Digital Commons Network^™

Justice-Oriented Pedagogy: Personal And Programmatic Commitments In Teacher Education, Cheetara A. Hudson

Dissertations

This qualitative case study examined how faculty in an urban, justice-oriented undergraduate teacher education program prepare elementary teacher candidates to develop socially just and culturally responsive teaching practices. Guided by Critical Race Theory and critical multiculturalism, this study explored how instructors integrated social justice education and culturally responsive pedagogy into coursework and field experiences. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis with four faculty members teaching foundational and methods courses. Thematic analysis revealed four key findings: (a) faculty beliefs and identities, shaped by prior K–12 teaching experiences, strongly influence their pedagogical choices; (b) instructors model justice-oriented …

Pedagogical Possibilities Toward Positive Embodiment: Applying The Developmental Theory Of Embodiment To Educational Contexts, Elena Buis

Dissertations

Young adolescents, particularly girls, often experience uncomfortable and negative relationships with their bodies, contributing to negative physical, mental, and emotional outcomes. Although educators have implemented interventions to address this issue, those grounded in positive embodiment remain underexplored. Specifically, the Developmental Theory of Embodiment (DTE), a prominent framework in eating disorder and body image research, has not been integrated into educational research or practice. This dissertation explores the integration of DTE into educational theory, practice, and pedagogy across three complementary articles and examines the teaching and learning of Be Body Positive (BBP), a positive embodiment intervention, with a fifth grade Girl …

Teachers’ Use Of Evidence-Based Research To Inform Best Practices, Brianna Cairns

Dissertations

Teachers are expected to use research to inform their practice, whether updating practices to keep up with changing times or researching and implementing new strategies and interventions to support the students in their classrooms. However, experts have expressed concern that teachers do not use empirical evidence to make decisions, instead relying on their own experiences or the anecdotal advice of other teachers. This explanatory sequential, mixed-methods study seeks to contribute to the existing body of research about teachers’ use of research to inform their practice. Survey data were collected from 180 elementary, middle, and high school teachers regarding whether they …

The Lived Experiences Of Clinical Mental Health Counselors Returning To Clinical Work After Becoming A New Mom: A Phenomenological Study, Kathryn Bohn

Dissertations

The experience of transitioning back to work postpartum can be an emotional rollercoaster for women. One that is often filled with identity tensions and sweeping emotions that range from guilt to relief, anxiety to confidence (Dod, 2025; Franzoi et al., 2023; Garcia-Lorenzo et al., 2023). Postpartum can be an emotionally raw and vulnerable time for new mothers as they navigate physical and emotional changes, maternal stress, and the pressures and demands of new motherhood (LeBlanc, 2023; Maylott, 2023). Professional counselors in a clinical setting, also known as clinical mental health counselors, encounter occupationally specific responsibilities that create unique experiences for …

A Quantitative Critical Analysis Of Comprehensive Education Plan Effects As Implemented Under Title 5 In California Community Colleges, Nicole Jones

Dissertations

California Code of Regulations, Title 5, is the policy and regulatory guide of the California Community Colleges. Sections of Title 5 policy govern the implementation of programs and services at these colleges. It provides protection for colleges and specifies student entitlements under the law. The mission of the California Community Colleges is to serve as an open-access point, providing students with services and instruction. Access barriers to services like counseling can delay goal attainment, increase cost of attendance and time to completion, and result in lower successful retention or persistence rates. Additionally, resource allocation, Title 5 Section 59200 regulations (the …

From Stranger To Self: The Role Of Familiarity In Modulating The N170 And N250 Erp Components, Tabish Gul

Dissertations

This study investigated how varying levels of face familiarity modulate the N170 and N250 event-related potential (ERP) components, two neural markers of face perception and recognition. While the N250 is widely considered familiarity-sensitive, the N170 has traditionally been linked to the structural encoding stage of face perception. However, recent research suggests that face familiarity may also influence N170 amplitude and latency. While most previous studies have compared up to three familiarity levels, the present study examined five levels of familiarity: own face, friend’s face, famous face, experimentally familiar face, and unfamiliar face. Twenty-six participants viewed face images while completing a …

