Education Commons^™

The Permanence Of Racism In Tennessee Public Schools, Jarral Yokley

Dissertations

The qualitative case study exposed the permanence of racism beginning in the antebellum public schools of Nashville and continued in the current actions in the Tennessee legislature with the expulsion of two Black male legislators. Critical race theory is used as the main descriptor for the actions of White politicians and legislators in Tennessee who continue the oppressive treatment of Black people in the state of Tennessee.

White members of the Tennessee legislature have attempted to strategically continue white supremacy in their decision to display a depiction of one of the most deplorable, racists in the history of the state …

Tennessee Rural Middle School Teachers' Perceptions Of Academic Goal Setting For Students, Amy Woolum

Ed.D. Dissertations

Since the 1960s, business leaders and educators used the idea of goal setting theory as a guide to success. Teachers who implemented goal setting strategies contributed to student success and achievement. During my study, I found little existing literature focused on academic goal setting implementation for students in Tennessee rural middle schools containing grades six through eight. The purpose of this qualitative interpretive study was to investigate Tennessee rural middle school teachers’ perceptions about implementing academic goal setting for students. I sent an online Google Forms questionnaire to 117 certified and licensed teachers in varying Tennessee rural middle schools. After …

College Is A Scam Full Of Leftist Liberal Ideas: An Exploration Of Rural And First-Generation College Students' Memorable Messages About Higher Education, Margaret Keene

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence Vocational Anticipatory Socialization (VAS) and memorable messages have on rural first-generation college students’ interest in higher education. This study will utilize methodology regarding Vocational Anticipatory Socialization Messages and Sources from Powers and Myers (2017), the College Influence Choice Scale from Martin and Dixon (1991), as well as thematic analysis derived from survey questions designed by the researcher. The results of this study found that students report family as their most influential source to encourage higher education, peers as their most influential source to discourage higher education, and numerous encouraging and …

Certified Educators’ Perceptions Of Response To Intervention And Instruction In East Tennessee Public High Schools, Katharine Messer

Ed.D. Dissertations

Since the early 2000s, federal, state, and local lawmakers and educators have worked to combat the wait to fail mentality and support higher student grade level academic achievements. Educators were tasked with finding teaching methods that better served academically struggling students, some of whom had specified learning disabilities. Federal laws created Response to Intervention instruction in all grade levels, in which educators provided students additional instructional support. During my study, I found little existing literature focused on Response to Intervention instruction in high school grade levels. The purpose of this qualitative interpretive study was to examine certified educators’ perceptions of …

Local Control Over Education: Perceptions Of Tennessee And Florida County School Board Members, Joseph G. Jarret

Doctoral Dissertations

Historically, local boards of education have been viewed as community stewards who are responsible for providing local children with a quality education that reflects the values and mores of the locality in which they serve (Rice, 2014). However, in recent years, many states have significantly expanded their roles in public education. Quite often, this expansion results in an erosion of local control. For instance, in 2019, the State of Florida, which presently has a mix of elected and appointed school superintendents, considered a state constitutional amendment which would have moved the state to a wholly appointed school superintendent model. In …

Black And White Student Achievement Gaps In Tennessee, Haley Dirmeyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Achievement gaps between Black students and White students have existed since public education was desegregated, and they still persist despite efforts to close the gap. This research describes the achievement gaps between Black and White 3^rd through 8^th grade students in the state of Tennessee from 2017-2019. This is a non-experimental, quantitative, comparative-analysis describing the ELA and math test scores of Black students and White students in each of the three geographic regions of Tennessee. Data were arranged in 2x2 contingency matrixes to compare the expected frequencies of students in each race scoring on-track and mastered versus below …

Perceptions Of Roane State Community College Presidents On The Events Shaping The Institution’S Leadership History, John Norris Brown

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A major focus of policymakers in recent years has been community colleges, which have been viewed as potential engines for economic advancement and student success. I examined the leadership history of Roane State Community College, a two-year institution of higher learning serving a nine-county service area mostly in rural East Tennessee as perceived by individuals who have served as the college’s presidents. Five current and former presidents were interviewed about their experiences as president and their perceptions of the college’s history. Narrative research was used to recount a history of Roane State Community College, and the key events and factors …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Alternate Academic Standards And Alternate Testing In Northeast Tennessee, Jodie Bakely

Ed.D. Dissertations

In accordance with the Every Student Succeeds Act (2015), Tennessee developed alternate academic standards and an alternate assessment for students with significant cognitive disabilities. This study examined teacher perceptions of the alternate academic standards and alternate assessment in Northeast Tennessee. The researcher interviewed nine teachers of students with significant cognitive disabilities who had used the alternate academic standards and alternate assessment with their students in Northeast Tennessee. The study found that the teachers interviewed did not see the value in using the alternate state standards or alternate assessment with their students. The implications of this study included a need for …

