Other Educational Administration and Supervision Commons^™

Elementary Principal Perceptions Of The Tennessee Educator Acceleration Model, Jason W. Vance

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Tennessee Educator Acceleration Model (TEAM) had been in a state of reform since being awarded the Race to the Top Grant. Few teachers admit that an evaluation influenced them significantly; additionally, few administrators agreed that when they evaluated a teacher, it did not significantly affect the teacher or students. The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine the perceptions of building‑level principals regarding the effectiveness (i.e., increased teacher participation and quality) and efficiency (i.e., produces the required results) of the TEAM in regard to teacher evaluations. Four elementary school principals from East Tennessee participated in the study. The …

The Potential Of A Virtual School To Help Mobile Students, Amy G. Dickinson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

An average of 1.8 million students drop out of high school each year (National Council of Education Statistics, 2014). Dropping out of high school is a problem for both society and the individual (Rumberger, 2003). It can lead to lower wages, unemployment, and incarceration. Mobile students make up a part of those who drop out of school. Students are considered mobile if they attend more than one high school in four years (Rumberger & Larson, 1998). One way of helping highly mobile students is to offer asynchronous virtual classes. Using Institutional Theory (Rumberger, 2001) and Academic Mediation Theory (Vygotsky, 1978; …

Motivational Factors That Sustain Experienced Teachers In High-Need, Low-Performing Public Schools: A Phenomenological Study, Michelle Casey

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe factors that sustained public school teachers in high-need areas. Teacher sustainability was generally defined as teachers who remained in a high-need public school located in southeastern North Carolina beyond the initial three years of teaching. This study explored the following: (1) How do public school teachers describe their experience working in a high-need educational community in North Carolina? (2) How do public school teachers perceive their former life history as having an impact retaining their profession beyond the initial three years of teaching in a high-need, low-performing public school? (3) …

Cross-Subsidization Of Teacher Pension Normal Cost: The Case Of Calstrs, Robert M. Costrell, Josh B. Mcgee

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Under traditional defined benefit pension plans, annual contributions are set at a uniform percentage of pay to fund accruing benefits. That normal cost rate masks wide variation in the cost of individual benefits, generating an extensive and non-transparent pattern of cross-subsidization. We provide a comprehensive analysis of cross-subsidies in employer contributions across all entry and exit ages. The gains and losses of winners and losers must add up to zero, and we explain why they do not in some previous work, which claims that nearly all teachers are winners in the California Teachers Retirement System. To the contrary, we find …

Boosting Graduation Rates In Texas Through Education Savings Accounts, Patrick J. Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Graduating from high school is a crucial outcome for young people. Unfortunately, 12 percent of Texas students fail to earn the vital credential of a high school diploma. Private school choice has a proven track record of increasing graduation rates. In this study I draw upon prior research, Texas demographics, and conservative assumptions to forecast that the launch of a universal private school choice program in the form of Education Savings Accounts in the fall of 2017 would generate 11,809 additional high school graduates in the Lone Star State by 2022. In other words, of those students attending high school …

Kids Vs. Adults: Using Observations And Student Surveys To Evaluate The Arkansas Teacher Corps, Elise Swanson, Gary W. Ritter

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

This study is an evaluation of the Arkansas Teacher Corps, an alternative teacher certification program that places teachers in high needs schools in rural, southern Arkansas. This evaluation focuses on an intermediate goal of the organization — effective teaching practices — and uses a matching strategy to determine the effectiveness of Arkansas Teacher Corps Fellows. Data comes from third party observations and student surveys. ATC teachers are rated significantly higher on constructs of content knowledge, teacher-student relationships in class, and teacher-student relationships out of class by students. There are no significant differences between ATC and non-ATC teachers noted by observers …

When Students Don't Care: Reexamining International Differences In Achievement And Non-Cognitive Skills, Gema Zamarro, Collin Hitt, Ildefonso Mendez

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Policy debates in education are often framed by using international test scores, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The obvious presumption is that observed differences in test scores within and across countries reflect differences in cognitive skills and general content knowledge, the things which achievement tests are designed to measure. We challenge this presumption, by studying how much of the within-country and between-country variation in PISA test scores is associated with student effort, rather than true academic content knowledge. Drawing heavily on recent literature, we posit that our measures of student effort are actually proxy measures of …

Community Partnerships In Urban, Title I Elementary Schools: A Mixed-Methods Study, Jae L. Strickland

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to identify and describe community partnerships in Urban, Title 1 Elementary Schools.

