Digital Commons Network^™

A Learning History Of Online Portfolio Development In Kinesiology: Academic Innovation From Pilot To Powerhouse, Lyndsay M. Burneisen Phd

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study examines the phased development of an online kinesiology education program, tracing its evolution from inception to institutionalization through Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) theory. Using a learning history methodology, this research synthesizes document analysis, stakeholder interviews, and focus groups, and historical program data to explore how strategic leadership, faculty engagement, student support, and technological advancements influenced the program’s growth and sustainability. The research is structured around three critical phases: inception, maturation, and institutionalization, highlighting key adaptations in curriculum design, administrative structures, and quality assurance. Findings reveal a transition from a decentralized, experimental model to a structured, integrated online …

Exploring Relationships Among Higher Education Accreditation Outcomes, Credit Ratings, And Subsequent Institutional Responses: A Quantitative Study, Joshua Allen Hertlein

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation examines the financial pressures facing colleges and universities, focusing on the impact of accreditation outcomes and bond credit ratings. Utilizing a quantitative approach, the study posits that adverse accreditation outcomes and credit rating downgrades can be anticipated by observable, measurable attributes at higher education institutions. Additionally, it explores institutional responses following these adverse events.

Data was collected from IPEDS, FSA, DAPIP, BLS, and Moody’s Investors Service, covering the period from 2012 to 2022. Logistic regression models estimated the odds of negative accreditation outcomes and credit rating downgrades based on predictor variables such as enrollment levels, expenses, revenue, financial …

The Effects Of The Implementation Of State-Sponsored Free Community College Programs On Enrollment And Net Price, Kristafer Lee Adkins

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

State-sponsored, free community college programs have been implemented with the goal of increasing access to higher education, especially for financially disadvantaged students. This study seeks to determine the impact of the implementation of the Tennessee Promise and the Oregon Promise on enrollment and net price by student family income level using a difference-in-differences methodology comparing in-state, public, two-year institutional outcomes with: in-state, public four-year institutions; national, public, two-year institutions; and, public, two-year institutions in states that border Tennessee/Oregon. Enrollment was, on average, found to have increased between 44 and 167 students at Tennessee public, two-year institutions for all students with …

Exploring College Students’ Motivation For Physical Activity: Applications Of Self-Determination Theory And The Role Of Health And Wellness Education, Anne Russell Blevins

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

This dissertation includes three pieces of writing that aim to show the importance of physical activity for all ages but specifically college-aged students. The first piece of writing (Chapter 2) includes a teaching tip written for the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. Research has shown that dance was a subject of the past and many teachers did not feel comfortable teaching it. This practical piece was written to help show K-12 physical education teachers effective ways to involve students in physical activity specifically through teaching dance, mainly through using the “Teaching Dance for Understanding” model.

The second section …

Educator Professional Subjectivities In Gamification: Knowing, Being And Doing, Natalie-Jane Howard, Elizabeth J. Cook

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Gamification has emerged as a prominent innovation in contemporary education, yet its influence on the enactment of educators’ professional subjectivities remains underexplored. As such, little is known about how online gamification applications like Kahoot shape the dynamic ways educators perceive, understand and enact their professional selves within higher education contexts. Adopting a tripartite framework of knowing (epistemological), being (ontological) and doing (praxiological), this qualitative study employed visual-elicitation interviews and remote observations with ten lecturers at a Middle Eastern college. The analysis revealed three key themes shaping educator subjectivities: creating and sharing quiz content; conforming with institutional culture; and infantilizing students …

Finding The Diaspora: Understanding U.S. Central American Students’ Narratives Of Social Justice And Resistance At Four-Year Higher Education Institutions In Illinois, Sandy C. González Rivas

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study aimed to explore the experiences of U.S. Central American students at four-year higher education institutions in Illinois. It focused specifically on how these students navigated notions of cultural, ethnic, and racial identity on campus and resisted imposed concepts of Latinidad. The study used Latino Critical Race Theory, the Community Cultural Wealth Model, and testimonio and plática methodologies to center students’ voices and experiences. Data were collected through individual narratives from eight self-identified U.S. Central American students using semi-structured interviews. The data highlighted how U.S. Central American students perceive dominant narratives of Latinidad in higher education, what aspects …

From Columbia To Usc, Palestine Will Be Free: Capturing The Palestinian Student Narrative, Deena Ata

