Digital Commons Network^™

Teachers' Perceptions Of Experiential Learning In The 3-Circle Agricultural Education Model, Jon C. Schreurs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to describe teachers’ perceptions of experiential learning and its effects on student learning, understanding, and engagement through agriculture education's three-circle model. This paper explores teachers’ perceptions of the value and importance of experiential learning in agriculture education instruction, FFA, and supervised agricultural experience. Further, I explore experiential learning, constructivism, and hands-on learning as the foundational instructional practices used in agricultural education. Agricultural education teachers from southwest Minnesota were surveyed to determine how they are using experiential learning in their agriculture education programs, including classroom instruction, FFA, and supervised agricultural experiences.

Technology-Based Culturally Relevant Chemistry Education (Crce), Mercy Adoma Fosu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The relevance of chemistry concepts and principles remains a challenge for most students enrolled in college chemistry courses. Part of this problem is the disconnect with what students experience in their every-day lives, and how the material, specifically chemistry content is presented via textbooks, lectures, and laboratory teaching. Moreover, the teaching of general chemistry has traditionally focused on traditional, instructor-centric expository delivery of course materials, that treats students as empty vessels devoid of prior knowledge. Students prior knowledge and experiences are crucial in shaping their understanding of scientific concepts and principles. Even students with relatively low expectations for success in …

Evaluation Of Fall-Seeded Cover Crops For Grassland Nesting Waterfowl In Eastern South Dakota, Charles W. Gallman Iii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Prairie Pothole Region is the primary breeding ground for many species of North American waterfowl. This landscape was historically dominated by mixed and tallgrass prairies interspersed with wetlands, but >70% of native grassland area has been lost due to widespread conversion to croplands, which may threaten waterfowl production. Cover cropping is a re-emerging farming technique that may provide suitable nesting cover for grassland nesting waterfowl on active farmlands. My research objectives were to evaluate the utility of fall-seeded cover crops to breeding waterfowl compared to perennial cover, determine if cover crops in rotation with row crops can successfully support …

Ethnicity And Migration ─ The Concentration And Dispersion Of Foreign-Born Asians And Hispanics In The United States, Shuang Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Immigration from Asia and Latin America has rapidly changed the race and ethnic composition of the non-White population in the United States. This dissertation examines the question of race/ethnicity, nativity, and how acculturation and socioeconomic characteristics impact residential outcomes for Asian and Hispanic immigrants, a process often termed as residential assimilation. It also tests the effectiveness of spatial assimilation, segmented assimilation, and resurgent ethnicity theories for understanding residential segregation across metropolitan neighborhoods. Three sets of analyses are presented in this dissertation. The first set of analyses studies the nativity difference in residential segregation levels between Asians and Hispanics from non-Hispanic …

Holding Space: Learning From A Black Art Organization, Tierney Anne Bamrick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Minority-led nonprofit organizations are marginalized in the United States arts sector, analyses of which rely heavily on data from dominant, often White-led institutional arts organizations. This study seeks to understand the experience of a minority-led arts organization in that context. I ask, what does artistic practice – both creative and organizational – look like for this organization? And what are the implications of that practice for the arts sector more broadly? Drawing on over a year of ethnographic work with The Network, a Black-led arts organization in a southern U.S. city, I argue that their asset-focused treatment of place, their …

Portraits Of Professional Collaboration: Faculty-Librarian Teaching Partnerships, Carrie L. Forbes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many regional accrediting organizations for higher education have embraced information literacy as a key component for both student success and student learning outcomes. Through embedded librarianship practices, librarians are now taking a leading role in developing and promoting users’ information literacy skills and in adopting an active classroom teaching approach. Faculty-librarian team teaching is a best practice for integrating information literacy into the higher education curricula, but the extant research has largely focused on the barriers to collaboration. Using Walsh and Kahn’s (2010) model of “collaborative working” as a conceptual framework, this dissertation explores the qualities and characteristics of four …

Rural Npo Leadership In Time Of Volatility: A Study Of Nonprofit Organizations In South Dakota, Mellissa Heermann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This exploratory study determined the legitimacy of the leadership gap in Nonprofit Organizations (NPOs) in South Dakota by collecting quantitative and qualitative data and then comparing the results with national studies. It aimed to understand if NPOs were more vulnerable to leadership transitions and the costs associated with them. It also provided additional insight for future research opportunities. While there were studies on larger NPOs, such as the United Way, or NPOs in more highly populated regions, there was a gap in research for rural NPOs that potentially would not be financially able to research these trends on their own. …

