Education Commons^™

Think, Collaborate, Decide, Teach: A Guide For Success, M. Adam Carswell, George Fabre, Stacie-Jo Howard, Jamez Williams

Student Articles

Through recent and documented observations, interviews, and assessments, it has been determined that many educational institutions are in need of intervention in regards to four specific areas, particularly as related to its school leadership team and instructional staff. Proper interventions are needed for institutions to reach their fullest potential and ultimately provide students with the most effective and engaging school experience possible. There are specific challenges related to the ability to effectively make sound decisions, particularly when encountering stressful circumstances that often exist within a complex school environment. This lack of effective decision-making has contributed to shortcomings in the way …

Broward Lps Foundation, Richard Louis, Richard Pulido, Kenisha Stevens

Student Articles

The Broward Louis-Pulido-Stevens (LPS) Foundation was founded in 2016 by Richard Louis, Richard Pulido, and Kenisha Stevens in Broward County, Florida. The foundation was established to assist families in Broward County, Florida with housing and employment needs as part of the rehabilitation journey. The rehabilitation journey can be the need to achieve completed housing status when there is a transition point in one’s housing status as well as achieve optimal employment status when one with a criminal justice history is seeking to fully reintegrate into mainstream society. The foundation serves as a funding source for coordinated entry housing providers in …

Critical Thinking And Decision Making Handbook, Jessica Kamerer, Tameka Russ

Student Articles

Critical thinkers who have good decision-making skills are essential to organizations who aspire to be forward thinkers and successful (Bednarz, 2013). When organizations ignore the importance of including critical thinkers as a part of the organization new ideas may not emerge, current processes may not be challenged, and changes may not occur. This results in organizations becoming stagnant, and having outcomes that stay the same (Bednarz, 2013).

There are many variables that occur because of ignoring the importance of critical thinking and decision-making skills. Stress and burnout can be a major contributing factor in an individual not being able think …

J.E.D. Academy: Where The Journey To Excellence Begins With Determination, Dominique Jackson, Elicel Similen, Joshua Wimbley

Student Articles

Critical Thinking is an essential skill required to be an effective leader. Baldoni (2010) educates that critical thinking has always been a treasured and necessary skill in the field of leadership. This essential skill of critical thinking is necessary at J.E.D. Academy because our administration, faculty, and staff work in the field of leadership, being that we are leaders for our students. In addition, every organization should aim to create a working culture where critical thinkers are the norm amongst the staff, because critical thinking assists in creating a constructive working environment filled problem-solvers, positive thinkers, and influential leaders. As …

Handbook For Success In Leadership, Elizabeth Barth-Thacker, Janet Marks, Bryan Thompson

Student Articles

Andrew Carnegie reportedly once said that he wanted to put on his gravestone, “Here lies a man who knew how to put into his service more able men than he was himself” (Carnegie & Covey, 2017). If we think of these words as how Andrew Carnegie feels about what made him a success and an effective leader, we must recognize that leadership characteristics are multi-faceted and require more than just one component. Nahavandi (2015) shared that the definition of leadership effectiveness should consider all the roles and functions a leader performs and the way that should be measured is on …

Qualitative Delphi Method: A Four Round Process With A Worked Example, Dia Sekayi, Arleen Kennedy

The Qualitative Report

The Delphi Method was originally designed to collect data from a panel of experts to aid in decision making in government settings. Delphi has been described as a qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approach. The anonymous collection of narrative group opinion coupled with the tightly structured nature of the process and quantitatively described results renders the approach difficult to situate in a methodological category. The purpose of this article is not to settle the debate. Rather, the aim is twofold: to present a modification of Delphi that is definitively qualitative, and to provide a worked example to demonstrate the proposed method.

Kites Flying: Chinese Overseas Kites Flying: Reflections Of Chinese Students In New Zealand On National Identity Students’ Reflections On National Identity, Xiudi Zhang

The Qualitative Report

The study described in this paper examined the national identity tension that often occurs between Chinese international students and Western host country members. Research questions guiding the study were: How does the experience of studying in New Zealand provide challenges for Chinese international identity, and how do Chinese students reflect their cognitions of national identity in everyday life. Case study was used as a method to collect data from 20 Chinese international students. Cross-national discussions of China from the participants’ life experiences reveal a complex, sometimes contradictory, relationship between the individual and state, which is deeply rooted in Chinese culture …

Principal’S Coalition Building And Personal Traits Brings Success To A Struggling School In Malaysia, Mohammad Noman, Rosna Awang Hashim, Sarimah Shaik-Abdullah

