Education Commons^™

Experiences Of Music Therapy Junior Faculty Members: A Narrative Exploration, Carol A. Olszewski

ETD Archive

Very few music therapists have educational background or training to be proficient at teaching at institutions of higher education. With only minimal (if any) training in andragogy and in research methodology, music therapy junior faculty (MTJF) members find themselves novice academics in the highly structured, competitive environment of the academy. In order for music therapists to be successful in their career change from clinical work to the academy, improvements and modifications to the education of future music therapy professors are likely, but data are necessary to intimate and to guide those changes. This narrative research study explored the lived experiences …

An Exploration Of African American Male College Students’ Perceptions Of Factors That Contribute To Their Academic Success, Yvette N. Daugherty-Brown

ETD Archive

According to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (2012), college degree attainment among African American males is only 16%, as compared to 20% for African American females, and 32% for Caucasian males. A great deal of research and emphasis has been placed on the struggles, challenges and shortcomings relative to African American male educational attainment. However, more work needs to be done to determine the factors that contribute to their academic success.

The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study was to explore the factors that contributed to the academic success of African American male college students that participated in the Baldwin …

Predictors Of School Connectedness In Community Colleges, James A. Gardner

ETD Archive

College students leave school before completing their degrees. Costs are high when college students fail to persist and reach their graduation goals. There are many reasons why students fail to persist which have already been thoroughly investigated elsewhere. Prior research has shown a positive correlation between strength of school connectedness and persistence. This document examined the concept of school connectedness and how it related to perceived strength of school connectedness in older, nontraditional age community college students in votech programs as compared to traditional age students in associate degree programs.

To measure perceived strength of school connectedness, this research used …

A Quantitative Study Of Persistence Factors For First-Year Students At Urban And Residential Universities, Abigail Parsons Shiban

ETD Archive

Persistence from the first to second year of college can be challenging for students at urban institutions given that they face added pressures and unique situations preventing them from persisting beyond the first year of higher education. While first-year persistence in higher education has been investigated, very little formal research exists on persistence at urban institutions. To bridge this gap, a quantitative analysis of 395 students at two urban and two residential four-year public institutions in Ohio was conducted using the Social Integration and Persistence Intentions Scale (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1980) while exploring comprehensive factors such as students' pre-college and …