Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

In What Ways Do Perceptions By Faculty, Students, And Advisors In An Urban University Contribute To Undergraduate Student Success?, Carla Jordan

Dissertations

This study employs a mixed-methods approach to explore perceptions of academic advising among faculty, advisors, and undergraduate students at an urban university in the Midwest, focusing on its implications for student success. Utilizing Creswell’s research design framework, the research integrates quantitative and qualitative data collection methods to understand the relationship between academic advising and student outcomes.

Informed by Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, the study examines how beliefs, behaviors, and environmental factors shape academic experiences and success. It employs the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) from George Kuh’s student engagement framework as a quantitative tool to measure student engagement and …

Primed For Sport Coaching: A Mixed-Methods Pilot Study Of A Six-Week Intervention, Pete S. Paciorek

Dissertations

This six-week pilot study was conducted using grounded theory from “What Works in Character Education” (Berkowitz & Bier, 2014) and specifically the “PRIMED for Character Education” framework (Berkowitz, 2021) applied to 11 high school sport coaches. The three key ideas of focus were on whether the PRIMED framework could increase the coach-participants’ commitment to character education, self-efficacy as character educators, and self-identification as Servant Leaders in an effort to “nurture the flourishing of human goodness” (Berkowitz, 2021) of our youth and, in this case, specifically, high school student-athletes.

With millions of youth involved in sport in North America and across …

The Effect Of Student Perception Of Parent Involvement And Socioeconomic Status On Academic Intrinsic Motivation, Pallavi Aggarwal, Taylor Lawson Smith

Dissertations

Many teachers struggle to help students become intrinsically motivated in their school work. Research has shown that students who are intrinsically motivated tend to have higher academic achievement than students who are not (Mendoza, 2012). There are many factors that contribute to students’ intrinsic motivation. Building on existing research, the relationship between perceived parental involvement and students’ intrinsic motivation, as well as the relationship of perceived socioeconomic status and intrinsic motivation was investigated. A mixed methods research approach was used to determine a) the relationship between perceived parent involvement and students’ intrinsic motivation, b) the relationship between perceived socioeconomic status …

An Exploratory Multiple Case Study Of Discipline Practices In A Major Metropolitan Public School District: A Look Into The School To Prison Pipeline, Neil French, Kristin Calvert-French, Phyllis Jackson, Erin King

Dissertations

The school to prison pipeline is a phenomenon fed by exclusionary discipline practices that increase the likelihood that a student will have an interaction with the juvenile or criminal justice system at some time in their life; this phenomenon disproportionately affects Black students. Understanding the problem is key to slowing down the school to prison pipeline. This study of a school district in Missouri explores questions about how interpersonal relationships, implicit bias awareness, and school policies influence the learning environment, and how those factors relate to school discipline, which ultimately can lead to the school to prison pipeline. Drawing data …

Barriers To Post-Secondary Success, Douglas Swanson, Najeana Henderson, Maritza Sloan

Dissertations

This study reviews factors that prior studies have identified or failed to consider as barriers to post-secondary success. The three main areas include academic success for Latinx students after high school, organizational systems and their impact on African-American students’ postsecondary readiness, and what workers think of their high school education with regards to career preparedness.

Five factors are identified as major barriers for Latinx students to continue in a higher education system. A survey of former students from Saint Louis, Missouri, and Dallas, Texas, metroplex area identified 56 Latinx students that participated in an initial survey. This led to a …

Validation Of The Barkley Deficits Of Executive Functioning Scale-Short Form, Brian Sheble

Dissertations

The Barkley Deficits of Executive Functioning-Short Form (BDEFS-SF) is a short rating scale measuring executive functioning in adults. The BDEFS-SF was developed using the 5 highest loading questions from the BDEFS-LF. Consequently, the psychometric qualities of the BDEFS-SF were not investigated using formal methods. In this study, the psychometric attributes of the BDEFS-SF were examined using two separate but similar groups. The first group of 264 men and women aged 18-35 years old completed the BDEFS-SF via an internet survey. The second group of 36 men and women aged 18-35 years old completed the BDEFS-SF and individualized assessments of executive …

Estimating Wasi Iq Scores To Assist In Identifying Elementary School Gifted Students, Debra Garrett Pregler

Dissertations

Identifying gifted students early is important so they may receive adaptations in their learning environment including admittance into gifted programs (Subotnik, Olszweski-Kubilius, & Worrell, 2012). An effective method to increase the likelihood of identifying gifted students is needed (Pfeiffer, 2003). Admission at the elementary level primarily uses the individually-administered intelligence test; yet, the test is only administered to students nominated to the gifted program. The purpose of this study was to determine if individually-administered IQ test scores were related to specific information available to the elementary school counselor to aid in the determination of unidentified gifted elementary school students who …

Factors Related To Ethnocultural Empathy Among White Counselor Education Faculty: Implications For African American Male Students., Courtney R. Boddie

Dissertations

Cultural competence represents a central element of the professional practices exhibited by professional counselors and counselor educators (CACREP, 2016). Inconsistent with the place it holds in the field, cultural competence has been minimally studied among those responsible for gatekeeping, teaching, supervision, and research – faculty. Among variables relevant to measurable outcomes is ethnocultural empathy (EE), ideal as it is described as a combination of empathic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors toward others with whom you have differences in cultural identities and experiences (Wang et al., 2003). This study sought to add to the body of literature on the cross-racial interactions between …

Elements Of Moral Functioning In Sport And School, Christopher Funk

Dissertations

Moral functioning is complex and implicates numerous cognitive and affective processes. Drawing upon Rest’s four-component model of moral functioning and more recent dual-process accounts of cognition, the current study examined a model of moral functioning in both sport and school contexts. Specifically, drawing upon the empirical record, a model of moral functioning was proposed and tested wherein moral identity influenced the adoption of specific contesting orientations, which, in turn, influenced prosocial and antisocial behaviors, both directly and indirectly via moral foundations and moral disengagement. Fit of the model was moderately strong in both contexts, though significant contextual differences emerged, both …

The Missouri Student Transfer Program, Howard E. Fields Iii

Dissertations

In 1993, the state of Missouri passed the Outstanding Schools Act. This law was created as a means to ensure that “all children will have quality educational opportunities, regardless of where in Missouri they live.” Section 167.131 of this law states that an unaccredited district must pay the tuition and transportation cost for students who attend an accredited school in the same or adjoining district. This portion of the law became known as the Student Transfer Program.

The Riverview Gardens School District (RGSD) was one of three unaccredited school districts in the state of Missouri in 2013. With close to …