Fifty-one principals from the Southern and Midwestern regions of the United States completed a 19-question on-line survey designed to explore community partnerships in Urban, Title 1 Elementary Schools. Of the 51 principals who completed the survey, 26 agreed to participate in a semi-structured interview.

The findings of the study suggest that community partnerships play an essential role in supporting Urban, Title 1 Elementary Schools. Finding community partners can be challenging. Principals who wish to engage community partners should identify the needs …

A Phenomenological Study Of African-American Female Teacher Graduates Of Historically Black Colleges And Universities’ Perceptions Of Preparedness For The Field, Kimberly Bryant

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand and explain the perceptions of African-American female teachers’ levels of preparedness for the teaching field after attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Preparedness was generally defined as one’s readiness to teach in the classroom. The main theory guiding this study was Dewey’s (1938) theory of experience and education. The central question of this study was: What are the perceptions of preparedness for African-American female teacher education graduates at Historically Black Colleges and Universities? The sub-questions focused on the characteristics of Dewey’s (1938) theory of experience and education, additional helpful resources, and …

Case Study: Applying Communities Of Practice In Graduate Enrollment Management For A Cultural Interpretation Of Workplace Learning, Dean Campbell, Nadielka Bishop, Sanjiv Sarin

Journal of Research Initiatives

This paper undertakes a cultural interpretation of the roles professional expertise play in the workplace with a community of post-secondary administrators at one institution. To better understand and evaluate Wenger’s (1998) concept of communities of practice, this case study explored boundaries, intersections, and learning communities in communities of practice in graduate enrollment management (GEM). The paper examined communities of practice at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The study defined the following interventions as indicators of a community of practice in graduate enrollment management: a) boundaries of position; (b) constellations of communities; and (c) learning communities. The paper also considered implications …

The 'Rules Of Engagement': The Ethical Dimension Of Doctoral Research, Christopher Berg

Journal of Research Initiatives

The pursuit of a doctorate is a rite of passage that requires a student to successfully navigate the transition from “student” to “scholar.” One area of practice, however, that is often marginalized is the role of ethics. Though there is no formal coursework in ethics, its importance cannot be understated. This essay examines the conceptual role of ethics in doctoral research as both an individual reflective essay as well as a broader discussion of ethics in general. The ethical dimension considered is broken down into eight principles or ethical research and practice in doctoral research. The “Eight Ethical Principles” will …

Hiring The Most Effective Teachers: An Examination Of Policy And Practice In Pennsylvania, Barbara Launi Powers

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Hiring the most effective teachers not only has an impact on America’s children, but on America’s economic future as well. For two decades, much research about the failings of America’s schools has been conducted. Since the advent of No Child Left Behind (2002), never has more focus been applied to teaching quality. Hiring the best teachers for our children leverages the single largest in-school influence on achievement. James Coleman, in his seminal work, The Coleman Report (1967), notes that a child’s home socio-economic status and race are more significant influences than any in-house school influence. Subsequent research on teacher quality …

Personality As A Predictor Of Unit Nonresponse In Panel Data: An Analysis Of An Internet-Based Survey, Albert Cheng, Gema Zamarro, Bart Orriens

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Unit nonresponse or attrition in panel data sets is often a source of nonrandom measurement error. Why certain individuals attrite from longitudinal studies and how to minimize this phenomenon have been examined by researchers. However, this research has typically focused on data sets collected via telephone, postal mail, or face-to-face interviews. Moreover, this research usually focuses on using demographic characteristics such as educational attainment or income to explain variation in the incidence of unit nonresponse. We make two contributions to the existing literature. First, we examine the incidence of unit nonresponse in an internet panel, a relatively new, and hence …