Do International Alumni Give Differently? A Study On The Alumni Philanthropic Perspective Of Trust And Key Relational Factors Affecting Attitude Towards Giving, John Held

Dissertations

Philanthropy plays a key role in the funding of institutions of higher education. Previous research has focused on domestic populations, exploring the antecedents and elements of philanthropy in higher education. The literature has yet to examine differences in these elements between domestic and international, or distance extremes, amongst alumni populations. This study investigates the perceptions and motivating factors influencing alumni who experience significant geographic separation from their Higher Education Institution (HEI) and their philanthropic support for their alma mater. The conceptual model includes factors at the organization-to-organization, person-to-organization, and person-to-person levels and their moderating effects on the relationship between trust …

Exploring Alternative Curriculum Implementation In Special Education Settings, Amber R. Wilson

Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand teachers’ perceptions of implementing an alternative curriculum in their self-contained special education settings and grade levels, as well as their perceptions of the training and ongoing support provided for its implementation. This study used a case study research design. Findings revealed that the participants experienced several challenges related to training, ongoing support, and curriculum implementation, including issues aligning the alternative curriculum with state standards and assessments. This study is significant because alternative curriculum implementation is under-researched in the United States, and the international literature on this topic is limited.

Secondary Teachers’ Perceptions On The Wida Framework To Support Academic Literacy In Multilingual Learners, Laura G. Faris

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine teachers’ perceptions of benefits and barriers to using the WIDA Framework to support academic literacy in multilingual learners (MLs).  Content-area teachers of MLs who continue to learn English are teaching academic literacy through complex linguistic structures for students to both comprehend and produce informative textual structures which occur in secondary textual reading and written assessments in the literature and historical content areas. Qualitative methods including reflective journal entries, semi-structured teacher interviews, and classroom observations were used to collect data on teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of using the WIDA Framework to better …

Analyzing Professional Development To Foster Agency And Professional Growth Among Educators, Kameron Kimbrough

Dissertations

This study explores how professional development (PD) and leadership systems influence teacher agency and instructional coherence at a high-poverty, predominantly Black K–8 school in Chicago. Midwest Elementary Academy has faced persistent achievement gaps and systemic instability that hinder collaboration and teacher growth. Guided by three research questions, this exploratory case study used a mixed-methods design to examine educator perceptions of PD quality, instructional autonomy, and leadership structures. Data were collected through anonymous surveys, semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and document reviews with four educator participants. Qualitative data were coded using open and in vivo methods, and survey responses were analyzed descriptively …

Performing (For The) Guru: A Performance Studies Approach To The Study Of Cults, Todd M. Brown

Dissertations

This project approaches a long-term experience of living in a cult through a performance studies lens. Utilizing autoethnographic methods, it explores personal insights and observations from years within the inner-circle of a coercive religious environment under tyrannical leadership. A variety of systems and relationships are narrated and analyzed according to three categories: ritualization, deployability, and occupation. Ritualization explains how a body becomes imbued with the rhythms and mantras of a cultic milieu. Deployability describes how this body is put into action at the service of the leadership. Occupation, as a metaphor, illuminates how a cultic subject becomes filled with the …

Experiences Of Care From The Perspective Of Students With Disabilities: A Multi-Case Study, Neve Grosse Siegfreid

Dissertations

Inclusion for students with disabilities is often limited to access to the general education curriculum and school environment. Previous research has indicated that teacher relationships are essential to student success. Missing from the research was the practice of care as relational inclusion, as described in Nel Noddings’s ethic of care theory. The purpose of this qualitative, multi-case study was to explore inclusion through care relationships as experienced by students with disabilities ages 12-15 and to contrast their experiences with Noddings’s care as inclusion, as described in the ethics of care theory. Using the philosophical lens of Nel Noddings’s ethic of …

Police, Punishment, And Mental Health: Examining The Effects Of School-Based Services On Disciplinary Inequities, Jessica Peña

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine how school-based law enforcement officer (LEO) staffing ratios and school-based mental health provider (MHP) staffing ratios were associated with disciplinary disproportionality for students of color, and whether MHP staffing moderated the relationship between LEO staffing and disproportionality using a comprehensive national dataset. The following research questions guided this study:

Q1 Does disciplinary disproportionality exist in exclusionary practices within the current educational system?

