Education Commons^™

Assessing A Peer Mentor Program In An Honors College Of Agriculture, Isabel Whitehead

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to assess mentees’ experiences in a peer mentor program in an honors college of agriculture and to determine which factors impact mentees’ ability to relate to their peer mentor based on the theory of homophily and interpersonal attraction. Colleges of agriculture are encouraged to examine which determinants impact students’ decisions to enter agri-science programs, what draws students to postsecondary agricultural programs, and to try recruiting underserved individuals into higher education to fulfill open employment opportunities for diverse, skilled, and globally competent individuals (Goeker, et al., 2015; Stripling & Ricketts, 2017). Peer mentoring is often …

Characteristics Of High-Performing Women Resident Assistants At Private Liberal Arts Institutions, Grant C. Carlson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Resident Assistants (RA) are unique positions within a university. Undergraduate students are selected to enforce policy, complete administrative paperwork, and develop community in on-campus housing. Despite the critical role these students play in the advancement of university programs and retention, there is a gap in research regarding what contributes to the success of individuals in the position. Within the limited literature on RA performance and success, there is no current research relating to factors that are shared among the highest-performing women in the role.

The current study identified nine high-performing women RAs at three small liberal arts universities in the …

The Impact Of A Learning Community On The Perceived Wellness Of First Year Doctor Of Physical Therapy Students, Angela Mae Holland

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Healthcare education guides students in obtaining skills to promote health in others. In working towards this goal, graduate students in healthcare programs potentially suffer from increased stress while undergoing the rigor of a medically based academic program. The purpose of this study was to determine if the addition of a learning community program had an effect on the perceived wellness of first year doctor of physical therapy students. A repeated measures quasi-experimental design was used to answer the three research questions, which guided the investigation. Three groups of participants completed the study, one serving as the experimental group with the …

Introducing The Academic Discipline Of Agricultural Communications To The United Kingdom: A Needs Analysis, Sara Kathryn Maples

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a current need to identify and describe opinions of prospective employers and current agricultural students about the prospects of developing an agricultural communications academic discipline in the U.K. An understanding of the competencies employers would expect of agricultural communications graduates, as well as an understanding of what students would expect to learn, would form the conceptualization and development of the discipline in the U.K. A total of 22 agricultural communications professionals and 67 agricultural students from across the United Kingdom completed the survey. Collected data showed agricultural students and agricultural communications professionals answers overall were not statistically different. …

Effect Of Sensory Stimulation In Physical Activity On Academic Achievement And Classroom Behavior In Elementary Students, Maryann Mitts

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Technological advancements and increased screen time has increased sedentary activity and altered the brain development of children. With the reduction of PE and recess in schools, increasing sensory stimulating physical activity can be pivotal in cognitive and behavioral development. Activities such as rolling and spinning enhance the sensory system in organizing and filtering information efficiently for quicker and more appropriate responses to stimuli. This study investigated the effect sensory stimulation had on auditory memory, reading levels and behaviors of elementary students.

During a 6-week period, 176 students, grades 1-5, participated in the sensory maze Minds in Motion, 15 sensory activities …

The El Dorado Promise: Impacts On Postsecondary Enrollment And Completion, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The El Dorado Promise has offered scholarships to almost 3,000 students since its creation in 2007. In this brief, we examine the impact of the placebased scholarship on postsecondary enrollment and completion for all students and for certain subgroups. Our results indicate that the Promise has significantly increased overall postsecondary enrollment and BA completion.

College Readiness, Student Expectations And Sucess: The Role Of Non-Cognitive Skills, Malachi Nichols, Julie R. Trivitt, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Attending college is a significant human capital investment but only about 56% of those who start college will have a completed degree 6 years later. This makes identifying which skills are associated with college success an important policy concern. We surveyed over 1,100 entering college freshmen, majoring in business and engineering at a public university in the US, and combined this information with administrative data to create a comprehensive data set that, in addition to the usual academic performance data, cognitive ability measures, and demographics, also included measures of non-cognitive skills, personality traits, and student expectations about college success. With …

