Education Commons^™

Thematic Analysis Of Influencers On Continuing Professional Learning Of Tenure Track Engineering Faculty As Assistant Professors At An Ru/Vh Institution, James Edwin Cawthorne

Open Access Dissertations

“Although the need for lifelong learning of professionals is stressed through university education, the patent differences between learning as a student, within a controlled framework focusing on accessible outcomes, and learning as a professional have not been clarified” (Webster-Wright, 2009, p. 708). Assistant professors are entry level professionals in academia who been prepared through their extensive education process to be lifelong learners and yet it is unknown how these assistant professors are engaging, or being engaged by others, in continuing their professional learning (CPL) for short-term and long-term success in academia as a career. This study aimed to understand who …

An Examination Of The Employment Of The Pair Programming Methodology As A Collaborative Instructional Scaffold On College Student Procedural Learning And Programming Self-Beliefs, Ronald Erdei

Open Access Dissertations

Using a concurrent mixed methods case study approach, this study investigated the impact of employing the pair programming methodology as a collaborative instructional scaffold on student programming procedural knowledge and programming-related self-beliefs in an introductory computer programming course offered at a large university located in the Midwestern United States. Employing a design research theoretical perspective in a natural educational setting, the study used course performance data, survey data, and researcher observations to educe that employment of the pair programming methodology as a collaborative instructional scaffold facilitated a more efficient learning process as well as a learning process less reliant on …

Methods To Facilitate Community Participation In Humanitarian Engineering Projects: Laying The Foundation For A Learning Platform, Andrea Mazzurco

Open Access Dissertations

Humanitarian engineering (HE) is a new interdisciplinary field that is rapidly emerging worldwide. Many not-for-profit organizations such as Engineers Without Borders, Practical Action, and International Development Enterprise have been flourishing with the goal of providing technological solutions to those who need them the most. In engineering programs across the U.S., HE, service-learning, community engagement, and similar programs are gaining popularity because they offer an efficient way to meet ABET accreditation criteria, while also teaching valuable technical and professional skills to engineering students. However, the cultural, social, and political differences among communities and engineers often add degrees of difficulty that cannot …

Decentering The Writing Program Archive: How Composition Instructors Save And Share Their Teaching Materials, Stacy Olivia Nall

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation decenters the writing program archive through research on instructors’ digital archives. Artifacts of composition instruction are no longer saved to print archives alone; rather, digital technologies expand the locations where artifacts of writing pedagogy can be archived and accessed. The following archival ethnography, focused on a community engagement writing course in the Introductory Composition at Purdue (ICaP) program, finds that many digital archives of composition are hidden to outside researchers or not sustained (which are theorized as either “abandoned” or “pop-up” archives). At the same time, some pedagogical materials are publicly visible by virtue of personal web spaces …

The Acquisition Of Bare Nominals By Three Populations Of Spanish-English Bilingual Adults, Lauren Elizabeth Miller

Open Access Dissertations

The present study contributes to our understanding of cross-linguistic influence by studying three different groups of Spanish-English speakers’ knowledge of the distribution of definite articles in both of their languages using a battery of tests that require them to draw on different linguistic abilities. These three groups include native English speakers who learned Spanish after adolescence, native Spanish speakers who learned English after adolescence and simultaneous bilinguals who grew up in the United States speaking both English and Spanish from birth. Specifically, this study explores interpretation, production and intuition regarding the acceptability of definite articles in different contexts. Since the …

L2 Effect On Bilingual Spanish/English Encoding Of Motion Events: Does Manner Salience Transfer?, Heidi E. Parker

Open Access Dissertations

This study explores the potential effect of a second language (L2) on first language (L1) encoding of motion events. The domain of interest is MANNER and the goal is to investigate if the degree of manner salience can be restructured under the effect of a L2. Slobin (2004, 2006) proposes an expansion of Talmy’s (1985, 1991, 2000) binary typology and observes that the degree of manner saliencevaries cross-linguistically. The two languages investigated in this study, Spanish and English, are at divergent points along the cline of manner salience. In addition, Slobin (1996b) suggests dividing MANNER into tier one (T1) …

From Mechanic To Designer: Evolving Perceptions Of Elementary Students Over Three Years Of Engineering Instruction, Anastasia M. Rynearson

Open Access Dissertations

Due in part to increasing state standards that require engineering in K-12 curricula and the Next Generation Science Standards’ incorporation of engineering outcomes, inclusion of engineering into elementary classrooms is on the rise. Teacher development and experiences in learning about and implementing engineering have been studied, but elementary students’ experiences when learning about engineering have not been explored.

The purpose of this study is to address the question: How do elementary students’ knowledge of, attitudes toward, and overall conceptions of engineering evolve over three years of engineering instruction?