Theses and Dissertations

In 2024, student groups across colleges organized encampments demanding their institutions cut financial and academic ties with Israel and the Israeli military, a call rooted in resistance to the ongoing occupation and violence against Palestinians. These student-led actions were met with harsh retaliation from university administrations and state authorities, including graduation deferments, suspensions, censorship, and arrests. Clear attempts to silence dissent and suppress Palestinian solidarity. This study centers the voices of Palestinian college students by examining their lived experiences and counter-narratives in the face of backlash, anti-Palestinian rhetoric, and institutionalized acts of disenfranchisement. Their stories reveal how repression of pro-Palestine …

Savior To Ally: Exploring White Students' Decisions To Major In Social Work Through The Lens Of White Saviorism, Amy S. Dennison

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explored how white students chose social work as a major and how white savior ideology reinforced or challenged students’ choices. The study contributes to a gap in the literature regarding white saviorism and social work education. Using a phenomenological approach, data were collected through semi-structured interviews from five undergraduate social work students at one Midwestern state university. Transcripts were analyzed thematically using Moustakas’ data analysis for phenomenology framework. The findings revealed that participants chose social work because of an intent to help others, as well as a desire for their work to have a meaningful impact. White …

Career Resources And Securing Quality Work: Graduate Perspectives, Denise Jackson, Claire Lambert, Matalena Tofa, Ruth Bridgstock, Ruth Sibson

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Empowering graduates to secure quality post-graduation employment is a key goal for higher education institutions and their students. University support in developing career resources may aid transition to work by enhancing social support and networks, fostering a strong sense of professional self, promoting career self-management, and instilling career confidence. Yet there lacks empirical understanding of these resources and the role they play, including how they interrelate, how they vary by personal characteristics, and how they are developed. This study examines how graduates fare in the labour market, characterises their career resources, and explores the relationship between career resources and graduate-level …

Kaartdijin Bidi (Learning Journey): Place-Based Cultural Regeneration At University, Sandra Wooltorton, Lauren Stephenson, Kathie Ardzejewska, Len Collard

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Imagine being in a university that functions in a place-based culturally regenerative way. In this concept paper, the authors bring together theory, practice, and experience, in the service of transforming universities towards place-based cultural regeneration. At present, Australian universities operate using an economic philosophy of neoliberal corporatism characterised by hierarchical management strategies, competitive tendencies, patriarchal values, and discourse characterised by bifurcation or binary thinking. These features illustrate a worldview that is entangled with the meta crises of our times such as climate change, species loss, hatred/intolerance, and unfathomable violence. The authors consider ways of moving towards a place-based, Indigenous-informed, practical, …

Using Online Critical Reflection To Enhance Students’ Confidence, Motivation, And Engagement In Higher Education, Isaiah T. Awidi, Jonas Quashie Klutsey

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This research examines the effect of critical reflection activities in an educational environment that uses active and blended learning experiences for students to develop confidence, motivation, and engagement with their learning. A mixed-methods research approach was adopted on a sample of 137 Communications and Media students, who were involved in a game-based project. Using a validated survey instrument to measure the students’ perceptions of their experiences, Pearson Correlation coefficient was used to estimate the relationship between the learning activities and students’ perceived confidence, motivation, and engagement. Finally, multiple linear regression was used to determine the effect of the critical reflection …

Current Higher Education Legal Issues And The Roles Of Legal Leadership On Campus, Louis H. Guard, Joyce P. Jacobsen, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

History And The Teaching Of Dialect And Slang In Screenwriting, Mitch Olson, Chris C. Palmer

Faculty Articles

This article explores academic and industry perspectives on the use of dialect, slang, and historical language in screenwriting. It offers a chronological overview of major screenwriting manuals’ treatment of dialect and slang (or lack thereof) 1946-2020. It then presents survey data of 53 currently-practicing screenwriters’ views on working with dialect and historical language in scripts, as well as their sense of possible changes in the industry regarding attitudes towards diverse voice representation on the page. It concludes with examples from a teaching sequence that illustrates strategies for writing with dialect, researching it, and ethically considering its usage in scripts. Situating …

Prosthetic Valve Endocarditis With Cardiobacterium Hominis: A Case Report, Kaci Griffin, Timothy Jang, Rees Adomako, Jasmine R. Marcelin, Jonathan H. Ryder

Graduate Medical Education Research Journal

Background: Cardiobacterium hominis (C. hominis) is an uncommon cause of infective endocarditis and often presents sub-acutely with fevers, cardiac murmurs, or embolic phenomena. We present a rare case of C. hominis infective prosthetic valve endocarditis that presented with new-onset atrial flutter and systemic emboli.

