Work Hard For The Money: Performance-Based Funding In The State Of Louisiana, Victoria C. Lloyd

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine in what ways, if any, the introduction of the equity incentive portion of Louisiana’s performance-based funding model impacted the underserved student groups it was designed to support. I employed a quantitative quasi-experimental design for this study by running three outcome variables (Adult Learner Enrollment, First-Time Enrollment for Racially Minoritized Students, and Low-Income Student Enrollment) by sector (two- and four-year public institutions) and employing a differences-in-differences regression with panel data. In my analysis I uncovered two main findings: 1) Louisiana’s equity incentive is showing early signs of success for all three underserved groups …

Machine-Learning Approaches For Developing An Autograder For High School-Level Cs-For-All Initiatives, Sirazum Munira Tisha

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Most existing autograders used for grading programming assignments are based on unit testing, which is tedious to implement for programs with graphical output and does not allow testing for other code aspects, such as programming style or structure. We present a novel autograding approach based on machine learning that can successfully check the quality of coding assignments from a high school-level CS-for-all computational thinking course. For evaluating our autograder, we graded 2,675 samples from five different assignments from the past three years, including open-ended problems from different units of the course curriculum. Our autograder uses features based on lexical analysis …

Improving Teacher Intervention Decisions Using The Fraction Error Flowchart, Katherine Pettrey

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In the U.S. the fifth-grade mathematics curriculum is largely devoted to building fraction skills, providing an essential foundation for future success in mathematics (National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008). Unfortunately, students in the U.S. struggle with fraction proficiency (National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2022; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2018). Even when teachers facilitate interventions for struggling students those interventions may not be aligned with student need (Riccomini, 2005). Additionally, teachers struggle to identify research-based practices (RBPs) when presented with student data (Means et al., 2009). The purpose of this study was to create and test a flowchart that could …

Explanation Needed: Understanding The Low Graduation Rates Of Spanish-Speaking English Learners In Southeastern Louisiana, Alice I. Garcia

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative research study used the case study method of one-on-one interviews to collect and examine the experiences of former English learners (ELs) who were unable to finish high school in southeastern Louisiana. This study aimed to identify specific factors that, using Everett Lee’s theory, pushed or pulled these ELs from school and affected their ability to graduate. The push factors that were identified included language, inadequate support, academic performance, discrimination, and lack of connection with school and culture. Pull factors that were identified included lack of prior education, immigration, poverty, pregnancy, being far from family, financially supporting family, and …

Investigating The Relational Element Of Trust In Teacher-Principal Relationships: An Autoethnographic Case Study, Angela Bradley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This autoethnographic case study was designed to investigate the relational aspect of trust, a characteristic of servant leadership, in the teacher-principal relationship. This trusting bond is an often overlooked, foundational element of a school’s success. I examined the role that trust plays in enhancing a school’s culture and how trust is established and maintained among one principal and teachers under my supervision. In addition, as researcher, I sought to uncover specific indicators that trust was present on a school campus. Finally, I sought to examine trust’s effects on collaboration and organizational commitment.

Through weekly reflections, I sought to examine my …

An Investigation Examining The Closing Of The Achievement Gap In Louisiana With The Ngss, George Cage

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and its implications of being a curricular and pedagogical intervention in terms of narrowing the achievement gap in science education for Children of Color. In using the explanatory mixed methods design, standardized test data and one-on-one interviews were examined to assess the effectiveness and impact of the NGSS’ implementation in the state of Louisiana. This study utilized student performance results from the LEAP 2025 to conduct a statistical analysis that measured trends in performance by Children of Color, specifically Black students, before and after the implementation …

African American English-Speaking Children's Judgments Of Grammaticality: Effects Of Clinical Status And Grammatical Structures, Lori Elizabeth Vaughn

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

African American English (AAE)-speaking children’s ability to judge the grammaticality of sentences was evaluated by their clinical status and grammatical structure. The study originated from a need to understand more about the tense and agreement systems of AAE speakers with specific language impairment (SLI) relative to their typically developing (TD) AAE-speaking peers. Tense and agreement forms are typically excluded from the assessment and treatment of children who speak AAE in fear of misinterpreting a dialect difference as a language disorder. As a result, limited information exists about the tense and agreement systems of AAE-speaking children.