Comparing Performance Of Methods To Deal With Differential Attrition In Lottery Based Evaluations, Gema Zamarro, Kaitlin Anderson, Jennifer L. Steele, Trey Miller

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

In randomized controlled trials, it is common for attrition rates to differ by lottery status, jeopardizing the identification of causal effects. Inverse probability weighting methods (Hirano et al, 2003; Busso et al., 2014) and estimation of informative bounds for the treatment effects (e.g. Lee, 2009; Angrist et al., 2006) have been used frequently to deal with differential attrition bias. This paper studies the performance of various methods by comparing the results using two datasets: a district-sourced dataset subject to considerable differential attrition, and an expanded state-sourced dataset with much less attrition, differential and overall. We compared the performance of different …

School Choice: The Personal And The Political, James V. Shuls

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Enrollment in school choice programs is growing, so is overall support for school choice. Many have analyzed what demographic characteristics impact attitudes towards school choice. This paper adds to the literature by exploring the interaction between personal decisions regarding school choice and broader support for school choice programs. Focus groups were conducted in St. Louis and Kansas City with 35 parents of school age children. Participant responses indicate that school choice programs illicit mixed emotions from parents. Most participants personally support school choice and exercise choice themselves by sending their children to magnet, charter, or private schools. At the same …

You Can Often Get What You Want: Assessing The Match Between Parent Preferences And Private Schools Of Choice, Evan Rhinesmith, Patrick J. Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Providing parents choices in education has become an increasingly popular instrument for reforming education in the United States. While existing research on parent satisfaction in private school choice programs shows that parents are satisfied with the schools they have chosen, there is not much to explain their satisfaction. Previous research using parent surveys asks parents to rate and/or grade their school of choice, while comparing their response to their thoughts on their previous public school. This paper reports new empirical evidence that looks to offer a possible explanation for parents’ satisfaction. Using data from the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, we …

2016-2017 Campus Life Handbook, Otterbein Student Affairs Office

Student Affairs

The Campus Life Handbook is the official guide for all students of Otterbein University. It is updated annually by the Student Affairs Office. The handbook provides information you need now and throughout the academic year.

Factors That Affect Willingness To Borrow Student Loans Among Community College Students, Kathleen K. Menges, Christoph Leonhard

Journal of Student Financial Aid

Research suggests that student loan borrowing has increased at the community college level. This trend is worrisome to many, as research is inconclusive regarding whether loans are positively correlated with achieving a college degree. Many also contend that choosing not to borrow a student loan due to loan aversion can negatively impact a student’s chance of reaping the financial benefits of a college degree. This study surveyed three community colleges in the Midwest to better understand how acculturation, time perspective, and financial literacy impact community college students’ willingness to borrow student loans. Except for financial literacy, none of the variables …

A Collective Case Study On Elementary School Administrators’ And Teachers’ Perceptions Of A School-Wide Positive Behavior Intervention And Supports Framework, H. David Cawthon

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this collective case study was to explore and understand administrators’ and teachers’ perceptions on how a school-wide positive behavior intervention and supports (SWPBIS) framework influences school climate at the elementary school level. The theory guiding this study was grounded in B.F. Skinner’s theory of operant behavior and applied behavior analysis, which supports the use of positive reinforcement to increase desired behavior in a real world setting. A rich description of the perceived influence a SWPBIS framework has on school climate was constructed by answering the central research question: “How do administrators and teachers perceive the influence of …

Disparate Use Of Exclusionary Discipline: Evidence On Inequities In School Discipline From A U.S. State, Kaitlin Anderson, Gary W. Ritter

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

There is much discussion in the United States about exclusionary discipline (suspensions and expulsions) in schools. According to a 2014 report from the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, Black students represent 15% of students, but 44% of students suspended more than once, and 36% of expelled students. This analysis uses seven years of individual infraction-level data from public schools in Arkansas. We examine whether disproportionalities exist within schools, or are instead, a function of the type of school attended. We find that marginalized students are more likely to receive exclusionary discipline, even after controlling for the nature …