Education Commons^™

Student Perceptions And Use Of Electronic Financial Aid Service Delivery, Kerri L. Chapman

Legacy ETDs

Few argue the premise that financial aid is one of the most vital services offered to college students. Over fifty percent of today's college tuition is actually paid by some form of student aid, whether it is from federal, state, private, or institutional resources. The public perception of the role of financial aid has changed drastically since its inception, the acceleration of which over the past decade has been staggering. The face of higher education itself has undergone a metamorphosis of sorts, with technological advancements at the forefront of the change. Technology has revolutionized the way we do business in …

Struggling High School Readers' Responses To A Literature-Rich Curriculum, Fran Harrison Stephens

Legacy ETDs

The purpose of this study was to determine how struggling readers in 11th grade Applied Communications classes responded to literary texts that are typically taught to college-prep students. Differentiation of literature for college-prep and techprep students began in the early twentieth century; since then, noncollege-bound students have traditionally studied literary texts that have been rewritten on a lower reading level to accommodate struggling readers in these classes. In this research project, I taught 11th grade Applied Communications students the same literature that college-prep students read; using a qualitative research design, I analyzed the impact of this literature on these students. …

The Motivational Stories Of How Women Become Scientists: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Inquiry, Sandra White Watson

Legacy ETDs

The under-representation of women in science careers is well documented (Astin, Green, Kom, & Riggs, 1991; Felder, Felder, Mauny, Hamrin, & Dietz, 1995; Green, 1989; National Science Foundation, 1996, 1998; Seymour & Hewitt, 1997; Strenta, Elliot, Adair, Scott, & Matier, 1994; Tobias, 1990, 1992). While important information has been published concerning various factors that influenced women to pursue science careers (American Association of University Women, 1992; Debacker & Nelson, 2000; Samuels, 1999), very few research projects have allowed women scientists to share their personal experiences ofwhat motivated them to become scientists in their own voices.

The purpose of this inquiry …

Listening To Recent High School Dropouts And The Need To Reconceptualize School Violence Prevention, Beatrice A. Geddie

Legacy ETDs

As the high school dropout rates in Georgia exceed the national average, public concern mounts. The complex interactions of internal and external factors that contribute to students' decisions to leave school before graduation require reconceptualizing the educational process on multiple levels. This dissertation addresses current public school policies designed to prevent violent acts and punish offenders, policies that reveal limited understanding of underlying causes, deterministic assumptions and an overwhelming desire for quick fixes. Interviewees deemed many of these policies not only ineffectual, but also as contributing to a negative school climate that encouraged them to drop out. Furthermore, some participants …

Messages For Girls: Looking At The Representation Of Women's Short Fiction In American Literature High School Anthologies, Aurelia Ramage Tippett

Legacy ETDs

The purpose of this qualitative study was to answer the question "What messages about the image of womanhood are available to adolescent females in female-authored short fiction that appears in a variety of American literature textbooks used since 1965, a few years preceding racial integration and widespread coverage of the women's movement in rural Georgia, through 2000?"

Five American literature anthologies that were used in the Laurens County Georgia School System for instruction in the required American literature course since 1965 were collected. Short fiction written by women was identified and then the researcher identified those women writers whose short …