The data were archival and …

The Influence Of Participation In Gambling Activities On The Personal Lives Of Gamblers As Perceived By Female Gamblers In Louisiana, Carondalette Turner

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Historically, gambling has been a source of many ills within many cultures throughout the United States. During the last five years, there has been a precipitous surge in the accessibility of legalized gambling. Few studies have methodically surveyed the relationships between extent of gambling behavior and the consequences of gambling that may occur. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the influence of selected personal, and perceptual demographic characteristics on the extent of gambling behavior exhibited by female residents of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

This study used a survey design with instrument distributed by hand at selected community organizations. …

Dependability And Reliability Of The Direct Behavior Rating Classroom Management Forms, Kaitlin Angela Cassidy

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Classroom management skills are evidence-based strategies used to maintain a positive and productive learning environment. Utilizing classroom management strategies has been proven effective; however, limited tools are available for assessing such skills and further assessment of the reliability and dependability of such measures is needed. The Direct Behavior Rating – Classroom Management (DBR-CM) forms are measures for assessing classroom management and come in three forms: external rater (DBR-CM ER), self-report (DBR-CM SR), and student rater (DBR-CM ST). This study extended on the information obtained from the Cassidy (2018) study that examined the DBR-CM ER form. The study evaluated the inter-observer …

Prüfung: A Deconstruction Of Assessment Across Three Languages, Thomas Erich Benz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research aims at deconstructing and questioning certainties about assessment as an educational institution on its most fundamental levels. To achieve that, I am utilizing theoretical frameworks inspired by concepts on the existence of cultural and social capital, by artifact mediated cognition, and by a recently proposed discipline on pedagogy of assessment. The research operates with the application of narrative synthesis and network text analysis of material, on which they have not previously been used. As such, I aim to contribute to a methodological application of both methods on exam data, understood as the totality of curricular documents which govern …

A Virtual Community Of Practice: Impact On Instructional Design Knowledge And The Cultural Elements Evident Within Interactions Among Nigerian Faculty, Hala Walid Esmail

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

With the expansion of higher education and the growth of online course offerings in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a critical need to support faculty in developing the necessary skills to teach effectively online. The purpose of this qualitative, single-case study was to examine the nature of the discourse in which faculty members engaged within a virtual community of practice that was created to support their instructional design and online teaching efforts. The community of practice framework and the related learning theories of situated learning and social constructivism served as the underpinning of this study. The E-Learning Program was facilitated via …

Developing A Competency Model For Highway Safety Engineers: A Delphi Method, Garrett K. Wheat

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the core competencies needed by State DOT Highway Safety Engineers as perceived by Highway Safety experts in the United States. First, a list of competencies was identified. Next, a panel of Highway Safety experts determined the importance of each identified competency for the current year (2020) and for the future (year 2030). Finally, ratings provided by the panel were tested for the presence of consensus.

For this study, the researcher used a Delphi Method as classified by Delbecq, Van de Ven, and Gaustafson (1975). Through this method, a panel of forward-thinking …

Evolution Of Computational Thinking Contextualized In A Teacher-Student Collaborative Learning Environment., John Arthur Underwood

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The discussion of Computational Thinking as a pedagogical concept is now essential as it has found itself integrated into the core science disciplines with its inclusion in all of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2018). The need for a practical and functional definition for teacher practitioners is a driving point for many recent research endeavors. Across the United States school systems are currently seeking new methods for expanding their students’ ability to analytically think and to employee real-world problem-solving strategies (Hopson, Simms, and Knezek, 2001). The need for STEM trained individuals crosses both the vocational certified and college degreed …

The Perceptions Of Foster Care Alumni's Experiences With Four-Year Post-Secondary Institutions: A Case For Capital And Field Advantage, June M. Durio

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The focus of this study was to explore, through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu’s constructs of habitus, field, and capital, the post-secondary experiences of foster youth who transitioned out of the Louisiana foster care system. Specifically, this comparable multiple case study sought out to understand how cultural, social, and financial capital influenced the post-secondary educational outcomes of foster care alumni as compared to first-generation and continuing-generation students. Seven common themes emerged from the study: predisposing factors towards post-secondary education; values, knowledge, and skills associated with post-secondary education attainment; informal and formal social networks facilitating post-secondary support; financial resources addressing …

