Education Commons^™

A Latent-Class Discrete-Choice Model To Demonstrate How Course Attributes And Student Characteristics Influence Demand For Economics Electives: The Challenge To Increase Enrollment, Reginald T. Dillingham Ii

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A primary goal of universities is to maximize student enrollment by improving course curriculum and enhancing specific programs. This is especially a challenge for smaller universities who want to offer specialized and highly diverse electives. This study aims to increase the quality and relevance of electives offered by understanding specifically what attributes students prefer more or less when choosing among alternatives. The results are used to explore how to use limited marketing and student-outreach financial resources to target students that are most likely to enter and complete courses and programs, based in part on their socioeconomic or demographic characteristics. The …

An Investigation Of A Forest Field Trip For Elelmentary Students: What Strategies Were Used, And To What Extent Were These Strategies Effective In Supporting Student Learning?, Michelle M. Miller

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Many times when field experiences occur with elementary students there is no assessment of the programming, and therefore no data showing how the participants’ learning was impacted. This study focuses on the effectiveness of a forest field trip offered to 3^rd-5^th grade students at a public school in Gogebic County, Michigan.

The study was guided by the following research questions:

• What strategies have been used to conduct forest-based environmental education programs in the Western Upper Peninsula?
• What has been the impact of the strategies on students’ environmental knowledge?
• In what ways if any, can the conduct of …

Communication Patterns And Strategies In Software Development Communities Of Practice, Shreya Kumar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Some of the greatest challenges in the relatively new field of software development lie in the decidedly old technology of communication between humans. Software projects require sophisticated and varied communication skills because software developers work in a world of incomplete, imperfect information where teams evolve rapidly in response to evolving requirements and changing collaborators. While prescriptive models for software process such as Agile suggest ways of doing, in reality these codified practices must adapt to the complexities of a real workplace. Patterns, rather than rules of behavior within software process are more suitable to the varied and mutable nature of …

Engaging Practice In Communication Education: Institutional Politics, Knowledge Economy, And State Power, Wincharles Coker

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A grave concern in communication education scholarship is that research in practice plays second fiddle to theory. Little is known about the phenomenology of practice in communication pedagogy, and how it shapes and is shaped by programmatic assessment in particular. This dissertation attempts to explore the complexity of practice in communication education in a non-Western culture. The project demonstrates that the organizational culture that gives rise to the work of communication program administrators is always filtered and enacted through the interplay of institutional politics, the global knowledge economy, and state power. Using two public universities in Ghana, I argue, based …

Learning To Notice And Use Student Thinking In Undergraduate Mathematics Courses, Anna Pascoe

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The goal of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of an intervention focused on developing mathematics graduate teaching assistants’ skills of noticing and effectively responding to instances of student mathematical thinking that have significant potential to further students’ learning. Four mathematics graduate teaching assistants participated in a semester-long intervention in which video of undergraduate mathematics lessons was individually analyzed and then discussed collectively with the researcher on a weekly basis. The MOST Analytic Framework (Leatham, Peterson, Stockero, & Van Zoest, 2015; Stockero, Peterson, Leatham, & Van Zoest, 2014) was introduced as a tool to aid in the analysis and …

The Impact Of Gamified Mobile Applications For Disease Management: Case Study Pre-Diabetic Adolescents, Obie Mcgowan

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In 2014, diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death in the United States [1]. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one third of all adults in the United State are pre-diabetic. Pre-diabetes is a condition in which blood glucose (sugar) is higher than normal, but not yet high enough to be diabetic. Persons who have an increased risk of developing pre-diabetes are: those who are not physically active, have a family history of diabetes, are within a minority group, are overweight/obese, and other factors. From 1999 to 2008, the occurrence of adolescents ages 12 to …

Geoheritage Of The Keweenaw Peninsula, Erika Vye

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Keweenaw Peninsula is a compelling intersection of cultural, industrial, and mining heritage - all of which is rooted in its ancient geologic underpinnings. The incredible geodiversity of the Keweenaw expresses a billion year geologic history that has shaped the landscape and resulted in the discovery of one of the largest native copper deposits on Earth; in turn, originating one of the oldest metal workings in the Western Hemisphere, and the famed mining boom of the Keweenaw in the late 1800’s. This rich human story intertwined with globally significant geosites has endowed the Keweenaw with a strong geoheritage.

Geoheritage considers …