A Case Study Of The Umpqua Community College Shooting, Timothy P. Wilson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the deadliest shooting that has happened on a community college campus. The following research questions guided this dissertation study: (1) What was the law enforcement response to the deadliest community college campus shooting in history? (2) Did previous mass shootings inform the law enforcement response to the deadliest community college campus shooting? (3) What implications for practice can be derived by studying the deadliest of these shootings? This case study utilized multiple sources of information, from official police reports, official institutional reports, archives of publications, and participant interviews from some of the …

Evaluating An Academic Bridge Program Using A Mixed Methods Approach, Leslie May Yingling

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the demand for college degrees has increased, college enrollment has grown significantly, and economic forces have applied greater pressure on the higher education environment to produce more degrees and better post-graduation outcomes. Many public colleges and universities have felt these pressures distinctly because of their state funding environments and the specific expectations that exist within them. While college aspirations and attendance have broadly improved, achievement gaps persist along cultural, generational, and socioeconomic lines. In an effort to navigate and negotiate institutional goals, public expectations, economic needs, and educational ideals, institutions engage in diverse approaches to recruitment and retention. Academic …

Transformational Leadership In Club Sports: An Instrument For Evaluation And Assessment, Nathan Shelby Hutchens

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Campus Recreation and its programs can be used as a way to combat the national trends of decreasing enrollment and retention (Weaver, Forte, & McFadden, 2017; Kampf & Teske, 2013). In fact, 62% of students indicate that Campus Recreation programs are a factor when choosing an institution and 67% indicate that recreation programs were a factor when deciding to stay at a particular institution (Forrester, 2014). As a program within Campus Recreation, Club Sports specifically is perceived to have the greatest health and wellbeing benefits out of all Campus Recreation programming (Lower, Turner, & Petersen, 2013). Due to the voluntary …

How College Campuses Are Using Social Media During Severe Weather Events, Emmale Davis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explores how college campuses are using social media during severe weather events. This topic surfaced after a tornado devastated Moore, Oklahoma in May 2013 and those displaced flocked to the University of Oklahoma campus after a post made on Twitter went viral prior to an official message being sent out by the university. In order to further explore this topic, a qualitative phenomenological case study was conducted at the following sites: University of Alabama, Missouri Southern State University, University of Oklahoma, and Florida State University. This study included observations of social media posts on Facebook and Twitter on …

Crisis Management And Student Conduct On College Campuses: The Role Of Adminstrative Discretion, Aisha Sherea Kenner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Crisis Management is a very important part of higher education on college campuses across the nation. Violent events that have occurred in recent years have caused universities to examine how they respond to critical incidents that have negatively affected students, faculty and staff. Because these incidents have resulted in death, injury and other negative consequences, more consideration is given to various aspects of critical incident management such as administrative discretion. This study concentrated on examining the intersection between crisis management and administrative discretion at institutions of higher education (IHE).

Mental health status, laws with relation to information sharing and disability …

Framing Failure In The Legal Classroom: Techniques For Encouraging Growth And Resilience, Kaci Bishop

Arkansas Law Review

In law school, a fear of failure can paralyze students and hinder their learning. Students may not try a new skill or a new argument or even give an answer in class if they are unsure or uncertain that they will get it right—or are afraid they will get it wrong. In part, this resistance to and fear of failure is exacerbated by legal education’s institutional focus on outcomes: grades, class rank, and high-paying jobs. This focus often causes students to be increasingly extrinsically motivated and encourages a “fixed mindset,” which contributes deleteriously to the mental health and intellectual curiosity …

First-Generation Students In Law School: A Proven Success Model, Jacqueline M. O'Bryant, Katharine Traylor Schaffzin

Arkansas Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Phenomenological Study Of The Online Education Experiences Of College Students With Learning Disabilities, Michael Murders

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The body of research concerning college students with learning disabilities is sparse relative to the percentage of college students with learning disabilities who attend college. Further, the majority of existing research fails to capture the student voice and the lived experiences of the students themselves. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of college students with learning disabilities who utilized online education at a public university centrally located in the United States, resembling numerous comprehensive regional universities. Using a qualitative, phenomenological research framework, this study uses in-depth individual interviews to collect data from eight participants. Interviews were …