Q2 How are ratios of school police officers related to disciplinary disproportionality?

Q3 How are ratios of school-based MHPs related to disciplinary disproportionality?

Q4 Does the ratio of school-based MHPs …

The Use And Efficacy Of Non-Verbal Gestures In Applied Studio Voice Instruction And Vocal Coaching, Mark Eugene Lubas

Dissertations

Despite important innovations in the use of technology in vocal instruction, individualized, faceto- face communication remains the predominant delivery modality for applied voice lessons and vocal coaching. Applied voice instructors and vocal coaches consistently identify non-verbal, gestural communication as a significant dimension of these instructional interactions. Existing scholarship has examined the expressive use of gesture in musical performance, the role of gesture in facilitating pitch accuracy acquisition among young singers, and the neurological responses of singers to gestural input. However, systematic investigation of gesture as a pedagogical instrument from the perspective of the instructor remains underdeveloped in the literature. This …

Practices And Strategies Used In Classrooms For Children Who Are Deaf With Autism, Jennifer Anne Hills

Dissertations

Deaf education has a history spanning more than 200 years; however, there remain relatively few evidence-based practices specifically identified for use with children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH; Cawthon & Carrie, 2021). In contrast, autism as a diagnostic and educational category is a much more recent phenomenon. Just over 80 years ago, Donald Triplett, became the first person diagnosed with autism in the United States (Donovan & Zucker, 2016). The diagnosis and education of autism is a newer phenomenon with strong research underpinnings. Conversely, the field of deaf education has existed for over 200 years, yet few evidence-based practices …

The Relationship Of Analysis And Performance In Henri Tomasi’S Concerto Pour Trombone Et Orchestre, Craig Owen Hull

Dissertations

Henri Tomasi’s Concerto pour Trombone et Orchestre is regarded as one of the most important pieces within the trombone solo repertoire. However, neither Tomasi nor his Concerto pour Trombone et Orchestre have received a notable amount of scholarly attention. This is likely due to Tomasi’s obscurity to a general audience and too few trombonists engaging in analytical and historical scholarly endeavors. However, the quality of the composer, his work, and the lack of scholarship surrounding it encourage such a study to exist.

The music theory discipline known as analysis and performance relies on analysis and historical context. The combination of …

Between The Lines And Behind The Lessons: An Educational Criticism Of Bridging Anti-Bias Possibilities In Colorado’S K-2 Standards And Classrooms, Grace Marguerite Breiten

Dissertations

In an era of standardized accountability in public education, anti-bias-oriented Colorado educators have sought to foster caring, courageous, and critically conscious citizens by affirming student identity, promoting diversity, demanding justice, and inspiring activism, all while adhering to mandated academic standards. The purpose of the qualitative Educational Critical and Connoisseurship study was to understand and describe how K-2 anti-bias-oriented educators teaching in public schools in Colorado interpreted and implemented Colorado’s Reading, Writing, and Communicating (RWC) and Social Studies (SS) standards using an anti-bias orientation. This study was guided by the following research questions:

Q1 In what ways are Colorado’s K–2 Reading, …

Reframing Health: A Phenomenological Inquiry Into The Lived Experiences Of Weight- Inclusive Healthcare Providers, Hannah Brass

Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the unique lived experiences of healthcare professionals who practiced from a weight-inclusive lens. This study was guided by the following research questions:

Q1 What is the unique lived experience of a healthcare provider practicing from a weight-inclusive lens?

Q2 What are the significant experiences that have influenced the development of weight-inclusive providers’ attitudes (i.e., thoughts, feelings, and behaviors)?

