Education Commons^™

College Students’ Self-Regulation In Asynchronous Online Courses During Covid-19: A Convergent Mixed Methods Approach, Jaeyun Han

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

The purpose of this dissertation study was to use a convergent mixed methods approach to understand college students’ self-regulation in asynchronous online courses in Fall 2020. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, asynchronous online modalities have been more broadly utilized in higher education. Although undergraduate students can have greater flexibility in how they engage with their courses, students may regulate their learning differently when facing a web-based instructional modality, which may affect their academic performance. According to Bandura’s social cognitive theory, students’ beliefs in their self-regulatory capabilities are interdependent with self-regulatory behaviors. In particular, academic procrastination has been often …

Housewives To Heroines: Continuing Education For Women At The University Of Kentucky, 1964-1988, Allison L. Elliott

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Beginning in the early 1960s, the movement for the continuing education for women (CEW) brought together a seemingly unlikely alliance of American activists, educators, philanthropists, and government agencies. Fueled by philanthropic funds, accelerated by the quest for “womanpower” to bolster national defense, and aligned with regional workforce needs as well as the personal goals of individual women, CEW programs pioneered new models of academic advising and student support that continue to influence higher education practitioners today. By studying the experiences of both administrators and students involved with CEW at the University of Kentucky, this study sheds light on how one …

Orienting New International College Students During A Global Pandemic: Spatiality’S Contributions To Staff Work Practices, Thomas W. Teague Jr.

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

U.S. colleges must increasingly respond to a wide range of complex forces and simultaneously fulfill their missions and support students. To address many of these forces, some have turned to internationalization efforts like recruiting and enrolling international students. In light of these efforts, critics have called for institutions to better, more appropriately support these students, given their challenges and needs. This call has amplified during the recent COVID-19 global health pandemic.

Traditional student support services tend to center around Tinto’s Theory of Student Departure. Examples of support programming are frequently shared, yet rarely detail how institutional staff actually perform them …

Adverse Childhood Experience And Undergraduate Student Success: A Longitudinal Investigation Into The Relationship Between Childhood Stress And Success In Higher Education, Sarah E. Cprek

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Institutions of higher education have long worked to understand factors that influence or predict student success and degree completion. Childhood experiences including potential exposure to toxic stress have been found to impact student success in K-12 schools yet have rarely been evaluated among undergraduates. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and undergraduate degree completion among a random sample of 1,894 students at a state-funded university in the US. Participants completed a web-based survey assessing ACEs in spring 2015. Results from the survey were linked to student academic records for each …

The Lives Of Others: Describing And Predicting Job Satisfaction Among Faculty Working At The University Of Sarajevo, Nina Marijanović

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

This study examined the topic of faculty satisfaction among faculty employed at the University of Sarajevo (UNSA) in Bosnia and Hercegovina (BiH). BiH has endured a difficult transition from a socialist regime to a market economy following the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the early 1990’s and its higher education sector has been particularly affected by this transition. Scholarly research has focused mostly on the impact of discrimination of certain groups at the primary and secondary levels (Pašalic-Krešo, 2008). Research into issues affecting tertiary education is still an emerging field, and research on faculty is especially sparse.

Utilizing survey methodology, this …

The Pragmatist’S Call To Democratic Activism In Higher Education, Eric Thomas Weber

Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation Faculty Publications

This essay defends the Pragmatist’s call to activism in higher education, understanding it as a necessary development of good democratic inquiry. Some criticisms of activism have merit, but I distinguish crass or uncritical activism from judicious activism. I then argue that judicious activism in higher education and in philosophy is not only defensible, but both called for implicitly in the task of democratic education as well as an aspect of what John Dewey has articulated as the supreme intellectual obligation, namely to ensure that inquiry is put to use for the benefit of life.

Stretching The Dollar: Exploring The Lived Experiences, Multiple Identities, And Class Politics Of Poor And Working-Class Women At The University Of Kentucky, Rachael Deel

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

In the climate of prioritizing retention and pressure to move an increasingly diverse undergraduate population towards degree, it is critical that educational research consider the multiple, overlapping identities of students and how that influences their experiences on campus. The number of low-income students entering four-year institutions is growing each year, including at the University of Kentucky. This study aims to extend our understanding of social class beyond the material and focus on the affective dimensions of class including language, comportment, and leisure activities in an effort to better understand how poor and working-class women contend with the constraints they encounter …

Navigating The Career Pipeline: Experiences Of Female Community College Presidents, Andrea Allen Deal

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Despite holding a majority of lower and middle management positions in public two-year institutions, women still hold only one-third of current community college presidencies. This study explored the gendered phenomenon of navigating the career pipeline in higher education to reach the office of community college president. The purpose of the study was to examine the educational backgrounds and career paths of recently-appointed female community college presidents, as well as the barriers and sources of support they encountered while navigating the career pipeline.

