Education Commons^™

Institutional Mentorship For Bridge Program Students: Fostering Meaningful Engagement, Elizabeth Hoehn Mcdermott

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This study explored the relationships between at-risk, bridge program students and institutional mentors. The purpose of this dissertation was to learn more about the ways that bridge program students’ relationships with institutional mentors may (or may not) influence students’ development of academic confidence and campus engagement. Bridge programs are designed to foster student mentoring relationships with both faculty members who teach within the programs, as well the administrators and staff members (usually student affairs professionals) who run the program. Thus far, the research on bridge programs has been overly focused on predictive student attributes and quantitative outcomes (e.g. GPA or …

A Case Study: The Perceptions Of Teachers Of Urban Eighth-Grade At-Risk Students, In One Nj School District, Regarding The Classroom Factors That Facilitate And Inhibit At-Risk Student Motivation To Excel Academically, Tabina H. Adam

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of teachers of urban eighth-grade at-risk students in one New Jersey school district regarding the classroom factors that facilitate and inhibit at-risk student motivation to excel academically.

An interview protocol that included semi-structured, open-ended questions was utilized to capture the perceptions of 18 teachers of at-risk students in core content areas. Interview questions were designed in consultation with seminal research in the area of student motivation as well as Maslow’s (1943) Hierarchy of Needs. The latter also provided the conceptual framework through which the study’s findings were analyzed.

Rich …