Investigating Nonstandard Southern American English In Written Sources: A Historical Sociolinguistic Approach To The Tennessee Civil War Veterans Questionnaires, Juliana Norton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine and describe vernacular speech in East Tennessee during the nineteenth-century. This study combines strategies and methodologies from both historical and sociolinguistics to examine dialect in written sources. Specifically, this study utilizes phonological and grammatical data from the Tennessee Civil War Veterans Questionnaires supplemented with data from other written sources to describe East Tennessee vernacular speech. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, the geographic and social distributions of nonstandard past tense verbs to be and do are analyzed. The findings from this study suggest that nineteenth-century East Tennessee vernacular speech of white men …

Teachers' And Administrators' Perceptions Of Departmentalization In Elementary Schools, Mary Day

Ed.D. Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine administrator and teacher perceptions of the two primary classroom organizational structures in kindergarten through second grade within a rural East Tennessee school district: 1) departmentalized and 2) self-contained. Data were collected from seven elementary schools. The number of survey respondents were: 25 kindergarten through second grade teachers and eight administrators represented a 63% return rate for teachers and an 80% return rate for administrators. This researcher determined three primary categories among the administrator and teacher responses from both organizational structures: 1) student and teacher relationships, 2) classroom transition, and 3) academic …

The Relationship Between Students' Act Math Subscores And High School Math Course Completion In Tennessee, Jacob Carver

Ed.D. Dissertations

In 2009, President Barack Obama and legislators passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which financed the Race to the Top Fund. To receive funding from the Race to the Top, Tennessee educators and legislators implemented the Tennessee Diploma Project in 2009. The Tennessee Diploma Project increased graduation requirements for students in terms of coursework and assessments. Tennessee educators and legislators anticipated the increased graduation requirements would increase students’ achievement and ACT scores (college readiness skills). In mathematics, the graduation requirement increased from three high school math courses to four high school math courses: Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, …

Teacher Perspectives Of Their Implementation Of Guided Reading Instruction, Kristi Presley

Ed.D. Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of guided reading in the classroom and the perception teachers had related to their own self-efficacy in their implementation of guided reading instruction. Using an interpretative qualitative methodology, this researcher interviewed twelve teachers in Tennessee concerning their implementation of guided reading instruction in their classrooms. This researcher designed and utilized a Guided Reading Fidelity Checklist for the purpose of analyzing the collected data. This researcher identified misalignments regarding the fidelity of the implementation of guided reading instruction. The findings of this study demonstrate a need for teachers to have further …

“Be Calm, Keep Calm”: A Study Of Fourth-Grade Students’ Experiences Of High-Stakes, Marcinda Asburry

Ed.D. Dissertations

The researcher examined the experiences of fourth-grade students as they prepared for and took the TNReady assessment, which is considered a high-stakes test. The sample size consisted of three boys and two girls who attended a private school located in rural Southeastern Tennessee. Through drawing protocols, interviews, and student writings. The researcher found the boys in this study experienced more anxiety as compared to the girls when it came to preparing and taking the TNReady assessment. The researcher also found that students emphasized the role of the teacher in helping them deal with anxiety that they experienced. Research regarding how …

Suicide Prevention Strategies In Tennessee Community Colleges: A Case Study, Sandra Perley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for college students; annually approximately 1,100 students in institutions of higher education die by suicide. However, most research related to college student suicide was conducted using the sample of 4-year institutions. Community colleges have seldom been included in the sample of suicide research studies. This qualitative case study research explored the student suicide prevention strategies in the 13 community colleges in the Tennessee Board of Regents higher education system. Data were collected from surveys, institutional web sites, and interviews with institutional personnel.