A phenomenological approach was utilized for this qualitative study. Data was primarily collected using semi-structured interviews. Additional sources …

State Subsidy Composition In Higher Education: Policy And Impacts, Alex Eugene Combs

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Higher education is the third largest state expenditure behind K-12 and Medicaid but is generally more discretionary than most other budget categories. As demographic trends and economic downturns constrain state budgets, the delivery of state subsidies in higher education has increasingly shifted toward students via grant aid and away from institutions via appropriations. Since the 1990s, many states have changed the composition of their state subsidies in higher education to varying degrees.

There is a rich literature that examines the effects of state subsidies on various aspects of the higher education market. This dissertation aims to contribute to the literature …

In Memories Of A Glorious Past: Transylvania College And The Liberal Arts In American Higher Education, 1945-1975, Jonathan Tyler Baker

Theses and Dissertations--History

Located in Lexington, Kentucky, and known for its historic connection to the Disciples of Christ Church, Transylvania College furnishes the opportunity to analyze the recent history of American liberal arts colleges and the way they handled issues of enrollment, funding and curriculum in the immediate postwar era—a period of unprecedented growth in American higher education. Transylvania College acts as a microcosm for other, similar liberal arts colleges. A careful examination of architecture, enrollment, student activities, and the way the administration interacted with governing boards will provide a glimpse into the way certain liberal arts colleges addressed their religious and budgetary …

Navigating Intercultural Space: A Narrative Analysis Of College Student Learning In A Global Village Living-Learning Program, Brendan James O'Farrell

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) has termed our century “The New Global Century” and begun touting the importance of internationalization and global learning outcomes as a necessity in the post-9/11 era. These outcomes suggest students should be immersed in an unprecedented level of intercultural difference and rest on an assumption that student success is contingent upon students’ ability to navigate intercultural difference. Institutions across the country have embraced strategic interventions designed to support intercultural exchange and learning. This study focuses on intercultural learning as it unfolds in one such intervention: the international living-learning program (LLP).

The study …

Generational Differences In Transfer Student Capital Among Community College Students, Michael J. Rosenberg

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

“Transfer student capital” refers to the learned ability of a student to successfully navigate the process of transferring from a community college to a four-year school. Transfer student capital is accumulated by gathering information about potential destination schools and programs, gaining an understanding of requisite academic skills, campus engagement, and weighing personal concerns surrounding eventual transfer. The more transfer student capital an individual accumulates, the more likely they are to be academically successful and persist to graduation.

This quantitative study examines whether a student’s age cohort may affect the transfer process from community college to a four-year school. The study …

Internationalization, English Medium Programs, And The International Graduate Student Experience In Japan: A Case Study, Kristen N. Wallitsch

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

This research is a case study on the lived experience of international graduate students in the Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies (GSAPS) at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Using cultural globalization and internationalization as a lens, this research positions international graduate students as local actors in an abroad community and addresses, 1) how and why students decided on an English Medium degree in Japan, and 2) the lived academic and social experiences of this particular group of students while in Japan. In-depth interviews with 17 degree seeking international graduate students explore graduate students’ past educational and professional experiences and …

The Impact Of Institutional Complexity On The Implementation Of The English-Medium Instruction (Emi) Reform Concept In Three Northern European Universities, Becky Unites

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

This study examines university English-medium Instruction (EMI) reform implementation approaches from a comparative organizational perspective. Over the last decade, the number of master’s degree programs instructed exclusively in English in non-Anglophone Europe increased dramatically. Europe is an interesting case as it actively promotes multilingual learning; however, many European policies over the last twenty years accelerated the rise of monolingual EMI reforms, especially at the graduate-level. The purpose of this exploratory study is to contribute to our understanding of how widespread EMI reforms impact structures and behaviors at the organizational level in European universities in ways that respond to the organization’s …

Great Expectations: Twenty-First Century Public Institutions And The Promise Of Technology Based Economic Development: A Case Study, Tara K. Baas

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

American research universities, especially over the past 30 years, have increasingly become involved in technology transfer activities. For public land grant institutions, involvement is largely inspired by a desire to maximize revenue opportunities and demonstrate economic relevance. This intrinsic case study addresses the efforts of a public, land grant and flagship institution, the University of Kentucky, to augment its technology transfer activities, with a specific focus on its attempts to spin off university technology-based firms. The data were gathered primarily through oral history interviews with technology transfer personnel, entrepreneurs, and spinoff personnel. Its purpose is to understand better the structure …