Education Commons^™

An Evaluative Pilot Study Of An Online Facilitator Professional Development Program, Alana Elkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With a rapid increase in higher education online course offerings, many institutions are hiring part-time faculty to meet the demand of online learning. However, a lack of professional development in online course facilitation has proven to limit the effectiveness of facilitation and hinder the foundational quality standards the courses were built upon. An evaluative pilot study was conducted on a professional development framework provided to a group of online course facilitators that were hired to teach the course but did not participate in the online course developments. Since many course facilitators are not online faculty developers, they have limited knowledge …

Do I Belong? What Students Teach Us About Belonging To A New University, Jennifer Ann Scaia

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Foundational to this evaluation study, the participating institution aspired to improve its retention rate. Students’ perceived sense of belonging has been identified as an important variable related to student retention and persistence (Bean & Eaton, 2000; Strayhorn 2012; Strayhorn 2019; Tinto, 2017). For students to succeed beyond their first year in college, it is fundamentally important that they view themselves as valued members of the university community (Bean & Eaton, 2000; Bollen & Hoyle, 1990; Murphy, 2016).

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how undergraduate students, predicted as less likely to retain into their second year, described their …

Exploring How A University’S Veteran Services Office Supports Their Students’ Civilian Career Readiness And Transition, Sasha M. Vanterpool

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this explanatory case study was to learn how a designated veteran services office on a university campus supports student veterans preparing to transition into the civilian workforce after their college graduation. This study provided an in-depth understanding of the operations of a nationally recognized veteran services office by sharing the perspectives of the office staff as well as the experiences of the veteran students who have used the office. Qualitative research methods for data collection and analysis were incorporated through semi-structured interviews, observations, and thematic coding analysis guided by a constructivist paradigm and Schlossberg’s Transition Theory as …