Approximately half of the institutions offer suicide prevention information to …

You Have To Find That Music That Both Parties Can Dance To: One School District's Experience With Collaborative Conferencing, Janel Marie Seeley

Doctoral Dissertations

In 2011, Tennessee passed the Professional Educators Collaborative Conferencing Act (PECCA), replacing the former mode of collective bargaining between professional educators and school board administrators with a process called collaborative conferencing (CC). The purpose of this study, the first research on the new process, was to investigate the experiences of participants who engaged in CC in one school district. The study also examined participants’ perceived relationship between training and its application to CC. The school district used the newly developed Interest-Based Collaborative Problem Solving and Reflective Practice (IBCPS/RP) model to guide its CC process. This approach is similar to interest …

Online Coursework As Related To Graduation Rates Of At-Risk Students In A Rural Public High School In Bedford County, Tennessee, Robert E. Ralston

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a significant relationship between the academic achievement, disciplinary referrals, and attendance of at-risk students in rural Bedford County, TN, prior to and after participation in online coursework. The independent variables were the academic achievement towards successful course completions, disciplinary referrals, and attendance rates of at-risk students. The dependent variable was the participation in online coursework in Bedford County Schools (BCS) Online On-track (OLOT) program. A series of ttests and a chi-square analyses was performed to examine the differences in the mean course completion rates, discipline referrals, attendance rates, and …

Perceptions Of Tennessee School Principals About The Tennessee Educator Acceleration Model (Team), Carmen Belcher Bryant

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to analyze the perceptions of Tennessee principals about the implementation of the Tennessee Educator Acceleration Model (TEAM) and the impact of TEAM on teachers’ instructional practice and professional growth. Participants in this study were PK-12 public school principals from 12 districts in the First Region of Tennessee who were implementing TEAM in the 2011-2012 school year. Specifically this research was guided by 8 research questions on principal’s perceptions about TEAM providing appropriate and effective professional growth for teachers and the principal’s perception about their ability to adequately perform the requirements of TEAM. The …

Tennessee Public High School Principals’ Leadership Behaviors And Teachers’ Job Satisfaction, Amie Broughton Rumph

Doctoral Dissertations

The attrition rate of teachers is alarming (Darling-Hammond, 2002; Keigher, 2010; Marvel, Lyter, Peltola, Strizek, & Morton, 2006). Factor of the attrition include teachers leaving the profession due to lack of job satisfaction or lack of administrative support (Angelle, 2002; Littrell, 1994; Schlichte, Yssel, & Merbler, 2005). Frameworked by Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory (Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, 1959), this web-based, quantitative, descriptive study explored the connections between job satisfaction and perceived leadership behaviors. Participants included 302 teachers from public secondary schools in Central and East Tennessee. Instruments used were the Job Satisfaction Survey ([JSS], Spector, 1994), the Study of School Leadership …

An Analysis Of Factors That Impact Secondary Science Outcomes In Tennessee, Suzanne Lawson South

Ed.D. Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to analyze school and district characteristics for 2005–2006 through 2007–2008 to determine which factors impacted science achievement for the graduating class of 2008–2009 in Tennessee. School size, socioeconomic status, per pupil instructional expenditures and rurality/urbanicity were predictor variables. Achievement was represented by performance on the science and reasoning portion of the ACT. Correlational studies indicated that socioeconomic status had a significant impact on science achievement while the impact of school size and rurality/urbanicity was observed to be weak. Statistical analyses through multiple linear regression produced a model in which socioeconomic status and rurality/urbanicity explained …

Incorporating Ethics Into Accounting Education: A Proposal For An Undergraduate Accounting Ethics Course For The University Of Tennessee, Knoxville, Courtney Michaluk

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Public School Funding And School Systems Meeting Adequate Yearly Progress In Tennessee., John Emerson Robinette

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a relationship between level of funding and achievement of school systems in Tennessee based on the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. This study focused on Tennessee school systems and their adequate yearly progress (AYP) status of "targeted" or "good standing" from 2007 through 2009. Federal, state, and local funding, as well as per-pupil expenditure, average teacher salary, and number of students, were used as variables. All data were gathered from the Tennessee Department of Education website.

The researcher performed 6 independent samples t …

Volunteer Management Needs Assessment Of The Tennessee 4-H Program, Robbie B. Casteel

Masters Theses

The purpose of this descriptive study was to conduct a state-wide needs assessment of Tennessee 4-H Youth Development Extension Agents to determine the perception in working with 4-H Volunteer Leaders and the knowledge level of volunteer management. This study also determined the need for a formalized 4-H Volunteer Leader management system. Targeted participants were University of Tennessee (UT) Extension Agents and Tennessee State University (TSU) Extension Agents with 4-H job responsibility. Participants were asked to complete a four part questionnaire instrument. Components one through three of the instrument were used to determine the need for a formalized 4-H Volunteer Leader …

A Quantitative Study Of School Characteristics That Impact Student Achievement On State Assessments And Those Assessments' Associations To Act Scores In Tennessee., Phillip L. Swanson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a significant relationship exists between particular home, student, and school characteristics and ACT scores and the relationship these characteristics subsequently have with the TVAAS grades assigned to each high school's ACT scores. These home, student, and school variables were socioeconomic status, percentage of minority, graduation rate, per-pupil expenditure, Gateway English II scores, and Gateway Algebra I scores. By looking at these variables and the influence they hold on the education of students, I sought to ascertain the fairness that is present when schools and districts are given grades through the TVAAS …