Data from these findings were analyzed using Giorgi’s (2009) descriptive phenomenological method to discover rich descriptions and themes of weight-inclusive healthcare practitioners' experiences. The study explored the significant experiences and supports that influenced …

Protecting The Public: The Impact Of Continued Competence Regulations On Nursing Disciplinary Rates, Laura Katherine Blackhurst

Dissertations

Nursing competence is essential for the provision of quality, ethical, legal, safe patient care. NRBs serve a critical role in establishing standards for nurses that lead to the protection of the public. While most NRBs mandate some measure of ongoing competence, there is notable variation in NRB competence regulations. While competence regulations should reduce the need for nursing discipline, there is limited evidence regarding the effectiveness of these regulations in promoting public protection.

The purpose of this study was to explore how continued competence regulations impact the disciplinary rate of registered nurses. The following research questions guided this study:

Q1 …

Feedback Without Content Expertise: Exploring Teacher Perception Of Effective Feedback In Teacher Evaluations With Content Mismatch, Anna Keathley Bergeron

Dissertations

A key element of teacher evaluation systems is to support professional growth by providing teachers with feedback on their instructional practices and identifying opportunities for improvement. Despite this intent, research consistently indicates that teachers often perceive evaluation feedback as vague, generic, or disconnected from their instructional context. These concerns are particularly evident at the secondary level, where evaluators frequently assess teachers outside their area of content expertise. As a result, recent research suggests that a lack of content knowledge may serve as a barrier to providing meaningful feedback.

The purpose of this qualitative instrumental case study was to examine how …

Black Faces In White Spaces: Understanding School Belonging Among Black Adolescents At Nais Independent Schools, Letetsia Angelica Fox

Dissertations

Even though the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) has been committed to diversity for the last 30 years, they often focus their diversity efforts on all students of color instead of specific groups such as Black students (Brosnan, 2001). By not focusing on the specific experiences of Black students at independent schools, independent schools cannot truly foster a strong sense of school belonging for Black students because they do not understand the distinct barriers and factors that contribute to the development of school belonging for Black students who attend their schools (Hall & Stevenson, 2007).

This qualitative study sought …

Transparency And Accessibility In State Transportation Performance Reporting: A Systematic Examination Of State Department Of Transportation Websites Under Map-21, Jack Alan Klee

Dissertations

In the United States, all 50 State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) rely on federal funding as a key revenue source for roadway preservation programs. The 2012 Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) Act introduced a performance-based framework for transportation policy, establishing seven national goal areas that require state DOTs to report performance outcomes. As MAP-21 reaches its ten-year milestone, this dissertation investigates the extent to which state DOTs demonstrate transparency and accessibility in reporting federally mandated performance management results. Despite the centrality of performance reporting to accountability and public trust, systematic evaluations of these dimensions remain limited …

Barriers To Climate Change And Sustainability Action: Nursing Education And Practice, Dawn Marie Smith

Dissertations

Climate change is one of the most pressing public health emergencies of our time and nurses can have a great impact in their current practice and in the education of future nurses (The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, n.d.; American Nurses Association, 2023; Health Care without Harm, 2025). Deaths due to rising temperatures, vector-borne illness, and food insecurity related to drought and extreme weather are on the rise (WHO, 2024). It has been estimated that globally over 250,000 additional deaths will be attributed to climate related effects between 2030 and 2050 (Watts et al., 2020; WHO, 2023).

A primary …

Convergence And Divergence Of Opinion About Treatment Of Binocular Vision Disorders Among Vision Care Professionals, Sonia Young

Dissertations

There are three distinct professions prominent in the field of pediatric vision care. They are ophthalmology, optometry and orthoptics. All professions are integral to the detection and treatment of pediatric binocular vision disorders. However, distinct schools of thought exist to describe the best approach to pediatric binocular vision disorders and their treatments. Literature often highlights two opposing schools of thought represented by the “medical” and “behavioral” approaches. While there is academic debate about the merits and pitfalls of either approach, there is a paucity of nuanced perspectives which more closely resemble the ways in which pediatric ocular clinicians approach diagnosis …