Exploring The Link Between Students’ Usage Of Aleks And Their Performance On State Benchmark Assessments In Mathematics, Verna Marie Richard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate relationships between students’ ALEKS usage, teachers’ implementation of ALEKS, and student performance on the 2017 – 2018 LEAP 2025 mathematics assessment. The quantitative portion of the study involved district-level analyses and teacher-level analyses that explored relationships between students’ ALEKS usage and LEAP performance. The qualitative portion of the study took into consideration previous research findings that have reported associations between program implementation and student achievement. This portion of the study included thematic analyses that examined the following relationships: ALEKS implementation in relation to teacher groups (i.e., RtI 8, Math 8, …

Beyond The Transcript: A Narrative Analysis Of Students' Experiences With Academic Dismissal In A Baccalaureate Nursing Program, Angela Edwards Capello

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Re-defining different is the first step in addressing inequity in nursing education and the disparities that result in a high incidence of academic dismissal in baccalaureate nursing programs. What are the students' differences that contribute to one student’s ease of progression through a baccalaureate nursing program and those who struggle from the first semester?

This study provides a private look into the experiences of nine baccalaureate nursing students who were academically dismissed from their nursing program. Each story chronological from the time they decided to pursue nursing to their experiences during nursing school and to their lives after dismissal. …

Course Design…Online: Helping Students Perform In The Digital Age, Joseph W. Harris

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The current study sought to test the relationship between course design, as described by the rubric produced by Quality Matters, and online university student performance. Due to the link between student motivation and active learning behaviors, and thus performance, it was predicted that the better-designed courses would facilitate student motivation. It was also predicted that goal orientation would moderate this relationship. While a significant relationship was observed between student motivation and course performance, no relationship was observed between course quality, as measured by the QM Rubric, and motivation, or performance. Only slight evidence was found for a moderating effect of …

Citizen Science In 4-H: Youth Volunteer Motivations, Participation, Retention And Scientific Literacy, Veronica Del Bianco

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the influence of volunteer motivation, participation, and citizen science project type on the retention and scientific literacy of 4-H youth volunteers ages 8-19 years participating in science projects. The conceptual model of participation in organized activities (OA) proposed by Bohnert, Fredericks and Randall (2010) was used as a framework for the variables included in the study categorizing them as predictors of participation, participation, program characteristics, or outcomes. A systematic review of volunteer motivations, retention, and scientific literacy in citizen science projects exposed that the literature contains silos of information published in …

The Relationship Between The High-Impact Practice Of Communication-Intensive Courses And Undergraduate Degree Completion At A Research University (Ru/Vh), Rebecca Acosta Burdette

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

With a critical public lens on quality student learning inclusive of 21^st century communication skills, and organizational effectiveness à la retention and graduation rates, all amidst budget constraints and increasing enrollments, postsecondary institutions must adopt practices that are both efficient and effective. This study examined the educational practice of Communication‑Intensive (C-I) courses and its influence on the institutional outcome of undergraduate degree completion at a large, public research university.

In this longitudinal study, the researcher applied a quantitative ex post facto research design to analyze six years of official university data on undergraduates who entered the selected university as …

Teaching College Writing To High School Students: A Mixed Methods Investigation Of Dual Enrollment Composition Students' Writing Curriculum And Writing Self-Efficacy, Erin Dena Scott-Stewart

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to use a quantitative survey to assess the relationships between the credit pathways students choose to earn first-year, first-semester (FYFS) university writing credit (i.e. dual enrollment, Advanced Placement, university courses, and ACT/SAT exemptions) and several writing experiences and outcomes, including writing curriculum, self-efficacy, self-regulatory strategy use, and course performance. The same survey was also used to explore relationships between these writing experiences and outcomes and preexisting student characteristics (i.e. race/ethnicity, gender, and parents’ education). For dual enrollment (DE) students only, the following aspects of the participants’ writing experiences were also investigated using …

A Multiple Case Narrative Examining The Experiences Of Alumni Of A Minority Research And Training Program, Gretchen Schneider Burton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The implementation of minority research and training (MRT) programs at the post secondary level has risen to close the educational achievement gap and build undergraduate pathways to generate a highly skilled and diverse STEM pool. Although the numbers of advanced science related degrees have slowly increased over the past decade, partially due to the utilization of MRT programs, this increase has not been adequate to establish an impactful representation in either academic or industry research careers. Numerous studies identify various support interventions influencing positive outcomes among MRT participants achieving graduate degrees. However, majority of the studies utilize quantitative or a …