The Associations Between The Scores On The Act Test And Tennessee's Value-Added Assessment In 281 Tennessee High Schools., Paul B. Webb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between and among various demographic and test score data with American College Testing (ACT) scores in 281 Tennessee high schools. This study also addressed which high school characteristics were related to the number of students meeting the ACT requirement for Tennessee lottery scholarships. In addition, this study examined Tennessee Value Added Assessment System's (TVAAS) assessment of ACT scores and its distribution of grades to Tennessee's high schools based upon its Value-Added analysis.

The researcher performed correlations and multivariable linear regressions using socioeconomic status, ethnicity, dropout rate, graduation rate, attendance, average …

An Analysis Of Tennessee Gateway Exams And The Variables Related To Student Results., Judy W. Webb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the variables that are associated with the percentage of students who pass Tennessee's Gateway exams in high school. Associations were examined between the Gateway exams and variables such as: socioeconomic status, ethnicity, dropout rate, graduation rate, attendance, average daily membership, per-pupil expenditure, teachers' salary, and elementary-school reading scores.

Pearson correlations between school characteristics and pass rates of three Gateway exams were calculated. Schools were divided into quartiles based upon socioeconomic status and ethnicity in order to examine pass rates of the Gateway exams among different quartiles. Independent samples t tests were performed …

Statistical Power Analysis Of Dissertations Completed By Students Majoring In Educational Leadership At Tennessee Universities, Heping Deng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to estimate the level of statistical power demonstrated in recent dissertations in the field of educational leadership. Power tables provided in Cohen's (1988) Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences were used to determine the power of the statistical tests conducted in dissertations selected from five universities in Tennessee. The meta-analytic approach was used to summarize and synthesize the findings. The population of this study consisted of all dissertations successfully defended by doctoral students majoring in educational leadership/administration at East Tennessee State University, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Tennessee State University, the University …

Rural Nonfarm Scott County, Tennessee Women And Their Pathways To Baccalaureate Degrees, Jo A. Lobertini

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand why women from Scott County, Tennessee, left home to attain the baccalaureate degree and returned home to live and/or work. More specifically, understanding (1) the educational aspirations, motivations, and discouragements prior to attending college; (2) the educational persistence, motivations, and discouragements while attending college; (3) and the reasons for returning to Scott County after attaining the baccalaureate degree. The population of this study included all females over the age of 25 who had a bachelor's degree, attended grades 1–12 in Scott County, Tennessee, and returned there to live. The primary form …

Perceived Barriers To The Teaching Of Critical Thinking Skills By Nursing Faculty In Generic Bsn Programs In Tennessee, Renee C. Shell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teaching critical thinking is a national education goal. The ability to think critically is considered an essential skill of nursing graduates and is a necessary component of competent nursing practice. Therefore, nursing programs must address critical thinking for accreditation. The literature reports that teachers in all areas of education are having difficulties infusing critical thinking teaching strategies into their current teaching practices and critical thinking is lacking in new nursing graduates. This research study sought to identify barriers to the implementation of critical thinking teaching strategies as perceived by nursing faculty in generic, BSN programs in Tennessee. Data were collected …

Assessing The Racial Awareness Of Majority Group Member Students At East Tennessee State University And The Factors Related To Racial Awareness, Lavern Terrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the racial awareness of majority group member students at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) and factors related to racial awareness. Seven research questions and five hypotheses were examined. The Oklahoma Racial Attitudes Survey-Preliminary Form (ORAS-P) was used to identify the racial awareness of White students enrolled at ETSU during the fall of 1999. Forty-six classes were surveyed obtaining a sample totaling 395 students. In addition to completing the ORAS-P, students in the sample were asked the following demographic questions: gender, age, city and state of birth, name and location of high school …

Perceptions Of Tennessee Community College Leaders Regarding External Mandates, Institutional Effectiveness Practices, And Institutional Performance, Gary J. Skolits

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of academic and administrative community college leaders regarding the relationship between select external mandates and associated institutional effectiveness practices, institutional performance, and the use of assessment results for institutional improvement in Tennessee community colleges. Tennessee community colleges were selected for this study due to their decades long history with institutional assessments through the performance funding program. A primary assumption underlying this study was that Tennessee community colleges provide a historically unique assessment context for this study. The researcher developed a specific survey instrument for this study. The design of the …