This study follows seven elementary school students through three years of engineering …

Development Of First-Year Engineering Teams' Mathematical Models Through Linked Modeling And Simulation Projects, Kelsey Joy Rodgers

Open Access Dissertations

The development and use of mathematical models and simulations underlies much of the work of engineers. Mathematical models describe a situation or system through mathematics, quantification, and pattern identification. Simulations enable users to interact with models through manipulation of input variables and visualization of model outputs. Although modeling skills are fundamental, they are rarely explicitly taught in engineering. Model-eliciting activities (MEAs) represent a pedagogical approach used in engineering to teach students mathematical modeling skills through the development of a model to solve an authentic problem.

This study is an investigation into the impact of linking a MEA and a simulation-building …

Parental Educational Involvement In High School: Practice, Policy, And Implications For Low-Income And Minority Youth, Elizabeth Wehrspann

Open Access Dissertations

Parental educational involvement has become a key factor in policies and practice aimed at improving academic achievement, particularly for low-income and racial/ethnic minority youth. While much previous work has explored parental educational involvement for younger children, few consistent findings have emerged regarding parental educational involvement strategies with adolescents. Further, extant literature has shown mixed findings regarding the effectiveness of parents’ school choice (i.e. selecting a school regardless of geographic location) for increasing parents’ educational involvement and social capital more broadly. This dissertation addressed these findings in the literature by using two large nationally representative datasets – the Education Longitudinal Study …

Students' Reasoning With Haptic Technologies: A Qualitative Study In The Electromagnetism Domain, Sadhana Balachandran

Open Access Theses

With abundant applications in the medical training and entertainment industry, haptic technology is slowly making its way into the realm of science education, particularly in conveying abstract and non-visible concepts. Electric field is one such abstract concept. Past studies have shown that learning concepts such as electric fields in a traditional classroom can be quite challenging since students have a hard time visualizing the phenomena and applying its effects to reason. Furthermore, these concepts are the building blocks for more complex concepts such as matter and molecular interactions. Visuo-haptic devices provide a great platform to enable students to visualize and …

Experimental Evaluation Of An Ipad-Based Augmentative And Alternative Communication Program For Early Elementary Children With Severe, Non-Verbal Autism, Ariana Azzato

Open Access Theses

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a treatment package including a modified protocol of the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) implemented via an autism-specific iPad application. A multiple probe design (Horner & Baer, 1978) was replicated across four individuals with severe, non-verbal autism to investigate effects on requesting skills, natural speech production, and social-communicative behaviors. Results suggest beneficial effects, if implemented with high fidelity. The largest effects were on the participants’ requesting skills. All four participants were able to consistently request for desired items by activating the tablet device, and this skill was maintained after …

Exploratory Study Of Students' Representational Fluency And Competence Of Electric Circuits, William Fernando Sandchez Cossio

Open Access Theses

Electric circuits are extensively used in today’s devices as computers, phones, cameras and others. This makes them a crucial topic in engineering because almost every engineering branch could be related of used them at different levels. Even though their importance, students often struggle during the learning process of circuit analysis topics. Additionally, other very important abilities for engineering students are the capacities to create, use, express and think about models and representations of technical concepts; and the capacities to translate and map from one representation to another. These abilities are known as representational competence and representational fluency respectively.

The purpose …

Automating Stem Learning By Engaging In Artful-Inspired Play, Katie E. Roth

Open Access Theses

A full range of experimental methodologies split between two distinct yet related projects was performed in an effort to define ways to automate STEM learning in artful-inspired play. Both projects aim to offer impactful learning experiences through artful-inspired activities meant to automate STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) learning in children that are both scientifically and non-scientifically inclined. By participating in play that is both fun and engaging, learning is a byproduct of the activity which acts to automatically embed STEM knowledge and experiences within the user. Bridging the gap between STEM and artistic tendencies has the potential to provide a …

High School Students' Motivations And Views Of Agriculture And Agricultural Careers Upon Completion Of A Pre-College Program, Andrea K. Scherer

Open Access Theses

Pre-college summer residential experiences hosted by a College of Agriculture have the potential to expose high school students to new career opportunities and fields of study that they may not have considered, and may influence agricultural literacy, perceptions of agriculture, and interest in agriculture. Engaging these students is important for meeting the demand for more students graduating with agriculture degrees prepared to solve 21st century challenges. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the outcomes of two separate pre-college experiences, the Molecular Agriculture Summer Institute (MASI) and the Purdue Agribusiness Science Academy (PASA), and participating high school …

A Study Of Applications Of 3d Animation For Emergency Medicine Pedagogy, Huilong Zheng

Open Access Theses

There is ample precedent for the use of 3D animation in education, though little research on specific applications in the field of medicine. An experiment was carried out to assess the suitability of 3D animation for educational purposes in emergency medicine courses. Two groups of experimental participants were assessed on their ability to respond to three emergency medical situations in simulated test scenarios. Both groups received equivalent information on how to treat the three different medical emergencies. The control group received the information in traditional lecture format. The experimental group instead received the information from a set of 3D animations. …