Student-Faculty Interactions As Predictors Of Retention And Satisfaction Among Generation Z College Students, Stephani Jarecke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Student retention has historically been an important discussion in higher education. While the importance of student retention remains, a new generation of students have filled colleges and universities. This study examines how interactions with faculty influence Generation Z college students’ overall satisfaction and student retention. The quantitative study used the NSSE survey instrument at a public land-grant institution in the Midwest. The results of a Mann-Whitney U analysis indicated a significant difference in student satisfaction reported between students who returned to the same institution the following year and students who did not return. A multiple linear regression analysis indicated that …

What's Next? The Intersection Of Politics And Marketing: A Look At Its Impact On Shareholder Wealth, Ashley Morgan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The first essay attempts to explain the heterogeneity in the stock market’s reaction to a firm’s lobbying for good efforts. It is hypothesized that higher (a) CEO equity-to-pay ratio, (b) marketing influence in the TMT, (c) marketing capabilities, (d) corporate social performance, and (e) institutional ownership, will be associated with less negative abnormal stock returns. Results indicate that firms with a greater amount of marketing influence in the top management team experience greater negative abnormal returns. While firms with a higher CEO equity-to-pay ratio and a greater level of institutional ownership experience less negative abnormal returns. The second essay explores …

Beautiful And Terrible In The Face: Reconfiguring The Southern Beauty Myth Through The Short Fiction And Autobiographical Writings Of Eudora Welty, Katherine Elizabeth Howell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

From her personal appearance as the “ugly duckling” of southern literature, to her narrative preoccupations as a writer of grotesques, Eudora Welty has been critically separated from the realm of southern beauty and femininity. Drawing textual evidence from Welty’s strategic invocation of beauty acts and products in her short fiction and autobiographical writings, this thesis insists upon Welty’s lifelong stake in beauty culture, as it is practiced by southern women across the socioeconomic spectrum. Across her body of short fiction—a substantial portion of which was first published in women’s fashion magazines—Welty details the ways in which beauty, as expressed through …

It's A Cis-Gendered Man's World: How Drag Kings Define Good Drag In Their Fight To Be Seen As The Best Performers, Madison Shappley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research is based on field observations in Ridgeville, a Southern city, at an LGBTQ bar, that I call Rainbow Bar and on in-depth interviews with Rainbow Bar drag performers. Through my study at Rainbow, I set out to answer: 1) What do drag kings consider to be “good drag” for themselves and for other kings?; and 2) Who is considered to have the best drag? And who determines what the best drag is? I found that Ridgeville drag kings felt as though they had to work harder than Ridgeville queens in their drag. To have good drag, Ridgeville kings …

Learning Community Impact On Low-Socioeconomic Student Success In A 4-Year Public University, April Thompson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Low-socioeconomic students often persist and graduate from institutions of higher education at lower rates than middle and upper-socioeconomic students. Learning communities are one proactive program established in higher education to support first-year students in their academic and social acclimation into college. However, learning community literature tends to focus on the success of the participant population as a whole. This study sought to contribute to existing learning community literature and low-socioeconomic student literature by measuring learning community impact on low-socioeconomic student academic success in terms of GPA, same-institution retention, and same-institution degree completion within six years. This quantitative study measured GPA, …

African American Gospel Piano Style In The 21st Century: A Collective Case Study, Roderick Vester

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the African American gospel piano style in the 21st century, further examining the role of musical enculturation, transmission, and preservation through the lived experiences and perspectives as reported by five gospel pianists throughout the United States. A collective case study design (Stake, 1995) was used to explore how the gospel piano style is being learned, developed, transformed, transmitted, and preserved. Research questions focused on participants’ beliefs about the stylistic transformation of gospel piano in the 21st century and factors that influences those beliefs such as past and present stylistic developments. The data …

Instant Schools: The Frenzied Formation And Early Days Of The Mississippi Private School Association, Ernest Flora Iv

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The founding leadership of the Mississippi Private School Association (MPSA) used individual experience and extensive networking via the Citizens’ Council along with the community’s belief and desire to maintain white-only schools to create a coalition of quickly formed but well-resourced private schools. This political and social clout afforded them the ability to create a large, powerful organization almost “instantly” during a pivotal moment of southern educational history. Scholar Kenneth T. Andrews called the establishment of all-white academies in Mississippi, “a countermovement strategy that floout of the prior history of organized white resistance to the civil-rights movement.” The significance of this …

Factors Associated With Student Withdrawals At A Mississippi Community College, Kathryn Harlow Cox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The three manuscript dissertation examines the factors associated with student withdrawal at a Mississippi Community College. Student withdrawal is a consistent concern for administration at this institution. The research focuses on reasons for withdrawal, student demographics, and subject withdrawal. Understanding the factors associated with student withdrawal at this institution could encourage retention and persistence. Manuscript One will provide an overview of the problem of practice, review of literature, and guidance from successful retention programs. Manuscript Two will provide a summary of data collection and presentation of findings from each of the four research questions. Manuscript Three will provide a summary …

