Education Commons^™

California Community Colleges Child Development Laboratory Schools, Shari Yates

Dissertations

Community colleges in California are the primary source for preparing the early childhood care and education (ECE) workforce. The California child development lab school mission is to prepare ECE practitioners, provide a laboratory where college students can study and research child development/education, and offer a service to children and families. There are many benefits that are derived from laboratory schools but many community college lab schools have been reduced and/or closed over the past three years. The purposes of this Delphi study were (a) to examine the most pressing issues, problems and barriers facing California community colleges child development labs …

Comparing Mississippi's Public University Graduation Rates For Community College Completers And Non-Completers, Andrew Clark Dale

Dissertations

This study is based on the notion that in Mississippi, a large number of Mississippi community college academic students transfer to 4-year universities in-state, as is the case in Alabama (Sacksteder LaClair, 2010). Mississippi community colleges have had a hard time tracking students who leave the institution without graduating. This study sought to document the most accurate numbers in community college completers and discover how many of Mississippi’s community college students are successful at the university level. Data were collected on former community college students at five of the state’s eight public four-year universities. The study revealed that 82% of …

Making Meaning Of The Reel: The Media's Portrayal Of Community Colleges, Jena Lee Hawk

Dissertations

Due to its seemingly unclear and ambiguous mission, the community college has somewhat of a stigma attached to it as a four-year institution defines the American college experience (LaPaglia, 1994). Although only a few studies concerning media portrayals of community college students have been published within the last twenty years, the existing studies (Bourke, Major, & Harris, 2009; LaPaglia, 1994; Tucciarone, 2007) have failed to address if the media’s portrayal of community colleges influences students’ decisions or actions with regard to enrolling in a two-year institution. Using the theoretical framework of critical media literacy, the researcher will examine if media …

A Phenomenological Study Of University Faculty Experiences With Disruptive Undergraduate Students In A Face-To-Face Classroom Or Laboratory Setting, Anne Marie Gillespie

Dissertations

Behavioral review teams on university campuses have become the standard since the shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University. An institutional assumption is that faculty members will make referrals to these specialized teams when encountering disruptive students within their classrooms. Unknown is what actions faculty members actually take when faced with disruptive students in the classroom. This phenomenological study captures the experiences of faculty members with disruptive undergraduate students in face-to-face university classroom or laboratories.

All of the participants in the study described experiences with disruptive undergraduate students. Three female and three male faculty members, split evenly between tenured/tenure …

The Experiences Of Latina/O Executives In Higher Education, Leonard A. Savala Iii

Dissertations

This study will examine the experiences of Latina/o executives (President, Chancellor, Chief of Staff, Executive Vice President, Chief Academic Officer (CAO)/Provost, Central Senior Academic Affairs Officer, Dean of Academic College, Senior Administrative Officer, Senior External Affairs Officer and Chief Enrollment Management Officer, or any administrator with Vice President in their title) in higher education. Throughout the United States there are very few Latina/o executives at either community colleges or four-year universities. Of those Latina/o executives, most serve at community colleges instead of four-year universities. Those Latinos who have served in executive positions have acquired a wealth of knowledge through their …

The Scholarship Of Teaching At Community Colleges, Patrice Arleanor Williams

Dissertations

This dissertation addresses engagement in the scholarship of teaching (SoT) at the community college level. A basic overview of the origin of the concept, a discussion of some of the key publications in the body of literature on the topic, and the details and results of a study on the topic—including suggestions for further research—are provided here.

The study involved full-time community college faculty members, representing institutions throughout the United States. Thirty-nine participants completed a 53-item questionnaire developed by the researcher. The goal of the study was to determine if a relationship existed between engagement in SoT and teaching satisfaction …

Race, Gender, And Faculty Advancement At American Colleges And Universities, James Sharell Bridgeforth

Dissertations

Women and people of color are underrepresented in the American professoriate; although the presence of female faculty and professors of color is beneficial to the academy on various levels, these groups often face many barriers and challenges throughout the promotion and tenure process. This study was designed to examine whether race, gender, or a combination of race and gender made a statistically significant difference in reported opportunities for mentorship, faculty socialization, and scholarship in regard to faculty advancement in the academy. Data were collected from 650 tenured and tenure-track faculty through an online questionnaire. The data analysis revealed that women …

A Qualitative Study Of African American Female Administrators In The Academy: Identification Of Characteristics That Contribute To Their Advancement To Senior Level Positions Of Authority, Mary Louise Alexander-Lee

Dissertations

The qualitative study explored the (a) self-identity and individual experiences of five African American female higher education administrators, (b) educational and background preparedness of each African American female administrator, (c) individual support mechanisms of each African American female administrator, (i.e., mentoring, community and family support), and (d) whether or not religion, soul, and spirituality played a role in their advancement within the ranks of higher education administration. The study included an overview of the history and preparedness of African American female higher education administrators and the growth and significance of changes during the last few decades relative to their advancement …

A Phenomenological Study Into How Students Experience And Understand The University Presidency, Kahler B. Schuemann

Dissertations

Little is known about how college students experience and understand the university presidency. Students are important consumers of the academic experience and by affiliation are constituents of organizational leadership. The social distance between students and university presidents continues to narrow. To address the void in scholarly literature, my study explored how students experience and understand the university presidency.

