Educational Leadership Commons^™

A Phenomenological Collective Case Study Of Mexican American Gifted Dropouts In South Texas, Albert Irlas

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the shared experiences of formally identified gifted Mexican American students that decided to drop out of high school in the south Texas region. The researcher utilized a phenomenological collective case study approach that investigated the influences that led gifted learners to drop out of high school via a series of semi-structured interviews that collected and analyzed the shared narrative data (Creswell, 2013; Degand, 2015; Seidman, 2014). Prevailing studies have found that Mexican American gifted learners are more likely to live in economically depressed communities, more likely to suffer from linguistic and cultural …

Not Your Queer Model Minority: Exploring The Realities Of Lgb Asian American Student Affairs Professionals, Kevin Nguyen Chastain

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

LBG Asian Americans are a minority group in higher education and among Student Affairs administrators. LGB Asian Americans and their experiences have received little attention due to the intersection of sexual orientation and race. It is critical to understand the realities that this community faces and to provide an opportunity for this community to claim an identity that is both honest and transparent. The goal of this research is to better understand how the intersection of racial identity and sexuality has influenced the experiences of Asian American lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students in Student Affairs roles at colleges and …

Senior Administrators In Higher Education: Following The Feminist Road To The Ivory Tower, Angelina Gomez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Today there is a considerable amount of literature documenting the gender oppression of women in the American workforce, including academia. Unfortunately, this results in an insignificant amount of literature available that narrates the successes of the few women who have navigated the labyrinth of academia and served as a President or Chancellor of a 4-year, public university. This study will help bridge the literature gap by sharing the exploits of four elite women who overcame barriers created through university policy and procedures, historical academe culture, and genderism.

A narrative analysis methodology was used to examine the ideology of leadership within …

Exploring Civic Mindedness And Social Empathy Through Storytelling: A Social Justice Oriented-Participatory Action Research Study, Ellen Whitehead

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study contributed to past research on civic-mindedness and social empathy by conducting a social justice-oriented participatory action research study at a research university with a predominately diverse student population. A participatory action research approach centers students' experiences as coresearchers, which complements the purpose of community and civic engagement, as they both support social transformation (Benjamin-Thomas et al., 2018).

This study encompasses four constructs to address how and why higher education can cultivate social change agents and invigorate civic engagement among today's college students. The constructs are civic-mindedness, social empathy, validation theory, and cocurricular cultural awareness workshop series. The coresearchers …

A Mixed-Method Study On The Mentor Experiences At A Public 4-Year University, Avisinia Rodriguez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Traditionally, students sign up for peer mentoring programs to receive services and resources as mentees in order to be successful in college. Studies have shown that mentoring relationships benefit mentees (Salinitri, 2005; Morales, 2009) while others (Colvin and Ashman, 2010; Gannon and Maher, 2012; Good et al. 2000) examined how mentors received training to support mentees. The studies exploring the experiences of mentors is not as robust, this study tries to explain the self-reflection unexpected benefits of mentors who participate in peer mentoring programs.

This mixed-method study examined the experiences first-generation peer mentors have at a pubic four-year university. Though …

Leadership Qualities Of Female Presidents Serving The Tennessee Colleges Of Applied Technology System, Kelli Kea-Carroll

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to examine the leadership styles and characteristics of leadership of 11 female presidents in the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology system. The administrators’ perceptions of successful leadership, desirable outcomes of institutional leadership, and improvements resulting from perceived successful leadership styles that guided each participant’s work as a technical college president were examined. Using the research questions guiding this study, data were collected from individual, in-depth interviews with each female, technical college president. The analysis of the interviews identified the leadership styles of democratic, situational and participative as being the most common among …

Tennessee's Voluntary Prekindergarten (Vpk) Program And Kindergarten Achievement, Kindetta L. Thompson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate whether there is a relationship between Tennessee's Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) program and kindergarten achievement. I compared the academic growth of who attended a VPK program to students in Title 1 schools who did not attend a VPK program. Kindergarten gives the first easyCBM assessment in the second semester of school. I compared the easyCBM scores of the students who attended a VPK program to the ones who did not attend a VPK program. This could reveal if attending the VPK program is related to the students’ academic growth and the amount …

Educator Perceptions Of Generational Poverty, Adverse Childhood Experiences And Student Learning, Rachel Cook

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine educators perceptions of the effects of generational poverty and adverse childhood experiences on student learning and to understand the factors that might facilitate breaking the cycle of generational poverty and adverse childhood experiences with respect to student learning.