The Qualitative Report

This paper presents findings from a single site case study of a school in a rural part of Malaysia. Based on data collected through semi-structured interviews of the principal, teachers, students and parents, and observations, document scanning and field notes, the study attempts to identify the context under which the school operates, the core practices of the school principal and the enactment of these core practices. The data analysis was carried out through data reduction resulting in initial themes which were further refined several times until consensus was achieved. The themes were then discussed under the light of theories resulting …

Enhanced Member Checks: Reflections And Insights From A Participant-Researcher Collaboration, Elizabeth Chase

The Qualitative Report

This paper shares the process of an enhanced member check in a qualitative study about the schooling experiences of teenage mothers. The process of co-creating a participant narrative is presented as an alternative to traditional methods of member checking and data analysis. In the collaborative process presented in this article, the researcher and participant worked together to develop interpretations of interview data and to collaborate on a final narrative. The author developed a member checking process that included iterative rounds of collaboration in the liminal space between raw data and final narrative. This paper provides an example of evaluating and …

Teaching Qualitative Research Online To Leadership Students: Between Firm Structure And Free Flow, Maja Miskovic, Elena Lyutykh

The Qualitative Report

The US National Science Foundation (2013, 2015) surveys of earned doctorates in education show that between 2003 and 2014, over 20,000 degrees were granted in a field broadly defined as Educational Administration. It is then important to discuss the pedagogies of teaching not only the content area courses for educational leaders, but research as well. We highlight the intertwined tensions between different discourses: the ways of thinking about research that our students bring to the online classrooms, the course goals that we aspire to achieve, and the ways we teach qualitative research online. In doing so, we see our classes …

Fall 2017, Department Of Conflict Analysis And Resolution

DCRS on the Move

No abstract provided.

Toward A Buddhist Theory Of Conflict Transformation: From Simple Actor-Oriented Conflict To Complex Structural Conflict, Tatsushi Arai

Peace and Conflict Studies

This paper presents a working theory of conflict transformation informed by Buddhist teachings. It argues that a Buddhist approach to conflict transformation consists of an integrated process of self-reflection on the roots and transformation of suffering (dukkha), on the one hand, and active relationship-building between parties, on the other. To overcome a deeply structural conflict in which parties are unaware of the very existence of the conflict-generating system in which they are embedded, however, Buddhist-inspired practice of conflict transformation requires building structural awareness, which is defined as educated consciousness capable of perceiving a complex web of cause and effect relationships …

The Potential Of Virtual Environments To Support Soft-Skill Acquisition For Individuals With Autism, Jennifer Gallup, Mary E. Little, Barbara Serianni, Onur Kocaoz

The Qualitative Report

This study examined the phenomenon of online gaming to describe the social interactions of young adults with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as they socialize and develop relationships within virtual environments. This research built upon previous literature related to the identification of alternate modes of developing social skills and interpersonal relationships of adolescents with ASD by exploring the social implications of virtual environments. Young adults with autism experience grim outcomes such as low enrollment in postsecondary education, low wages, few living independently, and few maintaining full time employment as a result of poor social skills. Given the availability of online …

Learning And Changing: The Shaping Of A Teacher’S Identity Through Time, Across Spaces And In Different Contexts, Nikolaos Bogiannidis, Jane Southcott, Maria Gindidis

The Qualitative Report

This research paper explores the confluence of significant events in my life that shaped my identity as a teacher and researcher. I employed autoethnography to explore my personal life journey across time, space and context, in order to identify and to analyse the significant moments of epiphany that impacted on my decision to become a teacher. The findings of this study reveal a number of universal qualities of good teachers across three continents who, independently and unbeknown to each other, acted as role models in shaping my identity and my desire to become a teacher in order to serve the …

Decision Domains And Teacher Participation: A Qualitative Investigation Of Decision-Making In Egyptian Schools, Waheed Hammad

The Qualitative Report

The purpose of this paper is to explore the gap between actual and desired decision domains as a potential factor affecting teacher participation in decision-making in Egyptian schools. In order to explore this gap, the study sets out to answer three questions: (1) what would a typology of school decisions look like in Egypt’s secondary schools? (2) How do Egyptian teachers perceive actual decisions made in their schools? (3) What decision domains are most desired by Egyptian teachers? The study employed a qualitative, descriptive research approach based on individual, semi-structured interviews with a sample of 85 school teachers and senior …

“… You Don’T Come To This School... To Show Off Your Hoodies”: Latinas, Community Cultural Wealth, And An Early College High School, Leslie A. Locke, Gerri Maxwell, Maria Tello