Examining The Influences Of University Image And Campus Visits On Students’ College Choices, Jennifer Lea Mcclure

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological study provides qualitative data in the areas of university image, campus visits, and college choice. The purpose of the study was to examine the value of university image and campus visits in students’ college choices. Twenty matriculated freshmen at the University of Mississippi who participated in campus visits as prospective students and who applied for admission in the months of October through April were selected via purposeful sampling to participate in open-ended interviews about the images that they hold of the university, their campus visit experiences, and their college choice processes. The data collected show that students place …

The Preparedness Of First-Year Football Student-Athletes In Online Classes At The University Of Mississippi, Cliff Mccain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Colleges and universities in the United States currently face an n issue of student-athletes enrolling in online courses and not being prepared. Research has shown that students take these classes for a variety of reasons and perceive a variety of advantages and disadvantages to these types of classes and even more specifically, the subjects taken in the online format. Their level of preparedness, the reasons for this level, and the perceived assistance needed were also issues to be examined. This study aims to determine how prepared for online courses the first-year football student - athletes were during the 2018-2019 school …

Out To Get Us: Contemporary Evangelical Expressions Of Identity In Interaction, Pace Tyler Ward

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Evangelical Christianity occupies a dominant position in American culture and politics. This thesis extends previous research on evangelicalism in America by identifying how evangelicals collectively construct their distinction and uniqueness in small group settings. By conducting an ethnography of bible study meetings organized by an evangelical church in North Mississippi, Mercy Church, I examine how church participants collectively differentiate themselves from the rest of the world. Rather than imagining themselves at odds with a single, monolithic Other, this study shows that evangelical identity is formed and crystallized through small battles with numerous outsiders, both Christian and non-Christian. Specifically, I find …

Race, Sense Of Belonging, And The African American Student Experience At Predominantly White Institutions, Anthony Kane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research study utilized a critical race theoretical framework and methodology to explore the lived experiences of African American students at a predominantly White institution. The purpose of this study was to identify how race impacts the sense of belonging of African American students at predominantly White institutions (PWIs). This study highlighted the racialized experiences of African American students at a predominantly White institution and how these experiences impacted their sense of belonging. Additionally, this study sought to understand the type of support African Americans students preferred and needed in order to develop a positive sense of belonging.

Six African …

Decolonizing American Democracy And The Problem Of Gerrymandering: Implications Of Border Designs From A Communication Ethics Perspective, Mark Gardner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project attempts to understand the powerful force of political borders from a historical and communicative perspective. Of particular importance to this research is the role that political borders play in shaping individuals’ relationship to structures and practices of democracy. Following insights of decolonial and communication ethics scholars, this work understands the importance of ethically framing deliberations surrounding physical, metaphorical, and categorical political borders. Five chapters make up this work in the culmination of analyzing political gerrymandering as a form of democratic competition grounded in the rhetoric of colonialism. Tracing the colonial history of borders throughout American democracy provides this …

"Frontline In Mental Healthcare": A Discourse Analytic Clinical Ethnography Of Crisis Intervention Team Trainings For Corrections, Daniel Gruner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the criminal justice system operates a discourse of corrections-reform. This responds to prisoner trauma and resistance by converting them into reforms that strengthen prisons and the larger carceral system while discounting issues of race and class that might undermine institutional legitimacy. The recent adoption of Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Trainings in corrections is exemplary of corrections-reform discourse. ‘Crisis’ comes from the Greek krinein, meaning ‘to decide.’ The crisis in mental health in prisons involves deciding when to implement what “services” or “programming” for whom.

In this discourse analytic clinical ethnographic study, I focus on the trans-disciplinary corrections …

Exploring Appreciative Advising As An Equity Approach For African American Students: A Grounded Theory Study Of Academic Advisors At Predominantly White Institutions (Pwis), Valerie Harper

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

EXPLORING APPRECIATIVE ADVISING AS AN EQUITY APPROACH FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENTS: A GROUNDED THEORY STUDY OF ACADEMIC ADVISORS AT PREDOMINANTLY WHITE INSTITUTIONS (PWIs)

By

Valerie J. Harper

October 28, 2019

Dissertation supervised by Professor Gretchen Givens Generett

African American matriculation into postsecondary education continues to rise, but degree conferral remains low (Hoston, Graves, & Fleming-Randle, 2010). Arguably, Harper and Hurtado’s (2007) research, as far back as 1992, stated black students and other students of color have dealt with alienation, isolation, and stereotyping at PWIs; this continues to persist today (Lee, 2018), which may interrupt the academic success of African …