Case: A 38-year-old male presented to the emergency department with palpitations, shortness of breath, and chest tightness and was found to be in atrial flutter. He underwent a transesophageal echocardiogram-guided cardioversion and was incidentally found to have a one-centimeter echodensity on the ventricular side of his prosthetic aortic valve. (Figure 1.) He …

Volume 33, Number 3, Winter 2024/25, Office Of Communications, Illinois Wesleyan University

Illinois Wesleyan University Magazine, 2018-present

VOLUME 33 | NUMBER 3 | Winter 2024/25

ON OUR COVER:

Lauren Giannini '08 and Andrew Herrington-Gilmore '09 are the founders of the The Gilmore Family Foundation, which has raised more than half a million dollars to support research for rare diseases.

22 A Family for Care, For Lauren Giannini '08 and Andrew Herrington-Gilmore '09, receiving their children's diagnoses of rare and life threatening diseases became their life's greatest challenge and their new inspiration to help others.

Hauntings Of Publication Deaths, Possibilities For Our Academic Present, Kathleen (Kaye) A. Hare, Amber Moore

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

In this paper, we use a feminist dialogue to query publication deaths that haunt us. We ruminate on respective past publications that remain unread and uncited, despite encapsulating defining events in our development as scholars. For Author Kaye Hare this was an affective narrative that troubled a seemingly ideal moment of public scholarship; for Author Amber Moore, this was a hard-fought analysis of precarious intersectional feminist resistance in popular culture. Inspired by the horror-film genre “spectral incognizance,” we methodologically deploy a multivocal dialogical structure based on multiple revisitings that attenuate anxieties of metaphorical publication death, before revealing that this death …

Volume 11, Issue 3, Critical Currents And Pedagogical Shifts In Popular Culture And Pedagogy, Journal Dialogue

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Volume 11, Issue 3 of Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy: On Confronting Identity and Global Challenges through Popular Culture and Pedagogy.

Escaping The Pedagogical Cabin In The Woods, Tony Kemerly, Davis Ritenour

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

The American educational system, because of its seemingly innocuous yet ubiquitous nature, has become, to borrow a term from Roland Barthes, naturalized. By being naturalized, it has become a system that has somehow slipped beneath the radar of the American populace and operates on an autopilot of sorts that allows it to employ practices that don’t necessarily have the best interests of its constituents at heart. Murray Rothbard (1979) argued that compulsory schooling is not guided by altruism, but rather a desire to coerce the population into a mold that is desired by those possessing power in society. This need …

Building Transferable Skills In An Interdisciplinary Science And Science Fiction Capstone Course, John D. Carrell, Robert G. Weiner, Alexandria Prather

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

College graduates are entering an ever-competitive workforce. Interdisciplinary course experiences are critical for developing analytical abilities and learning and these courses can provide valuable skills that will aid students beyond the classroom. These transferable skills include communication, teamwork, analytical and critical thinking, and creativity. To provide a unique learning experience and, through it, the development of transferable skills, the Honors College at Texas Tech University created an upper-level Capstone course titled “Superheroes, Super Villains, AI, Time Travel, and Film in Science and Popular Culture.” The class is an interdisciplinary look at science and science fiction taught by an engineering faculty …

The Anxious Generation, How The Great Rewiring Of Childhood Is Causing Epidemic Of Mental Illness, Jay Nathan

Journal of Global Awareness

No abstract provided.

Commencement [Program], December 21, 2024, University Of Northern Iowa

UNI Commencement Programs

The program of the commencement ceremonies, including a list of institutional leadership, a list of the departments by college, awards given at the ceremonies, and a list of undergraduate and graduate degree candidates. This commencement program is not an official graduate list.

Contents:

Board of Regents --- 2
Institutional Leadership --- 2
Ceremony Symbols & Traditions --- 3
Academic Honorary Organizations --- 4
University Ambassador Organizations --- 5
University Honors Program --- 6
Graduation with Honors --- 6
Legacy Graduates --- 6
Military Science --- 7
Merchant Scholarship --- 7
Outstanding Student Leader --- 7
Commencement Student Speakers --- 7 …

December 20, 2024 Ereporter, University Of Alabama At Birmingham

eReporter (campus newsletter)

No abstract provided.