Data collection strategies included individual interviews and document review. Analysis of data occurred in three phases: categorization of data, building the explanation in narrative form and reexamination of the data. The analysis of the data was based on Payne’s idea of generational poverty and the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences(ACE) study.

The credibility …

Teacher Perceptions Of Shifts Within The School Culture After Implementation Of A Trauma-Informed Program, Jennifer Green

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the educators’ perceptions of shifts within the culture of Jefferson Elementary School after the implementation of a trauma-informed approach. This study focuses on examining changes to the school culture after implementing trauma-informed practices. As educators continue to feel the pressure of increased academic expectations alongside the social and emotional demands that arise from childhood trauma, increased support through trauma-informed practices becomes necessary for the wellbeing of everyone. However, there are challenges in the implementation of these practices which can impact the culture of the school.

The researcher used the qualitative method of …

The Resilience Of Black Female Leaders In Higher Education And Racial Microaggression, Simone P. Flowers-Taylor

All Theses And Dissertations

This study explored the experiences of Black female leaders in higher education and their encounters with racial microaggression. Additionally, the opportunity to understand the effects of racial slights within the workplace as either a mid to senior level leadership was also explored. Regardless of the multiple diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) trainings within higher education, Black female leaders are experiencing their share of racial inequality based on their race, gender, or both (DeCuir-Gunby et al., 2019). The unique experiences of racial microaggression encountered by Black women, aligned with the framework of both the Black feminist theory and intersectionality theory respectively. …

Retention Rates And Pre-Matriculation Variables Of First-Time, Full-Time Students At Three, Small, Private, Liberal Arts Universities In Georgia, Bonnie Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this non-experimental, correlational, quantitative study was to provide an

in-depth understanding of the relationship between pre-matriculation variables on retention of first-year, full-time students from fall-to-fall semesters at three small, private, liberal arts institutions in the Southeast United States. The findings will help to determine the significance of the relationships between retention and pre-matriculation variables on first-year, full-time students who entered each institutions the fall 2017 and fall 2018 semesters.

Archival data at the participating institutions were used to test the significance of the relationships between retention rates and pre-matriculation variables (standardized test scores, high school GPAs, gender, …

These Hips Don’T Lie: Examining The Engagement Of Latina/O Students Participating In High-Impact Practice Service-Learning Projects At A Hispanic Serving Institution, Felix Zuniga

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

While college access has been improved for Latina/o students, there is still the challenge of graduating Latina/o students with equitable academic outcomes (Bates et al., 2018). Hispanic-Serving Institutions are the sites that enroll the majority (67%) of Latina/o students in college; two out of three Latina/o students attend these broad-access, open-enrollment, minority-serving institutions known as HSIs (Excelencia, 2021). Universities across the United States are aware of the changing demographics of higher education but are slow to change policies and practices to become “student-ready” (McNair et al., 2016). Critical research on how Latina/o students experience higher education practices for student retention, …

A Quasi-Experimental Study On How Free College Influences Educational Equity In The United States Based On Analysis Of The Excelsior Program, Zhuoyao Liu

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

ABSTRACT

Educational equity has long been an important issue to which the U.S. government, academia, and the public have paid great attention in past decades. The federal government and state governments have successively promulgated policies to reduce the equity gap between well-represented and underrepresented students. As such, the Promise Program (a representative of free college policy) has become a popular tool to address the educational equity issue. New York was the first state in the United States that announced a statewide Promise (called the Excelsior Program) applying the free college policy to all public higher education sectors for its state …