Potential Relationships Of Community College Faculty Credentials And Measures Of Instructional Effectiveness: Student Survey Of Instruction And Grades, Marc Alan Willis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to determine what, if any, relationship existed when considering instructor credentials in relation to student surveys of instruction (SSOI), instructor credentials in relation to grade distribution, and the relationship between SSOI and grade distribution. The case study college is a two-year rural institution in Oklahoma employing 53 full-time faculty in Fall 2016. Eighteen of those faculty lack the adequate credentials as required by the Higher Learning Commission, the accrediting body for the college. Very little information was discovered verifying the impact of credentials on effectiveness, and what was located was anecdotal rather than data …

Evaluating The Policies That Lead To Stem Educational Attainment At The University Of Arkansas For Transfer Students, Bryan Hill

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The US has a critical need to produce more STEM graduates and that need is exponentially more critical in Arkansas. Arkansas currently ranks last in the percent of STEM degrees conferred compared to overall degrees awarded. Students intending to pursue a STEM four-year college degree who start at a two-year college are significantly less likely to succeed in earning that degree. Arkansas passed Acts 672 and 182 aimed at strengthening the success of students who transfer from two-year colleges into four-year institutions. This study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the Acts by determining if the University of Arkansas (UA) …

Factors Contributing To The Success Of First-Generation College Students At A Research University, Mary Margaret Hui

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

First-generation college students are students whose parents do not have a college degree, and they face numerous barriers in college. Yet, several first-generation college students (FGCS) are successful and are on-track to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in four years. Their success is important because education is associated with increased income, quality of life, and social mobility, making educational attainment even more significant in Arkansas, which has both low educational attainment and high poverty. Little is known about what can be done to close the achievement gap. It is important to analyze what helped FGCS succeed so that higher education …

Factors Used To Determine The Teaching Load For Chairs In Public Community Colleges, Mandel G. Samuels

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the complexities of the departmental chair continued to increase, so did the importance of having a process to use to fairly assign the teaching load for departmental chairs. In 1982 Carolyn Branch conducted a survey to identify the factors that were being used. She received input from the chief academic officers that a process, procedure or formula was needed (Branch, 1982). The factors identified in Branch’s research did not lead to the development of a process for chief academic officers to use.

There has been no published research on this topic since Branch’s research in 1982. Therefore, I decided …

The Impact Of Social Situations On College Students’ Perceptions Of Sexual Consent, Casey Jane Ward

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The majority of research examining sexual consent among college students focuses on how young adults communicate sexual consent during interactions immediately preceding a sexual encounter. However, preliminary research suggests that college students perceive that individuals begin to communicate sexual consent within social settings (e.g., at a bar) and through nonsexual interactions (e.g., text messaging); this has been labeled “outside the bedroom” consent. In order to further explore “outside the bedroom” consent, college students (n= 789) were randomly assigned to read four of sixteen vignettes. Within each vignette, four variables were manipulated: gender of the initiator (male or female), the social …

From Foster Care To College: Student Stories Of Success, Tory Nicole England

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the different factors that empower young adults that were in foster care to be successful in a college environment. It has been documented that foster youth have significant challenges during secondary education (Conger & Rebeck, 2001; Geenen & Powers, 2006). Due to these challenges, foster youth attend and graduate higher education at a lower rate than their peers. The perspectives of foster youth currently enrolled in higher education is critical to determining which factors and programs have helped with their educational success. Five participants completed semi-structured interviews about their secondary education, …

Curricular Analysis Of The University Of Arkansas Composition I Pilot Course: Engl 1013, Community Ethnography, Morgan Lindsay Scholz

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes a new first-year writing course that is under consideration for implementation as the standard Composition I course at the University of Arkansas. The course utilizes an ethnographic approach to teaching critical writing skills to students. This thesis presents evaluation through a metacognitive lens and explores the course through a case study approach. This thesis also examines the expectations and concluding reflections of three stakeholder groups: students, instructors, and administrators.