The Qualitative Report

Early College High Schools (ECHS), recent school reforms in the U.S., were designed as social justice, equity-oriented interventions to increase educational opportunity for students from traditionally marginalized and underserved groups. The purpose of this qualitative inquiry was to understand and examine the perceptions and experiences of eight Latina students, regarding their motivation and persistence in an ECHS. Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) framed the analyses. Findings demonstrated the students relied on several forms of CCW to support their motivation and persistence. However, observations and prolonged engagement in the ECHS setting revealed deficit perspectives held by some teachers and incidents of …

Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions Of Using Ipads With Students With Learning Disabilities, Daljit Kaur

The Qualitative Report

Preservice teachers reflected on their experiences teaching mathematics to ten students using iPads. The students had learning disabilities and were tutored over 5 consecutive weeks. Teachers reflected weekly for 5 weeks then responded to an online open-ended survey regarding their overall teaching experience. Findings suggest that the experience allowed preservice teachers to gain helpful insight, knowledge, and ideas on how to use iPads as an instructional tool.

How Do Immigrant Students Develop Social Confidence And Make Friends In Secondary School? A Retrospective Study, Shyanna Albrecht, Gina Ko

The Qualitative Report

This paper pertains to a retrospective study of immigrant students’ experience of making friends and gaining social confidence in secondary school. In the study, 17 undergraduate students participated in either a one-to-one semi-structured interview or focus group. Questions were asked to understand their experiences in making friends and gaining social confidence when they came to Canada between grades five to nine. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used to analyse the data. This method was useful in looking for commonalities in meaning in participants’ responses. In total, seven themes and 20 subthemes were discovered, which are discussed in detail. …

“It Helps If You Are A Loud Person”: Listening To The Voice Of A School Student With A Vision Impairment, Jill Opie, Jane Southcott, Joanne Deppeler

The Qualitative Report

Students with vision impairment who attend mainstream secondary schools in Australia may not experience education as an inclusive and positive experience. This study of one senior secondary student with vision impairment provides a rare opportunity to give voice and provide understandings of the experience from the perspective of the student. The research question that drove this study was: What is the experience of mainstream schooling for a student with a vision impairment? The participant in this Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis study was Edward (pseudonym), a student in his final year of secondary schooling. Edward encountered significant barriers to inclusion, specifically teaching, …

Nine Potential Solutions To Abate Grade Inflation At Regionally Accredited Online U.S. Universities: An Intrinsic Case Study, David Blum

The Qualitative Report

Grade inflation must be abated. The effect of grade inflation weakens academic standards to the point where accurately assessing levels of competency and student knowledge is difficult to determine. Using intrinsic case study design, I contacted 411 online instructors in the United States exploring potential solutions to abate grade inflation. Of 411 faculty members contacted via personal e-mail, 27 instructors at three regionally accredited online universities in the United States agreed to be interviewed by the use of an interview protocol and recorded via Skype. The research question guiding the study was “What are potential solutions to abate grade inflation?” …

The Chameleon Characteristics: A Phenomenological Study Of Instructional Designer, Faculty, And Administrator Perceptions Of Collaborative Instructional Design Environments, Papia Bawa, Sunnie Watson

The Qualitative Report

While several professionals, organizations and departments may be a part of the instructional designing process usually faculty, instructional designers, and administrators are key stakeholders and collaborators. Although there are some studies related to the process of instructional designing, there is little by way of research that has investigated the stakeholders’ perceptions of the key characteristics of effective collaboration within instructional designing projects. Thus, there is a gap in our understanding of the phenomenon of instructional designing project collaboration. This hermeneutic phenomenological study seeks to add to the literature by sharing the perceptions of seven stakeholders in different roles, who have …

Successful With Stem? A Qualitative Case Study Of Pre-Service Teacher Perceptions, Stacie H. Nowikowski

The Qualitative Report

This research is a qualitative case study of pre-service teachers’ experiences with a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) module during a middle level interdisciplinary course in the teaching of mathematics and science. Data were collected through document analysis of participant reflection journals (during six distinct stem tasks) and college curriculum as well as an analysis of researcher observations of the STEM activities. While the first and last tasks were reflective and designed to identify pre-existing STEM experiences and post-module knowledge, respectively, the other four STEM tasks simulated student-centered STEM activities common to the middle level classroom. The data were …

The Song (Does Not) Remain The Same: Re-Envisioning Portraiture Methodology In Educational Research, Spirit D. Brooks

The Qualitative Report

This conceptual paper explores how portraiture methodology re-envisioned was used in an educational research project with white teachers. What qualifies as authentic voice and an appraisal of how portraiture and auto-ethnography hold up against the critique of voice-centered research made by Lather (2009), Mazzei and Jackson (2012a) and English (2000) are discussed in the context of the author’s personal narrative journey to the use of portraiture methodology. Next, the trail blazing methodological contribution portraiture makes by allowing an expansion of creative research methods in education is discussed.