My investigation utilized phenomenological methodology to form descriptive themes. I interviewed 10 college students who self-identified as being involved with extracurricular activities and having, at minimum, occasional interaction with their president. Participants were selected from two small, public, Midwestern universities where their …

A Structural Model Of Leadership Self-Efficacy For Asian American Students: Examining Influences Of Collective Racial Esteem And Resilience, Corinne Maekawa Kodama

Dissertations

This study investigated the relationship between racial identity, using the constructs of collective racial esteem (CRE), and resilience on LSE for a diverse sample of 2,223 Asian American college students, using data from the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership, a national survey of college outcomes. Structural equation modeling was used to explore the relationship between CRE and Resilience, as well as Non-Discriminatory Climate and Identity-based Experiences, on LSE. The model was tested for invariance for gender as well as for five Asian American ethnic groups (Chinese, Indian/Pakistani, Korean, Filipino, and Vietnamese).

Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that the 4-item CRE subscales were …

Reporting Methods And Analyses In Higher Education Research: Hierarchical Linear And Ols Regression Models, Kimberly Quandt Fath

Dissertations

This study examined the reporting practices used by higher education scholars to communicate the methods and analyses of studies using hierarchical linear and OLS regression models. The study consisted of three parts: (a) a citation analysis of sources associated with methods of hierarchical linear models, (b) a content analysis of reporting practices associated with studies that used hierarchical linear models, and (c) a content analysis of the arguments and corrections used by scholars who have used OLS regression techniques on nested data. When possible, results were compared to similar research. The data for this research was drawn from Journal of …

Examining Latino A First-Generation College Students' Educational Resilience At A Jesuit Post-Secondary Institution, Diana Chavez

Dissertations

This qualitative study focused on exploring and understanding Latino/a first-generation college students' process for drawing or enabling educational resilience to persist and achieve their postsecondary education degree. Using Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Paradigm as the framework, the study explored how interactions between individuals and their environments influenced their persistence outcomes. Using purposeful sampling, 19 juniors and seniors attending a Midwest, private, religiously-affiliated university were selected to participate. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted during one-on-one meetings.

Findings indicated that Latino first-generation college students drew on or were enabled by internal (e.g., first-generation status, self-identified academic challenges, sense of purpose) and external resources (e.g., …

The Backgrounds And Outcomes Of Allopathic Medical School Applicants: Exploring Stratification And Inequality, Sunshine Nakae

Dissertations

A career in medicine remains one of the most rigorous and arduous journeys in higher education. The time and cost to train coupled with the academic and extracurricular requirements have resulted in challenges in diversifying the profession. This study utilizes an HLM and HGLM to model the influences of individual and institutional predictors on acceptance to medical school. Full descriptive analysis of individual and institutional predictors are also included.

Master's Students' Experiences In A Graduate Preparation Program: Multicultural Competency And Social Justice Curriculum, Kristin I. Mccann

Dissertations

This dissertation study focused on master's students experiences with multicultural competency curriculum in graduate preparation programs (GPPs) and contributes to gaps in the extant literature on multicultural issues in higher education. The two overarching research questions for the study considered how, if at all, students' understanding of core concepts of the required course (privilege, oppression, and social justice) changed over time as evidenced by a primary curricular component called the photo elicitation project. Educators' experiences were also addressed, per their impact on the context in which students learned. This study employed a qualitative approach and, in line with the study's …

Paramedic Professional And Leadership Development Using High-Fidelity Healthcare Simulation And Audiovisual Feedback : One Michigan Community College Case Study, Chester L. Dalski

Dissertations

Problem: Paramedic educators have a short time frame (840 didactic/laboratory plus 500 clinical/internship hours) and limited resources to prepare their students to have competent clinical skills, safe medical practice, and appropriate leadership and teamwork skills. New learning approaches including simulation, audiovisual feedback, and structured debriefing have been suggested as a way to meet this challenge within paramedic education. While some individual components have been studied, no study has examined these three technologies together in paramedic training programs. The overarching research question that guided this study was: What and how do paramedic students learn in a high-fidelity healthcare simulation program that …