The Educational Journeys Of First-Generation College Women In Stem: A Grounded Theory Study, Susan Geier

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the various factors that influenced these first-generation college women as they chose a college and selected a STEM major and subsequently persisted to upper level (junior/senior) status. Twenty-five first-generation college women in STEM majors who attended a research-intensive university in the Midwest were interviewed. Approaching this study using constructivist grounded theory provided the opportunity for deeper insights by examining data at a conceptual level while preserving the voices of the women in this study. The women faced numerous challenges on their journeys, yet they persisted. As the women in this study selected …

A Phenomenographic Study Of The Ability To Address Complex Socio-Technical Systems Via Variation Theory, John A. Mendoza Garcia

Open Access Dissertations

Sometimes engineers fail when addressing the inherent complexity of socio-technical systems because they lack the ability to address the complexity of socio-technical systems. Teaching undergraduate engineering students how to address complex socio-technical systems, has been an educational endeavor at different levels ranging from kindergarten to post-graduate education. The literature presents different pedagogical strategies and content to reach this goal. However, there are no existing empirically-based assessments guided by a learning theory. This may be because at the same time explanations of how the skill is developed are scarce.

My study bridges this gap, and I propose a developmental path for …

It Is "Broken" And "Accented": Non-Native English-Speaking (Nnes) Graduate Students' Perceptions Toward Nnes Instructors' English, Hyo Jung Keira Park

Open Access Dissertations

This study investigates the perceptions of non-native English-speaking graduate students towards non-native English speaking (NNES) instructors’ accented English. Students (N=161) who were enrolled in an oral English course at Purdue University participated in a survey. Follow-up interviews were conducted with voluntary participants (N=9) to examine the perceptions of NNES graduate students towards NNES instructors in depth. The findings in the survey showed that more than one third of the participants experienced difficulty with their NNES instructors due to their limited intelligibility and restricted command of English. Furthermore, one third of the participants expressed that they would transfer to another section …

An Analysis Of The Current Strength Of The Academic Relationship With The Aerospace Industry, James A. Stratton

Open Access Dissertations

The objective of this research was to discover which methods of technology transfer were most commonly accessed within the Indiana manufacturing sector in an effort to best serve companies in the Hoosier State. Previous work has explored the perceived importance of various academic sources, but there has not been an investigation to identify the specific preferences of industry professionals. If these preferences can be identified, university assistance programs and other academic engagement programs will be able to predict, and hopefully influence how to grow and develop the domestic manufacturing sector, ultimately strengthening the channels of knowledge transfer between academia and …

Navigating Stress In Public Education: A Personal Reflection And Narrative Study Of My Closest Relationships In Teaching, Stephen I. Smith

Open Access Theses

This study originally intended to explore the various effects of burnout – defined by the researcher as the steady decline of joy and increase of stress associated with teaching – on secondary school teachers. Using narrative inquiry, the researcher’s story and that of three other male eighth grade junior high school teachers close to him shaped the core of the study. Students the researcher taught in a first year undergraduate course exploring teaching as a career were also surveyed to look for any possible link between preservice teacher enthusiasm and the harsh realities of teaching. A question addressed was if …

A Usability Assessment For A Career Planning Educational Video Game, Jiaqi Wang

Open Access Theses

This study focused on the design, implementation and usability assessment of an educational 2D iPad job matching game The Place You’ll Go (TPYG), which meant for matching student skill sets with career profiles. The development of the game is conducted in collaboration with Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management and Polytech Institute. A total of 7 subjects, as high school teachers, participated in the usability study. TPYG as one possible solution for job matching data visualization, did not provide players with a good experience. However, conclusions and findings can be used in similar education game development. Based on survey and …

Writing Their Way To The University: An Investigation Of Chinese High School Students' Preparation For Writing In English In High Schools, Cram Schools, And Online, Cong Zhang

Open Access Dissertations

In this dissertation, drawing from activity theory, I investigate how Chinese students prepared themselves for undergraduate studies in U.S. universities in terms of English writing from three perspectives: English writing instruction in high schools, private supplementary tutoring (PST) in English writing in cram schools, and experience with writing online and using online resources. On the basis of data from a questionnaire, interviews, classroom observations, and examinations of written materials and a forum, I provide a picture of the writing instruction experience and writing background that Chinese students bring to writing classrooms in U.S. universities. It was found that other than …

Undergraduate Students' Goals For Chemistry Laboratory Coursework, Brittland K. Dekorver