Bureaucratic Modernity And The Erosion Of Practical Reason: A Rhetorical Education As An Antidote, David Impellizzeri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To what extent and in what ways does modernity reveal itself through the bureaucratic? This project aims at an interpretive understanding of bureaucratic modernity. The rationalization of society and action in the (late) modern world requires that an increasing number of human activities and domains be explained in allegedly neutral, ‘rational’ terms and without reference to morally substantive ends. Ultimately, this entails a form of epistemic reductionism that elevates instrumental rationality to the exclusion of practical reason and probabilistic ways of knowing. Bureaucratic modernity signifies a decrease in choices that can be legitimized in public on some basis other …

Charismatic Renewal And Pentecostalism: The Renewal Of The Nigerian Catholic Church, Isidore Nkwocha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project is using Charismatic and Pentecostal theology and praxes to argue for the renewal of the Nigerian Catholic church. It avers that the praxis-oriented and experiential theology of the Charismatics and Pentecostals, which characterize them as Spirit-filled groups and churches are enabling the Nigerian Catholic church to realize the potentials of a Spirit-driven church through the renewal of her pneumatological, ecclesiological, and liturgical doctrines and practices

An Exploration Of Communication Ethics Scholarship And Economic Spheres, Andrew Tinker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project examines communication ethics scholarship to understand how economics is understood within the field and to establish coordinates for scholars to discuss economic spheres as phenomena that affect communication ethics. Scholars draw from the tradition of virtue ethics to mark communication ethics inquiry as that which explores the practices that protect and promote the “good.” Philosophers of communication and communication ethicists have developed paradigmatic metaphors for the field that allow us to understand the formation of ethical guidelines within communities both familial, corporate, and national, that promote and protect various goods. These metaphors include “hierarchy” and “sameness” from Charles …

The Mediating Role Of Differentiation In The Relationship Between Mindfulness And Working Alliance, Caleb P. Thompson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study involved a mediation analysis exploring the relationship of counselor’s perceptions of mindfulness and working alliance through differentiation of self. Sample data (N=80) was collected and analyzed using the PROCESS mediation model to quantitatively determine the indirect effect of counselor’s perceptions of mindfulness and their perceptions of working alliance through the variable of differentiation of self. This indirect effect was not statistically significant, b = .08, 95% CI [-.11, .25], therefore no mediating effect was demonstrated for differentiation. A follow-up moderation analysis was also conducted on these same three variables. Results revealed that at low levels of …

Coaching Styles, Athletes' Needs Satisfaction, And Identity: An Analysis Of Athlete-Coach Relationship, Casey-May Huff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through the use of the self-determination theory (SDT), developed by Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan (2000), this study examined the various coaching styles and the relationship between both coaches’ and athletes’ identity. Thirty-two head coaches and 202 athletes from universities and colleges were surveyed. Coaches were matched with their athletes, producing 28 unique pairings. The first research question tested for coaching styles and how they connect to motivations. The second research question explored the coaching styles and how they relate to athletes’ motivations. A hypothesis examined differences between coaches’ reported coaching styles and their athletes’ needs. Results found …

Denkyem (Crocodile): Identity Development And Negotiation Among Ghanaian-American Millennials., Jakia Marie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ghanaian immigrants and second-generation Ghanaian-American Millennials are largely ignored in scholarship. Using qualitative methods, this study explored the experiences of Ghanaian-American Millennials who are first, 1.5, and second-generations with the purpose of understanding how they create, negotiate, and re-create identities. Twenty-one individuals were interviewed using a phenomenological approach. The main findings suggest that even though the sample populations were of different immigrant generations, they have some similar experiences, which demonstrates the value in exploring age instead of solely immigrant generation. The findings also suggest that there are a number of complex layers that are involved in identity development and negotiation …

In Search Of Work-Life Balance: Organizational And Economic Challenges Confronting Women In Banking And Management Consulting Firms In Southwest Nigeria, Oluwafisayo Ogundoro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Married women in the banking and management consulting firms in Nigeria encounter challenges that affect their commitment to their families while working long hours in demanding jobs. This study explores the challenges married women encounter and the impacts they have on women’s family lives, social lives, and health. I analyze primary and secondary sources to understand how organizational work culture such as long working hours, work competitiveness, and Nigeria’s unstable economy negatively affect the work-life balance of married women in banking and management consulting firms. Although participants shared the belief that their workplaces practiced “equality,” their descriptions of daily life …

Towards A Theory Of Human Mobility And Wall-Building: A Comparative Analysis Of Hadrian's Wall And The Iron Curtain., Timothy Heine

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis contributes a theory on human bordering practices that encompasses diverse types of borders and border experiences. In order to flesh out the factors underlying human wall-building, it is vital to first understand the mobile nature (both as an innate characteristic and adaptive strategy) of our species. A clearer appreciation of the biology of human mobility elucidates the seemingly counterintuitive process of the establishment of cultural boundaries. Such an inquiry into the available inter-disciplinary literature on the topics of human mobility and wall-building reveals much about the manner in which humans interpret and utilize space, the variety of walls …