Understanding Principals’ Knowledge Of Special Education, Whitney G. Schexnider

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The percentage of students identified as eligible to receive special education services in the United States has grown from 8.3% in the 1976-77 school year to 14% during the 2018-19 school year (Hussar et al., 2020). Given this level of growth and the myriad of levels of support principals provide for students with disabilities, one would assume that principal preparation programs have adjusted their curriculum to ensure future school administrators are prepared to support every student, including those with disabilities. The purpose of this research study is to better understand how current school administrators learned special education-related information for their …

Student Perceptions Of The Effects Of The Modern Educational Reform Movement On The Concept Of The Whole Child, Edward Theodore Knight

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As a robust public education system is critical to the future of the U.S. democracy, efforts to improve or reform education have been prominent since its inception. Unfortunately, recent strategies to improve academic achievement have not been successful, and unintended consequences were noted for both students and staff. A specific issue related to modern reform was the construct that the focus on the whole child was disappearing as educators focused solely on the cognitive aspects of their students. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of recently graduated high school students in an effort to determine if …

The Relationship Between Parental Involvement Of Hispanic English Language Learners And High School Grade Point Average, Jameka Charmaine Floyd

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Parental involvement has consistently been associated with a child’s academic performance. However, much less is known about the effects of parental involvement of Hispanic English language learners (ELLs) in high schools. This study addressed parental involvement of Hispanic ELLs in the high school setting where there is currently very little research. The purpose was to test the theory of overlapping spheres as it relates parental involvement to high school grade point average (GPA) of Hispanic ELLs. The research design for this study was a non-experimental, correlational design. The participants of this study were a convenience sample of parents of Hispanic …

The Traditional Student Myth: A Multiple Case Study On The Experiences Of Traditional Students With Nontraditional Student Characteristics, Stephani L. Greytak

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this multiple case study was to describe the perceptions of institutional support and services of traditional-age students with nontraditional characteristics at Kansas universities. The central research question for this study was “How do traditional students with nontraditional characteristics experience institutional support and services?” The study was guided by organizational learning theory (Argyris & Schön, 1974). Research was conducted at two four-year universities in the state of Kansas and involved 10 students ages 18 – 24 enrolled or recently enrolled in college, who identified with at least one nontraditional characteristic. Data were collected using semi-structured, face-to-face interviews, focus …

The Effect Of Self-Efficacy On First-Generation African American College Students, Benita Lynn Cabbler

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

As students transition into college, some matriculate with more family, social, and academic support structures than others. Students who are the first in their families to attend college may not have the support necessary to help them succeed, influencing a need for more college resources to assist students with becoming academically successful. The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to determine if there were significant differences in perceived self-efficacy between first-generation and non-first-generation African American college students. The independent variable was African American college student status: first-generation African American college students and non-first-generation African American college students. The dependent …

Correlating Maslovian Need Satisfaction To Educational Attainment And Time Since Completion, Anthony Brandt Babbitt

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative, correlational research study was to investigate how accurately an individual’s needs satisfaction (i.e., the criterion variables) may be predicted from the combination of educational attainment and time since completion (i.e., the predictor variables). The present study addresses a gap in the literature regarding whether secondary education, post-secondary education, or both, correlate to the satisfaction of Maslow’s hierarchical needs across a broad spectrum sample of the United States population. A US-based quota sample of 245 paid adult participants operating on Prolific Academic’s online research platform provided the data within a Qualtrics-hosted version of the Five Need …

An Exploratory Study Of Adjunct Faculty Professional Growth Experiences, Bethany Ann Potts

Dissertations and Theses

Part-time non-tenure track faculty, also referred to as adjunct faculty, are the fastest growing instructional group in higher education, but they are provided minimal professional support from their employing institution(s). This lack of support is a problem because working conditions shape instructors' investment and efficacy of performance in their professional practice. Well established in the literature are inquiries into adjunct faculty working conditions that prioritize analysis of the organization over the lived experiences of the faculty. However, the lived experiences of adjunct faculty offer a unique and important lens from which to interrogate the impact of institutional policies and practices …