Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

A Phenomenological Study Of Disciplinary Alternative Education Program "Enforcers" On The U.S-Mexico Border: Administrators, Teachers, Coaches, Substitutes, And Campus Patrols, Jair Alejandro Munoz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Stemmed from zero-tolerance policies, Disciplinary Alternative Education Programs/Classrooms (DAEPs) in Texas are disciplinary spaces designed to house students deemed at risk, while schools continue to serve students’ educational needs of (Aron 2006, Tajalli & Garba, 2014). Once there, students are stereotyped with analogous carceral-framed personas that taint who they are, how they are perceived, and/or how they are treated in alternative classrooms (Dunning-Lozano, 2015; 2018). As a result, the programs/classrooms are fundamental bastions of the school-to-prison-nexus involving a culmination of practices, and policies, along with institutional enforcements that push youths from school to the legal system (Fernandez, Kirshner & Lewis, …

Epistemological Framing In Statistics Courses For Psychology Students, Carlos Manuel Vargas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

As psychology grows in popularity, most students select professions related to therapy, which constantly deem statistics courses as irrelevant and accentuate negative attitudes. This study explores perspectives of knowledge, also known as epistemological frames, that students enrolled in a psychology-based course in statistics generate and the extent to which these relate to attitudes. Research evidence the existence of productive and unproductive epistemological frames; the former involves automatic thought processes that require minimal effort or sense of voluntary control, while the latter prompts conscious learning efforts. This study follows an explanatory sequential design as it begins with a quantitative phase analyzing …

High School Career Guidance: From The View Of A Street-Level Bureaucrat, George Clair Thomas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

High school counselors struggle to complete the tasks assigned to them. Often serving more than 500 students, counselors must address requirements specified by the American School Counselor Associationâ??s national model. They must also perform duties required by state and local policy, as well as campus-designated priorities. Empirical studies of school counselors have focused on identifying the duties that counselors perform, the effectiveness of training that counselors have received, and issues that occur from the standpoint of local control of counselor duties. I found no study that identified how counselors prioritize what they do or the level of discretion that counselors …

The Paradoxical Experiences Of Young Hispanic College Students: Academic Success In The Face Of Age-Related Stigma, Marilyn Garcia

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

There has been growth in programs such as the Early College High School Initiative in order to address the inequalities that racial/ethnic minorities, such as Hispanics, face when it comes to pursuing a higher education. As a result, there has been an increase of nontraditionally aged students (i.e., young students under 18) in higher education. Despite likely increases in young students attending universities, little is known about the young students' academic performance and the challenges they face while attending college; this Thesis addresses that limitation through two studies using institutional and interview data from one university. The first study used …

Cultivating Social Capital In Undergraduate Research: Key Sources And Distinctions By Gender, Heather Ann Daniels

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Women are outpacing men in overall educational attainment, however this is not the case in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields when women fall behind men. Establishing strong social connections is important to retention in STEM fields and persistence in the STEM pipeline. This study qualitatively examines what serves as social capital in STEM-focused undergraduate research and how social capital is accrued and deployed differently by men and women in ways that could be contributing to the gender gap in STEM. 17 students participating in external summer research programs at 12 different universities were interviewed at 3 points in …

College And Career Readiness:Texas House Bill 5 Reform Realities In A Far-West Texas School District, Tomas Sigala

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Efforts by the 83rd Texas Legislature (2013), along with decades of state legislative measures to address access and equity for Texas school children, helped create House Bill 5 (HB 5). This policy stipulates that public schools need to more accurately reflect a college and career readiness culture through the expansion of curriculum options for students, the reduction of standardized testing, and the enhancement of school accountability (Texas Education Agency, 2014a). These type of outputs provide the structure and guidance that schools need to streamline a successful student pathway aimed at preparing them for a college and career choice. If students …