A Gender Bias Habit-Breaking Intervention Led To Increased Hiring Of Female Faculty In Stemm Departments, Patricia G. Devine, Patrick S. Forscher, William T.L. Cox, Anna Kaatz, Jennifer Sheridan, Molly Carnes

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Addressing the underrepresentation of women in science is a top priority for many institutions, but the majority of efforts to increase representation of women are neither evidence-based nor rigorously assessed. One exception is the gender bias habit-breaking intervention (Carnes et al., 2015), which, in a cluster-randomized trial involving all but two departmental clusters (N = 92) in the 6 STEMM focused schools/colleges at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, led to increases in gender bias awareness and self-efficacy to promote gender equity in academic science departments. Following this initial success, the present study compares, in a preregistered analysis, hiring rates …

A Path To Academic Success: Learning Disabilities, Finding A Way, John S. Cooper

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will highlight the difficulties students with learning disabilities have in the post-secondary environment. Special interest is given to how colleges and universities help these students become successful and graduate from college. Two universities are examined, the University of the Ozarks and the University of Arkansas. Each school has its own programs that provide accommodations to students with learning disabilities. The thesis will follow a student from each university, as they attend classes and Social activities.

Error Analysis: A Case Study On Non-Native English Speaking College Applicants’ Electronic Mail Communications, Casey Kraichoke

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to discover major writing problems international college applicants make when composing electronic communications by analyzing the nature and distribution of their writing errors. Additionally, the researcher seeks to discover if there is a relationship between non-native English speakers’ (NNS) writing errors and demographics, which include: gender, country of origin, country of origin’s official language, program level, and program of study. The researcher hypothesizes that countries with English as an official language and the language of instruction in higher education are the most significant predictor of non-native English speakers’ writing errors in terms of count …

Measuring Racial Competence In Athletic Academic Support Staffs, Aquasia Thornhill

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Critical Race Theory, a theoretical framework that has been gaining much recognition in sport literature, is a useful and beneficial tool in discussing race and racism. To better understand the context in which academic support staff appreciate the functionality and significance of race, the present study measures the racial competence of athletic academic support staffs. This research study explores the need to integrate a model such as Critical Race Theory that promotes “racial competency” among academic support staffs working closely with student-athletes of color, and measures Color-Blind Racial Attitudes that may have effects on the types of interactions individuals are …

Utilizing The Nsse To Examine Behavior And Characteristic Differences Between First-Year Students Who Persisted With First-Year Students Who Did Not Persist, Alice Ruth Griffin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the differences between first-year students who persisted with first-year students who did not persist to the second year at a mid-size, doctorate-granting, public, research university in the mid-south. Specifically, the study utilized the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) to compare the level of student-faculty interaction, experiences with the campus environment, and engagement in collaborative learning. Additionally, the study examined whether the differences in the three student engagement behaviors varied by gender, race/ethnicity, and first-generation college student status. Three theoretical frameworks were used as the foundation for the study including Tinto’s model of institutional action, Astin’s theory …

Power Of The Faculty: Consequences Of No Confidence Votes For College Presidents, Daniel Nadler, Mei-Yan Lu Ph.D., Michael T. Miller

Journal of Research on the College President

The roles of college faculty members have changed, often in relation to increased specialization of their functions as either teachers or researchers. Similarly, the college presidency has changed, relying less on faculty interactions and increasing reliance and interaction on external stakeholders. The result is a less faculty-centric college presidency. The faculty, however, still have significant expectations for involvement with the college president and have the use of a noconfidence vote to express their opinions about the performance of the individual in the presidential position. Drawing upon a sample of faculty senate leaders, the current study found that few of these …

Reasonableness And Clarity Of Tenure Expectations: Gender And Race Differences In Faculty Perceptions, Rodica Lisnic

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation studies how higher education policies and practices can affect faculty retention and proposes changes that higher education institutions need to make to retain their faculty. Faculty assessment of reasonableness of tenure expectations is explored in the first manuscript and faculty perceptions of clarity of tenure expectations are explored in the second and third manuscripts. Job satisfaction data from a sample of 2438 tenure-track assistant professors at research universities is used.

The first manuscript investigates the reasonableness of tenure expectations as it relates to work-life balance. The focus is on whether women’s and men’s appraisal of departmental and institutional …

On The Air, On The Hill: The Story Of Radio At The University Of Arkansas, Blake Ryan Sutton

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

On the Air, On the Hill: The Story of Radio at the University of Arkansas is a film about the past, present, and future of radio on campus at the U of A. From the original campus station KFMQ in 1924, to the present day student station KXUA and the region’s NPR affiliate KUAF, the film explores not only the rich history of radio at the U of A, but also what the future holds for campus radio in the face of an ever-changing media landscape. The film draws from interviews with Fayetteville historians, as well as the major players …