The Construction Of “Discomfort Psychological”: An Exploration Of Italians Teachers' Reports, Antonio Iudici, Matteo Fabbri

The Qualitative Report

Although there are several studies on youth problems in school, there are few studies on how teachers report psychological discomfort of the students and on what criteria does their procedure. Considering that schools increasingly make such reports to social or neuropsychiatry services, we wanted to find out whether it is flawless (bias, etc.) and how it can affect a student's career. This research presents an investigation on how the practice of signaling "psychological discomfort" at school is set up. Objects of the survey are the procedures used by the teachers to submit the psychological problems. The research subjects were Secondary …

Facilitating The Transition From Military Instructor To Academic Educator: Cognitive Apprenticeship In Teacher Induction At The United States Air Force Academy, Thomas T. Swaim

The Qualitative Report

This article examines teacher induction in the military undergraduate education context. The U.S. Air Force Academy relies on approximately 520 military and civilian instructors to educate nearly 4000 future military officers each year. These educators must be highly skilled and unquestionably capable in their abilities to teach these future leaders. Many of these instructors derive from highly technical active duty operational career fields (such as pilot, missile operator, etc.). This article reveals how Collins’, Brown’s, and Newman’s (1989) theory of cognitive apprenticeship is manifested within teacher induction experiences at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Using a qualitative multiple-case study approach, …

Between Paradigms: Becoming A Pathological Optimist, Carol Isaac

The Qualitative Report

Using an autoethnographic poststructural lens, I examined my academic journey in becoming a qualitative methodologist. I integrated my mentor’s maxims such as, “the institution will not love you back,” “prisoner of your words,” “make plans; if they don’t work, make new plans,” “one has mentors and tormentors and both help shape us,” “ever the opportunist,” “strategic groveling,” “a mosaic approach to mentoring” and “just get naked.” Despite paradigmatic contradictions between my doctoral and postdoctoral experiences, I gained much from working between the polarities of the social science and biomedical discourse. In time, I became a “pathological optimist,” one of the …

Regulation Of Learning: From The Perspective Of Male Students In Pakistan, Zainudin Abu Bakar, Rafaquat Ali

The Qualitative Report

Studies have shown that the students’ regulation of learning is associated to their learning outcomes, cognitive processing strategies and understanding of the content. In Pakistan, it was suggested that science students at secondary school possesses inadequate learning behaviours which diminished regulation of learning behaviours. This study was conducted with the intention to explore the issue of regulation of learning among secondary school science students in Pakistan. Twenty-four male students were selected purposefully to participate in the study. The data was collected through focus group interviews to understand their view of self-regulation of learning behaviour. The Applied Thematic Analysis was executed …

Perspectives And Experiences Of Deafblind College Students, Ju-Lee A. Wolsey

The Qualitative Report

DeafBlind individuals are resilient human beings who face significant and complex challenges in all aspects of life. Challenges include access to information, communication, academics, social activities, identity, independence, mobility, and moving around in the world. Recently, more DeafBlind students are attending higher education institutions. Therefore, this study focuses on discovering experiences and perspectives of DeafBlind college students who attend a bilingual and bicultural university for sighted Deaf students, where there are a limited number of DeafBlind students. Personal interviews and observations are used to explore how DeafBlind adults navigated college life and what coping strategies they used to overcome academic …

The Influence Of Mentorship And Role Models On University Women Leaders’ Career Paths To University Presidency, Lilian H. Hill, Celeste A. Wheat

The Qualitative Report

While the literature concerning female administrators in higher education indicates the critical role that mentors and role models play in contributing to women’s professional advancement, the relationship between mentorship and women’s attainment of senior leadership positions including the college presidency remain underexplored. The purpose of this study was to explore how women in key-line administrative positions to the presidency (e.g., academic dean, vice president, chief academic officer) and women presidents understood the role of mentoring relationships and role models in their career paths to leadership. This study employed a postmodern feminist theoretical framework and a feminist qualitative design to give …

Intersecting Autoethnographies: Two Academics Reflect On Being Parent-Researchers, Rosemary G. Bennett 086385, Peter De Vries Dr

The Qualitative Report

This article presents two intersecting autoethnographies generated by two academics working in the same university, who were both parent-researchers. We researched aspects of our own children’s lives, primarily in the home focusing on their engagement with dance and music. As autoethnographers we engaged in shared and individual systematic sociological introspection. In this inquiry we employed observation, copious field notes, video and photographic recording to gather longitudinal data about often unpredictable moments of creative arts engagement that occurred in the home setting. Our research provided a unique window into child directed dance and music behaviours which are rarely seen and which …