of sex and gender identity development.

Beginning with William Perry, whose work has impacted so many …