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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

A Narrative Inquiry Exploring How College Communication Professors Engage Students With Public Speaking Apprehensions, Derek Riedel Aug 2012

A Narrative Inquiry Exploring How College Communication Professors Engage Students With Public Speaking Apprehensions, Derek Riedel

Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to discover how communication professors at four-year private universities help students who exhibit public speaking apprehension (PSA) learn to cope with their anxiety. The research was framed in the narrative inquiry paradigm, interviewing eight college communication professors about their experiences working with public speaking students. Each of the eight professors worked at private universities in a large southwest metropolitan city. The researcher attempted to gather critical incidents that shed light on valuable learning experiences that could be useful to professors looking for ways to help reduce their students' PSA. The researcher found three …


A Qualitative Analysis Of High School Students' Experiences In The Latinos In Action Program, Johann Paul Simonds Jul 2012

A Qualitative Analysis Of High School Students' Experiences In The Latinos In Action Program, Johann Paul Simonds

Theses and Dissertations

This research was a qualitative program evaluation of students' perceptions of Latinos in Action (LIA), a peer-mentoring program that seeks to improve high school Latino graduation rates and college admittance. The study was conducted with college students who participated in the program in high school. LIA graduates were interviewed to determine what major factors influenced and supported them in their academic decisions. Additional data included an interview with the program director, results from the High School Survey of Student Engagement (HSSSE), and a video of one of the interviewees. The researcher explored students' experiences in the LIA program with the …


How To Predict Success In College, Holland Martini Jun 2012

How To Predict Success In College, Holland Martini

Honors Theses

This paper examines the Union College system for determining the academic quality of its applicants. Currently, Union College uses five criteria: high school GPA; rank; strength of schedule; quality of high school; and SAT/ACT scores, if available. Using data on about 1600 students, I examine the predictive power of these criteria for the performance of a student at Union. As a measure of performance I use cumulative GPA at Union and whether or not the student is still enrolled in Spring 2011. I find that the five criteria predict about 25% of the variation in GPA at Union. With the …


College Students With Claustrophobia In The Classroom And Quality Of Life: A Literature Review, Andrew W. Nielsen Sr. May 2012

College Students With Claustrophobia In The Classroom And Quality Of Life: A Literature Review, Andrew W. Nielsen Sr.

M.A. in Professional Counseling

Claustrophobia can be defined as the fear of enclosed spaces such as small rooms, tunnels, elevators, and basements. Some of the symptoms a student with claustrophobia may experience are both physiological and psychological. Claustrophobia affects three out of every one hundred people. For example, a college with a population of 2500 undergraduate students could have on average 75 students that would be claustrophobic. Of those 75; there is a chance that some may not even be aware of their claustrophobia. One of the purposes of this thesis is to assess if alleviating the occurrence of claustrophobic incidents could possibly improve …


Writing Across Institutions: Studying The Curricular And Extracurricular Journeys Of Latina/O Students Transitioning From High School To College, Todd Ruecker Jan 2012

Writing Across Institutions: Studying The Curricular And Extracurricular Journeys Of Latina/O Students Transitioning From High School To College, Todd Ruecker

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation is based on a year and a half multi-institutional study of seven Mexican American students transitioning from high school to a community college or a university. It explores the differences between high school, community college, and university literacy environments, focusing on the following: the impact of standardized testing at the high school level, the role of rhetoric and composition disciplinary expertise in shaping first-year composition (FYC) curricula, writing in the disciplines, and the digital divide between institutions. Seven case studies examine students' literacy experiences across institutions as well as both challenges and sources of support in and beyond …