“The Thorns Of The Most Severe Virtue”: Education, Religion, And Cultural Power In Michigan, 1798–1855, Kyle Christopher Vanderwall

Dissertations

This project seeks to demonstrate the centrality of education and religion as cultural power levers used by Americans, Odawa, and Catholic missionaries. Though the power of each culture was uneven, efforts to create educational institutions imbued with different denominations of Christianity, as well as continued contestation over land, remade the cultures of all involved. Americans privileged state-building practices, the Odawa acculturated to remain in Michigan when removal policies were enacted throughout the United States, and the Catholic church attempted to proselytize Indigenous communities.

Although the ethnohistorical method needed to be understood in order to write this project, it is not …

The Effects Of Fluency Building On Undergraduate Student Performance, Lauren B. Shibley

Dissertations

Online learning has become integral to higher education, with enrollment steadily increasing over the past decade and accelerating during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research highlights the importance of flexibility, learner autonomy, and self-regulated learning skills in this environment, with studies demonstrating that strategies such as mastery-based, self-paced instruction, fluency training, and timely feedback support student engagement and academic success. Early work adapting personalized instruction for online use (Pear & Crone-Todd, 1999) and subsequent studies on fluency practice (Quigley et al., 2018; Urbina et al., 2019) emphasize how these supports can improve concept retention. Despite these advances, more quantitative research is needed …

Place-Based Scholarship Utilization And Urban Black Males, Nkenge Amir Bergan

Dissertations

Despite the expansion of place-based scholarship programs across the United States, Black males from urban communities remain significantly underrepresented in post-secondary enrollment. Though these scholarships are designed to provide expanded or universal access to higher education, Black males disproportionately underutilize this financial resource. This qualitative investigation examines the lived experiences, perceptions, and contextual factors influencing Black males’ decisions regarding place-based scholarship utilization and college attendance.

This study, grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT) and self-efficacy theory, employs a qualitative design to explore participant experiences. Participants are recruited through outreach to local alumni networks and community organizations, with eligibility limited to …

A Phenomenological Study Of Black College Students’ Belonging Built Through Meaningful Interactions With Black Staff At Predominantly White Institutions, Katelyn A. Hanley Semelbauer

Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to explore how Black students at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) describe meaningful interactions with Black staff and how they make meaning of those interactions as it relates to building a sense of belonging. The conceptual framework for this study incorporates Strayhorn’s (2019) college students’ sense of belonging theoretical model as a foundation with Museus’s (2014) culturally engaging campus environment model as a lens for analysis of the findings.

Using a hermeneutical phenomenological approach, 12 Black undergraduate students were recruited to participate. Each of the students attended a public 4-year PWI in the Great …

Making Sense Of The Faith-Based School’S Mission: An Instrumental Case Study Exploring How The School’S Espoused Mission Is Enacted, Richard Mingerink

Dissertations

What happens in the space between a school’s espoused mission and the enactment of that mission in the classroom? For faith-based schools—institutions whose very identity rests upon a religiously grounded purpose—this question is not merely technical but existential. While these schools publicly espouse missions centered on a religious faith, research consistently suggests that what is proclaimed on paper is not always what is practiced in classrooms. The persistent gap between espoused mission and enacted practice raises a critical question: how do educators actually make sense of their school’s religious mission, and how does that sensemaking shape what they do?

This …

Popular Protest And Corporate Reputation: Exploring The Impact On Recruitment And Retention, Heather Miller

Dissertations

In today’s sociopolitical climate, popular protest has become a powerful force shaping how organizations are judged and how people decide where to work. This qualitative study took place during a period of heightened sociopolitical activity and public unrest in the United States, when organizational responses to contested issues were especially visible and consequential. This study explored how popular protest affects corporate reputation (CR) and, in turn, influences employee recruitment and retention. Drawing on stakeholder theory (ST), corporate social responsibility (CSR), and corporate social advocacy (CSA), the study situated popular protest as an external pressure that exposes alignment or misalignment in …