Education Commons^™

A Virtual Community Of Practice: Impact On Instructional Design Knowledge And The Cultural Elements Evident Within Interactions Among Nigerian Faculty, Hala Walid Esmail

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

With the expansion of higher education and the growth of online course offerings in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a critical need to support faculty in developing the necessary skills to teach effectively online. The purpose of this qualitative, single-case study was to examine the nature of the discourse in which faculty members engaged within a virtual community of practice that was created to support their instructional design and online teaching efforts. The community of practice framework and the related learning theories of situated learning and social constructivism served as the underpinning of this study. The E-Learning Program was facilitated via …

The Impact Of Teacher Methodology Training For Higher Education Faculty Members, Nicole Baker

Ed.D. Dissertations

Many college programs are designed to graduate individuals who are experts in their field of study, but not necessarily individuals who are trained in how to teach. This quantitative, quasi-experiment study examined college faculty member’s level of training in the area of teaching practices and methodology. The relation to student satisfaction, current course performance, attendance, the belief in the need for training, and faculty member’s sense of efficacy in teaching was explored. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to organize the data using a one-way ANCOVA to analyze the impact the level of training had on …

A Program Evaluation Of A Community College’S New Faculty Seminar, Kari Mclean Proft

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A community college (CC) in the midwestern United States launched a New Faculty Seminar (NFS) in 1999 for new tenure-track faculty. The problem that prompted this project study is that the NFS has been implemented yearly since 1999 without a formal evaluation. Without an evaluation plan, college leadership cannot determine whether the program is meeting stated goals. The purpose of this program evaluation was to explore how faculty described the NFS inputs and processes they experienced and how they perceived the outcomes and impact of the NFS on their understanding of the CC environment and the development of their instructional …

Learning To Teach Online: An Investigation Of The Impacts Of Faculty Development Training On Teaching Effectiveness And Attitudes Toward Online Instruction, Karen Elizabeth Brinkley

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between one approach to training for online faculty and the ways in which the program influenced the participants’ teaching effectiveness and attitudes toward online instruction. Two research questions guided this study: (1) how did participating in an intensive course redesign intervention influence instructors’ teaching effectiveness in the online environment? and (2) how did participating in the training influence instructors’ beliefs or attitudes about online teaching? The theoretical framework guiding this study was the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) model, developed by Mishra and Koehler (2005). Using a concurrent, mixed-methods design, …

Improving Student Learning In Higher Education: A Mixed Methods Study, Megan R. Good

Dissertations, 2014-2019

To improve quality, higher education must be able to demonstrate learning improvement. To do so, academic degree program leaders must assess learning, intervene, and then re-assess to determine if the intervention was indeed an improvement (Fulcher, Good, Coleman, and Smith, 2014). This seemingly “simple model” is rarely enacted in higher education (Blaich & Wise, 2011). The purpose of this embedded mixed methods study was to investigate the effectiveness and experience of a faculty development program focused on a specific programmatic learning outcome. Specifically, the intervention was intended to increase students’ ethical reasoning skills aligned with a university-wide program. The results …

Participant Career And Research Outcomes Of The Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Award, Samuel Held

Doctoral Dissertations

In 1991, ORAU created the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Award program providing seed money for research of early career faculty at ORAU member universities. The Powe Awards are intended to enrich the research and professional growth of young faculty and result in new funding opportunities. Eligible applicants are full-time assistant professors at ORAU member institutions within two years of their initial tenure track appointments. Awardees receive a one-year grant worth a total of $10,000. Four hundred sixty Powe Awards were made from 1991 to 2011.

This descriptive study presents a secondary data analysis of 258 survey responses received in …

An Investigation Of Faculty Development Center Staff Evaluators Perceptions Of Processes, Theory, And Models Used In Evaluating Faculty Development, Thelma Mae Woodard

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to explore evaluator perceptions of the processes they engage in when evaluating faculty development programs; their use of program theory; and the evaluation models they use to design faculty development program evaluations. Due primarily to the fact that most faculty development centers were established during the last twenty years, (Wright, 2011), previous research has shown a lack of widespread knowledge of program evaluation, and its application to faculty development interventions. Studies indicate a gap in the literature exploring program evaluation in faculty development centers from the evaluator’s standpoint. This study was interested in the …