Education Commons^™

The Role Of Leadership In School Innovation: A Case Study, Savannah Adkins Denning

Dissertations

Expansive research on leadership, particularly school leadership, has suggested leaders have an indirect impact on student outcomes, as leaders build a school’s academic capacity, which elevates teaching and learning (Hallinger, 2010). Though there is significant empirical research regarding school leadership, there is a lack of research investigating the intersection of leadership and innovation. In terms of innovation, “personalized learning,” has become an emerging topic among education researchers, as scholars seek to understand the potential impact personalized learning strategies have on student outcomes.

The purpose of this study was to explore how leadership interacts with innovation. This study specifically explored the …

Determining First-Year College Students' Capacity For Active Engagement In Their Own Learning, Melanie Jan Mcdaniel Duvall

Dissertations

First-year students are at a higher risk of dropping out of college; therefore, student retention and success are at risk. The purpose of this study is to find statistically significant differences among five demographic variables: (1) first college semester hours earned; (2) first college semester GPA; (3) ACT composite score; (4) high school GPA; and (5) first-generation college students and the 10 Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) subscales: Anxiety, Attitude, Concentration, Information Processing, Motivation, Selecting Main Ideas, Self-Testing, Test Strategies, Time Management, and Using Academic Resources, to better determine how to help students be more successful. The LASSI instrument …

From The Desert To The City: The Innovative Leadership Of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President And Prime Minister Of The United Arab Emirates (Uae) And Ruler Of The Emirate Of Dubai, Saeed Almansoori

Dissertations

The main purpose of this research is to explore and analyze the leadership of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Ruler of the Emirate of Dubai, and how his leadership has transformed the culture of a society. The research focuses on Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid’s leadership styles and how he transformed a desert in the Middle East into one of the world’s premier cities. The study analyzes the persuasion he used with the citizens to encourage and help them adapt to this rapid change. He dealt with a …

Finding Hope In Chaos: The Development Of A Tool To Identify Key Factors That College Students Use To Effectively Deal With Adversity, Joetta Harlow Kelly

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to identify techniques that could be developed into a resource for counselors and other professionals who assist college students in dealing effectively with adversity. In a series of four surveys, 200 people were asked to participate. These included professional counselors and ministers both on and off campus, as well as directors in Student Affairs, such as those in student support services and student life. To accomplish this, questionnaires were developed to identify and allow for tabulation of the counseling techniques most commonly used for students dealing with adversity by those working with college students. …

Internal Traits And External Factors On Women Leaders’ Perceptions Of Empowerment, Shannon Marie Sale

Dissertations

Women leaders have become a modern topic of discussion throughout the media and research, with the notion that women have a voice and desire fair treatment. The purpose of the study was to investigate women leaders from diverse career backgrounds and discover their points of view on empowerment in order to determine similarities and differences among these women. The objective in the research was for women leaders to share their own definition of empowerment in regard to leadership and to articulate ways they inspire others. As the numbers of women leaders increase, empowerment has become a crucial part for females …

Factors That Influence Students’ Decisions To Either Drop Out Or Graduate From High Schools In A Western Kentucky School District, Donna Kay Crouch

Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to identify and examine trends in the themes and patterns revealed in the qualitative analysis of the focus group interviews. Data were derived from responses from 21 graduates and six dropouts who answered questions from interview guides. Findings from the analysis indicate both graduates and dropouts experienced similar barriers throughout their academic career. The barriers identified were institutional, situational, and dispositional. Six themes were identified from the three barriers. They included employment, educational/remediation services, attendance, discipline and/or legal issues; educational values, and student-educator relationships. According to the data, these themes were not mutually exclusive …

The Relationship Between Financial Literacy, Financial Status, And Academic Success In College Students, Brian Douglas Brausch

Dissertations

As the cost of college continues to rise, an increasing number of students are relying on loans and credit cards to fund their postsecondary education. In an effort to curb student debt and increase retention and graduation rates, many universities have begun to offer financial literacy initiatives to stimulate financial knowledge and promote positive money management behaviors.