The Impact Of Baby Sign Training On Stress Levels Of Daycare Providers, Grisel Julieta Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Proponents of baby sign claim improvements in child-caregiver interactions and reductions in parental stress as benefits of implementing baby sign. Due to research contradicting the claims, and to the rise in daycare attendance, the current study investigated the effects of a baby sign workshop on the stress perception of daycare providers. A pre-test post-test between groups design with 20 participants was conducted using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS10) and a workshop-specific descriptive survey as measures. The difference between the post-test stress levels of experimental and control groups approached significance, as did the differences between pre-test and post-test results for the …

Latina/O High School Students' Standpoint On Environmental Justice In A Border Community: A Phenomenological Study, Cynthia Christina Ontiveros

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative research is a transcendental phenomenology seeking to understand Latin@ high school students’ perceptions and standpoints as they participated lessons that addressed border environmental justice issues in an underrepresented, marginalized community. Seven students from Borderland High School, enrolled in a senior level course, Environmental Science, participated in the study which focused on their experiences in an environmental justice air quality thematic unit built around the complex issues surrounding a local refinery, American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO). The study analyzed the meaning students made and their standpoints regarding the impact of the factory and its one-hundred year history polluting …

Gauging The Alignment Between School And Work: An Activity Theory Analysis Of Police Report Writing Instruction, Marianna R. Hendricks

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation is based on a fifteen-month study of police report writing instruction at one agency, connecting the curriculum at the training academy, field training, and the needs and expectations of multiple report audiences and users. It draws from Rhetorical Genre Studies (Miller, 1984; Russell, 2009), Activity Theory (Engeström, 2008), and Situated Learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Dias, Freedman, Medway, and Paré, 1999) to explore how novices learn a new genre through activity, and how this is complicated by a transition between school and work outside of a university context. Specifically, it focuses on the role of andragogical (rather than …

Higher Education And Foreign Direct Investment: A Study Of Mexican States, Yuyinska Krystal Sanchez-Osio

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Factors that attract Foreign Direct Investment in Mexico at the state level are analyzed. Special focus is placed on how human capital promotes growth by attracting more FDI flows in a state. A model that explains the amount of FDI received in Mexico in 2012 is developed at a subnational level. The main independent variable is human capital, and it is measured using percentage of university graduates. The model controls for other possible determinant factors such as population, infrastructure, wages, fiscal incentives, geographic location, ease of doing business, and past experience in attracting FDI. It is tested using ordinary least …

Choque Cultural In Higher Education: The Lived Experiences Of Two Transnational Doctoral Students On The U.S. Mexico Border, Lyn Mckinley

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study seeks to develop a deeper understanding of the experience of transnational students in higher education in a U.S. public university. The setting for the study is the U.S.-Mexico border between Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas. While numerous studies examine the experience of transnational K-12 populations in U.S. schools, there is limited research on students in advanced levels of higher education in this context.

The purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth perspective of the experiences of two transnational doctoral students enrolled at the doctoral level at a U.S. university on the U.S.-Mexico border. The …

Core Conditions In Student-Centered Learning, Margaret Ann Hartford

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study explored core conditions in student centered educational settings by utilizing an ethnomethodological design to examine the experiences of self-selected educators throughout the United States. Through surveys and follow up interviews, educators reported their professional experiences regarding the core conditions in student centered learning as outlined by Carl Rogers and the impact these conditions played in the quality of educational experiences for the educators and their students in diverse settings. This study was also concerned with educators' self reports regarding their training and education regarding core conditions in student centered learning environments. This paper shares with readers a literary …

Educational Levels And Political Literacy: The Case Of Adults Enrolled In The Inea Program In El Paso,Texas, Carolina Pallares

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The political socialization process is ever-present in our daily lives. Traditional academic philosophies contend that one needs a formal education to achieve a high state of political awareness. This study challenges that traditional belief by proving that adults with little or no formal education can demonstrate a high level of political awareness.

The purpose of this study is to show that, absent a formal traditional education, individuals may be politically active and have an understanding of complex political issues. In order to test this hypoThesis, I interviewed participants enrolled in the Instituto Nacional de Educación para los Adultos, …