Open Access Dissertations

Chemistry laboratory coursework has the potential to offer many benefits to students, yet few of these learning goals are realized in practice. Therefore, this study seeks to characterize undergraduate students’ learning goals for their chemistry laboratory coursework. Data were collected by recording video of students completing laboratory experiments and conducting interviews with the students about their experiences that were analyzed utilizing the frameworks of Human Constructivism and Self-Regulated Learning. A cross-sectional sampling of students allowed comparisons to be made among students with varying levels of chemistry experience and interest in chemistry. The student goals identified by this study were compared …

A Collaborative Integrated Stem Teaching: Examination Of A Science And Math Teacher Collaboration On An Integrated Stem Unit, Drew C. Ayres

Open Access Theses

The integration of science, technology, engineering and mathematics curriculum in middle school science and math classrooms is a reform effort currently taking place. The teachers are being encouraged to teach integrated content through national and state standards. The teachers have not been trained to do this form of teaching, which has led to feelings of discomfort or incompetence to fulfill those standards. This has led to a need for professional developments to train these teachers. Those developing the professional developments are seeking to identify ways to encourage teachers to continue to implement integrated units.

The purpose of this study was …

Community Engagement, Graduate Students, And "Naive Complicity": Service In The University, Jonathan S. Isaac

Open Access Theses

This thesis takes issue with current models of community engagement and service learning that do not take into consideration the constraints imposed upon graduate students or short-term instructors who teach a service learning course or who undertake community-oriented research. Bound up in the long history of academic needs overshadowing or entirely neglecting community concerns, campus-community partnerships involving graduate students are much more likely to maintain, to quote Linda Flower, a “naïve complicity in the social structures that put power and prestige on the university side of the ledger while putting passive need and incapacity on the debit, community side” (105). …

Mining Big Data To Create A Tool For Empirical Observation Of Continuous Safety Improvement In A Construction Company - A Progressive Case Study In The Lean Environment, Nicolas J. Michuda

Open Access Theses

In any iterative process, without a system of measurement, controlled improvement cannot be recorded. This is especially true in the construction industry, where error occurs, often with fatal repercussions. As part of a process to facilitate the establishment of this metric, an entirely new application was created. The goal of this application is to measure the causal factors that lead to incidents, which will allow the user and administration to track the circumstances and types of incidents. This enables the company to focus on these problem areas and improve through training. By analyzing these incident trends over time, the company …

Enhancing The Campus Experience: Helping International Students To Adapt To North American Campus Life, Qiaoying Wang

Open Access Theses

This thesis investigates how culture adaption topic can be applied to a design solution by enhancing international students experience on North American campus. Each year more than half a million international students enroll in American colleges and universities. Many will spend several years on a campus working toward their degree. Most of them arrive with clear academic goals, but they may have no clue what their social lives will be like. In that case, a common phenomenon that most of the international students need to get along with is called “Culture Shock”, which involves culture and academic adapting difficulties, limited …

Self-Regulation To Practice: Incorporating The Strategy To An Early Childhood Special Education Setting, Kathryn L. Szwed

Open Access Dissertations

Preschool students who display social emotional deficits pose challenging issues for families, caregivers and teachers who educate them. In this study, the effectiveness of an assistive technology based treatment package consisting of video self-modeling and behavior management software was investigated to determine if its combined use would result in increased student self-regulation skills. Using a multiple baseline design, three students used the treatment package to increase self-regulation skills. During the investigation, the accuracy to self-identify behaviors, the documentation of desired and undesired behaviors and the overall impact of the treatment package was studied. Interobserver agreement (IOA) was used to determine …

Toward A Genre Writing Curriculum: Schooling Genres In The Common Core State Standards, Michael J. Maune

Open Access Dissertations

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS), published in 2010 and adopted by the majority of U.S. states, established a set of expectations for student writing in K-12 education. In describing these expectations, the CCSS used three general “text type” classifications: Narrative, Informative/Explanatory, and Argumentative. While the CCSS outlines the general expectations for students writing in these text types, the linguistic and genre expectations were not fully expressed. This study examines 34 student exemplar texts provided in an appendix to the CCSS in order to determine the genre and linguistic expectations for student writing in K-12 education. Using a genre typology …

Analysis Of Scientific Argumentation In Two Physical Chemistry Classrooms Using The Pogil Approach, Alena C. Moon

Open Access Dissertations

The benefits of facilitating argumentation in science education have been well reported (Jimenez-Aleixandre & Erduran, 2007). Engaging in argumentation has shown to model authentic scientific inquiry as well as promote development of content knowledge. However, less emphasis has been placed on facilitating argumentation in upper level undergraduate courses, though it is important for evaluating undergraduate curricula to characterize upper level students’ scientific reasoning. This work considers two implementations of the POGIL physical chemistry curriculum and evaluates the classroom argumentation. The researchers aimed to consider the content of the arguments and dialectical features characteristic of socially constructed arguments (Nielson, 2013). To …