This study examines the relationship between a for-credit personal financial literacy course and student academic success and economic status. Students who took a personal finance course during their first or second year of college are compared to a random sampling of students who …

Joint-Admissions Explored: Determining The Existence Of A Transfer-Affirming Culture Between Owensboro Community And Technical College And Western Kentucky University-Owensboro, Angela Loretta Higdon

Dissertations

A growing number of postsecondary students transfer from a two-year to a four-year institution. The joint admissions program between Owensboro Community and Technical College (OCTC) and Western Kentucky University-Owensboro (WKU-O) is a unique example of such a transfer relationship. Research is needed to understand the nature of the joint admissions relationship. The purpose of this case study was to explore the joint admissions relationship between OCTC and WKU-O, in order to determine the existence of a transfer-affirming culture, in accordance with Handel’s (2011) transfer-affirming conceptual framework.

The case study was bounded by time, including the previous three academic years (2014-2015, …

Winning On And Off The Court: An Interpretive Case Study Of A Leader’S Effectual Power And Influence, Eugene Smith

Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to study the leadership profile of a leader’s effectual power and influence. A qualitative research design is preferred to capture rich, thick personal responses from the interview participants. Semi-structured interviews were utilized with open-ended questions, which enabled the respondents to provide unique insights and reflections of their direct and indirect experiences with the research subject. Additionally, document inquiry and direct observations were used and, as an outcome, triangulation was achieved.

Effective use of power is studied in the context of a leader’s ability to influence others to induce a desired outcome. The subject’s influence …

Effectiveness Of Autism Education In Accredited Dental Hygiene Programs, Stephanie M. Riehn

Dissertations

The increase in the prevalence of individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has increased dramatically over the last few decades, causing an increase in the exposure of dental professionals to patients with the disorder in a clinical setting.

The purpose of this study is to understand the influence of the licensed dental hygienists’ professional attitude towards treating a patient with ASD, and the level of accommodations provided to patients with ASD during a routine dental visit, based on the amount of knowledge provided about the disorder during an accredited dental hygiene program. Survey data were collected from 78 registered …

A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Higher Education Leaders As Portrayed In The Chronicle Of Higher Education, Colette Anderson Chelf

Dissertations

Leadership represents an abstraction of human thought. While functionalist theories propose leader-centric models, contemporary leadership theories embrace a postmodern paradigm acknowledging ontological and epistemological assumptions of qualitative study. This ideology suggests a multi-dimensional model of leadership that reflects the complexity and fluidity of leadership in practice. Emergent theories explore the social construction of leadership, rather than an individual leader’s traits or behaviors. Our collective understanding of leadership is manifest in the (re)creation of leadership as exemplified in social discourse such as newspaper reporting.

The purpose of the study is to reveal socially accepted archetypes assigned to higher education leaders, as …

African-American College And University Presidents Perceptions Of Effective Leadership Attributes, Sidney Glenn Carthell

Dissertations

This study examined how socio-demographic factors of gender, age, institution location, institutional Carnegie Classification, degree of residential students, and size of enrollment relate to the perceptions that African-American college and university presidents had relative to effective leadership attributes. The research was a quantitative study that employed a descriptive survey with correlational design. No statistically significant differences were found between the perceptions of successful leadership attributes in the study based on gender, education, position prior to the presidency, years of experience, school type, or location. Leadership attributes of Energetic with Stamina and Ideological Beliefs were found to be statistically significant at …

Acquisition Of Word Spellings And Meanings During Reading In Nonnative Chinese Speakers, Yang Liu

Dissertations

This dissertation explored the acquisition of word spellings (orthographic learning) and word meanings (incidental word learning) during reading in adult nonnative Chinese speakers. Two studies were designed for this dissertation. In Study One, 45 Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners at intermediate and advanced proficiency levels participated and completed a character learning experiment in a self-teaching paradigm. Results indicate that CFL learners were able to use the phonetic regularity and semantic transparency of radicals to learn the spellings and pronunciations of new characters after limited exposures to the characters in a story context. In Study Two, 72 CFL learners …

Do Faculty In-Class Incivility Behaviors Predict Type Of Out-Of-Class Interactions Between Faculty And Students?, Trudy-Ann Crossbourne

Dissertations

The present study explored relationships between two larger streams of research—faculty-student interactions and destructive leadership embodied in faculty incivility towards students. While interactions with faculty outside of class offer tremendous benefits for students’ intellectual and socio-emotional development, avoidance is one of the demonstrated outcomes of destructive leadership on followers and of faculty incivility on students. The theoretical basis for this study was the premise that faculty incivility displayed in class, as perceived by students, could predict the frequency and type of interactions in which students engage with professors outside of the classroom. To test this conjecture, a sample of 785 …