Education Commons^™

A Program Evaluation Of A Remediation Program For Underprepared College Students, Jane Neuenschwander

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This participant-oriented program evaluation study was prompted by the problem that a cohort remediation program for underprepared freshmen at a small, private university in Appalachia was implemented for 1 year and dropped without any review of the program's impact on retention. The purpose of this project study was to conduct a summative program evaluation that recorded perceptions from the cohort program's participants and to compare their retention rates with underprepared students' retention rates from the subsequent year's individualized remediation. The study was guided by Tinto's retention theory, which posits that academic and social integration is critical to retention. A Chi-square …

The Impact The Amount Of High School Physical Education Has On The Physical Activity Habits Of Traditional College Freshmen, Aaron Thompson

Faculty Scholarship – Exercise and Sports Science

Many states have reduced or eliminated high school physical education classes due to budget cuts and the passage of No Child Left Behind. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the number of years of physical education students received in high school and the traditional college freshmen’s current level of physical activities. The short form of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and additional demographic questions were used electronically to collect cross-sectional PA data from traditional college freshmen at a private Christian liberal arts university in the Midwest. After cleaning and processing the collected data, the …

Examining The Role Of Motivation In The Relationship Between Perceived Academic Stress And Coping Among Freshmen, Ying Dong

Theses and Dissertations

First-year college students commonly face academic stress that is negatively associated with academic achievement and persistence. It has been found that problem-focused coping (PFC) effectively decreases stress, but emotion-focused coping (EFC) exacerbates stressful situations in the long term (Carver & Scheier, 1994; Kim & Duda, 2003). Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) Transactional Model of Stress and Coping (TMSC) posits that cognitive appraisals determine the selection of stress coping. In the current study, two motivation indicators, causal attributions for academic stress and value of college education, were recognized as cognitive appraisals that were respectively placed into the TMSC to test their role …

Strategies For Teaching 21st Century Skills To Tomorrow's College Students, Ann Marie Smeraldi, Kenneth J. Burhanna, Joanna Mcnally, Jennifer Schwelik

Ann Marie Smeraldi

Today’s first year college students arrive on campus underprepared for the academic demands that await them. Despite the dedicated efforts of high school librarians, research continues to illustrate that students lack basic information literacy skills crucial to their academic success in higher education. In this session high school and academic librarians will explore this issue with participants to identify key deficits in students’ 21st Century Skills. The presenters will share their insights on college professors’ expectations and offer best practices for educating tomorrow’s college students. Presenters will provide ideas for lesson plans and assessment; actual college assignments will be shared.

Strategies For Teaching 21st Century Skills To Tomorrow's College Students, Ann Marie Smeraldi, Kenneth J. Burhanna, Joanna Mcnally, Jennifer Schwelik

Michael Schwartz Library Publications

Today’s first year college students arrive on campus underprepared for the academic demands that await them. Despite the dedicated efforts of high school librarians, research continues to illustrate that students lack basic information literacy skills crucial to their academic success in higher education. In this session high school and academic librarians will explore this issue with participants to identify key deficits in students’ 21st Century Skills.

The presenters will share their insights on college professors’ expectations and offer best practices for educating tomorrow’s college students. Presenters will provide ideas for lesson plans and assessment; actual college assignments will be shared.

Strategies For Teaching 21st Century Skills To Tomorrow's College Students, Ann Marie Smeraldi, Kenneth J. Burhanna, Joanna Mcnally, Jennifer Schwelik

Kenneth Burhanna

Today’s first year college students arrive on campus underprepared for the academic demands that await them. Despite the dedicated efforts of high school librarians, research continues to illustrate that students lack basic information literacy skills crucial to their academic success in higher education. In this session high school and academic librarians will explore this issue with participants to identify key deficits in students’ 21st Century Skills. The presenters will share their insights on college professors’ expectations and offer best practices for educating tomorrow’s college students. Presenters will provide ideas for lesson plans and assessment; actual college assignments will be shared.

Improving The Learning Approach Of College Freshmen And Future Teachers Through Curricular Intervention, Lynna Betty Shin

Theses and Dissertations

Students who exercise a deep approach to learning connect classroom content to real-life experiences. To help first-year students develop a deep approach to learning, Brigham Young University offers a program called Freshman Academy. Participants join a "learning community" based on their intended major. As part of this learning community, participants take recommended first-year courses together and engage in service-learning and problem-solving activities. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore changes in learning approach that followed participation in a Freshman Academy learning community for prospective elementary education majors. These changes were explored through a survey that asked students how …

The Transition From High School To College : A Single-Case Study, Margaret R. Hay

Dissertations

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to use quantitative and qualitative data to describe the transition recent high-school graduates made to a small, rural community college. Both the students’ academic preparation and their own perceptions about their preparedness for college were described.

Method. Data from the transcripts of high-school graduates were examined using Chi square, tests of independent means, and analyses of variance to test the relationship to placement in developmental classes. The data included senior year course selections, the number of units taken in math, English, and textbook-dependent courses, and grade point averages in math, English, and textbook-dependent …

Mathematics Placement Test: Helping Students Succeed, Norma Rueda, Carole Sokolowski

Mathematics Faculty Publications

A study was conducted at Merrimack College in Massachusetts to compare the grades of students who took the recommended course as determined by their mathematics placement exam score and those who did not follow this recommendation. The goal was to decide whether the mathematics placement exam used at Merrimack College was effective in placing students in the appropriate mathematics class. During five years, first-year students who took a mathematics course in the fall semester were categorized into four groups: those who took the recommended course, those who took an easier course than recommended, those who took a course more difficult …