College Instructors’ Experiences Of Online English As Second Language (Esl) Teaching And Learning Environments, Jianan Zhou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates college ESL instructors' experiences in teaching online ESL courses. It explores the differences in teaching focus and online modes for teaching speaking, listening, reading, and writing courses. It also investigates how ESL instructors' perceived level of technology competence varies across different online teaching modes and examines how teaching and learner engagement strategies differ depending on the instructional modality. Key findings include the observation that both BICS and CALP were prevalent in online reading courses. Although no significant difference in technology competence between asynchronous and synchronous modes was found, it was shown that instructors used more synchronous modes …

Student Perceptions Of Campus-Integrated Therapy Dogs: Best Practices And Impact On Well-Being And Campus Belonging, Laura Poleshuck, Olivia Griffin, Caroline Winiecki

People and Animals: The International Journal of Research and Practice

College/university students are revealing concerning levels of anxiety and depression, as well as extremely high levels of loneliness, which interfere with their success in higher education (ACHA, 2022). A plethora of research has demonstrated that animal-assisted intervention (AAI) provided through interaction with trained therapy dogs has a positive effect on student well-being (e.g., Crossman et al., 2015; Grajfoner et al., 2017; Ward-Griffin et al., 2018). The InterProfessional Animal-assisted Wellness (IPAW) Collaborative, a campus-integrated therapy dog program with postsecondary students on a university campus, is a novel approach to AAI. The campus-integrated therapy dog program described in this study incorporates Pet …

Playful Learning In Higher Education To Inspire Playful Learning In P-12 Classrooms, Norline Wild

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

Playful learning has immense potential and relevance across all educational levels, from early childhood to university settings. However, play is often dismissed as an activity reserved only for young children and is ignored in higher education The purpose of this practitioner article is to share instructional strategies and insights in order to demonstrate the immense potential of play at the university level. The goal is not only to inspire teacher educators to be critical thinkers and to creatively interweave playful learning into their pedagogy but to provide concrete examples through modeling of how this can be done. Initially, a dedicated …

Invent A Kid Project: Fostering Creative Reflective Practice In Teacher Candidates, Karen Poland, Mary Ellen Bardsley, Paul Vermette

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

A primary goal of teacher education programs is to equip teacher candidates with the necessary skills to navigate the social and cultural realities and complexities of the classroom while seamlessly integrating theory and practice. As our classrooms become more socially, economically, and culturally diverse it is important for teachers to evolve into developmentally and culturally responsive individuals who can incorporate a variety of teaching strategies to meet the unique needs of each student. However, novice teachers often face challenges in meeting the individual needs of students due to their lack of experience, classroom management challenges, time constraints, the complexity of …

Disciplinary Variation In Curriculum Internationalization: Findings From A Global Pilot Study, Pouneh Eftekhari

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Introduction 16(6) 2024: Special Issue: Emerging Scholar Research Summaries, Rosalind Latiner Raby

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Student Success And Retention In Online Post-Secondary Education: A Phenomenological Study, Alison Weslake

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the experiences that participants from Northeastern College have in post-secondary online learning environments and recognize the overall factors that lead to student success and retention. The theory that guided this study was Bruner’s constructivist theory as it indicates the influence of experience on cognitive development and encourages the consideration of all factors that may impact the overall learning process. A hermeneutical phenomenological study was conducted with participants from Northeastern College in Ontario, Canada in order to accurately reflect personal experiences with the phenomenon of online post-secondary education. The central research question …

Reputation Management: Branding A Higher Education Graduate Program To Increase Visibility, Vanderbilt Artaxerxes Brabson Iv

Student Theses and Dissertations

This capstone project offers a comprehensive training tool for non-communication professionals working in higher education programs. Its main goals are to give users (1) a summary of valuable research on higher education reputation management, branding, and strategic communication, and (2) an online toolkit for non-communication professionals to boost the visibility and impact of their educational initiatives. By providing practical, actionable resources, these tools help higher education professionals effectively handle the challenges of strategic communication management. The toolkit is especially useful because it delivers evidence-based strategies and methods that can be directly applied to improve communication efforts in higher education. It …