Education Commons^™

Strategies Black Male Students With Social Anxiety Use To Persist And Succeed At Rural Community Colleges, Gwendolyn F. Houston

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Social anxiety, one of the more common types of anxiety, has been linked to poor concentration, impaired performance, and lower academic achievement (BlackDeer et al., 2021; Derakshan & Eysenck, 2009; Leigh et al., 2021). This study addresses the questions: “How do Black male students with social anxiety at rural community colleges in the Southeastern United States handle both academic and non-academic challenges and cope with these stressors?” and “How do Black male students with social anxiety navigate barriers during their journey at rural community colleges in the Southeastern United States, and what strategies do they use to manage these obstacles?” …

A Phenomenological Study Of The Lived Mentoring Experiences Of Black Women Faculty At Public Hbcus, Leona Quatena Mcgowan

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Despite increases in the representation of women in academia, Black women remain significantly underrepresented, accounting for approximately 4% of full-time faculty in postsecondary institutions. This lack of representation contributes to intersecting challenges, including experiences with racism, sexism, and limited access to mentorships in higher education. Previous studies have established that mentoring aids in the success and retention of faculty, but there is limited research examining how Black women faculty experience mentoring within public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the lived mentoring experiences of Black women faculty employed at public …

Autistic Students' Experiences With Hybrid Flexible Instruction In Higher Education: An Interpretive Phenomenological Study, Tracey Nicole Barr

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

During the twenty-first century, autistic learners have enrolled in colleges and universities in greater numbers; however, the majority of research focused on their experiences in higher education has found them to be less academically successful than their neurotypical peers. The academic skills that autistic students bring to higher education are often tempered by social, emotional, and self-regulative challenges. The body of research focusing on autistic learners’ experiences in higher education is currently limited and focused primarily on fully in-person and online course models. No extant research has focused on autistic students’ experiences with hybrid or blended course models.

This interpretive …

A Qualitative Case Study Of Leadership Development In A Graduate Medical Laboratory Science Program, Demetra Castillo

EVMS School of Health Professions Theses & Dissertations

Leadership development is increasingly recognized as an essential component of healthcare education, particularly as medical laboratory professionals assume expanded responsibilities involving collaboration, decision-making, systems thinking, and organizational leadership. Despite this need, limited research has explored how leadership develops within graduate medical laboratory science (MLS) programs. This qualitative case study examined leadership development through the lens of Experiential Learning Theory (ELT). Two research questions explored how the program fostered leadership development through students’ professional biographies, leadership questionnaires, final reflection papers, and leadership credos and how leadership reflections demonstrated growth over time. Secondary data from five student cases were analyzed using deductive …

The Mediating Role Of Hope In The Relationship Between Everyday Discrimination And Depression Among College Students, Busra Vurkun

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

Research shows that marginalized populations experience disproportionately higher psychological distress (Budhwani et al., 2015; Bailey et al., 2019). Everyday discrimination, defined as chronic interpersonal mistreatment such as microaggressions and disrespect, is associated with greater depression and lower psychological well-being (Essed, 1991; Calabrese et al., 2015). Although the negative effects of discrimination are well established, less is known about protective factors that may reduce these outcomes. One such factor is hope, conceptualized by Snyder et al. (1991) as agency thinking and pathways thinking and linked to lower depression and greater resilience (Arnau et al., 2007; Banks et al., 2008). This study …

Exploring Literacy Preparedness And Academic Experiences Of First-Year Community College Students, Alexandra Ranieri

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Community colleges enroll students with diverse levels of academic preparation, yet placement into college-level coursework often relies heavily on high school grade point average (GPA), which may not fully reflect students' literacy preparedness. Although research has linked literacy proficiency to academic success, little is known about how first-year community college students experience literacy preparedness during the transition to college. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the literacy preparedness of first-year community college students and explore how their reading abilities aligned with their early academic experiences. Guided by the Reading Systems Framework (Perfetti & Stafura, 2014), the …

Retention During Turbulent Times Of Higher Education: Modeling Intent To Leave Academia For Research University Faculty, Jordan Monroe Ball

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

University faculty operate as the lifeblood of any institution given that their job requires a “double duty” to develop both scholarly research and student minds. Due in large part to these expectations, research shows a long history of poor mental health for faculty, which ultimately results in faculty turnover. One model of faculty work motivation (Padilla et al., 2023) details the way in which the faculty work environment influences their mental health, and subsequently informs their job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intent to leave academia, which serves as a proxy for turnover. Retention related issues have not been a pressing …

Faculty Conceptualizations Of Recreational Therapy And Disability: Influences On The Formal, Hidden, And Null Curricula In Undergraduate Recreational Therapy Education, Shelly Lynne Beaver

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Theses & Dissertations

Undergraduate education is a bedrock of professional preparation for entry-level recreational therapists, shaping their scope of practice, philosophical orientations, and approaches to service delivery. While significant attention has been given to the development of a formal recreational therapy curriculum – explicitly taught knowledge, skills, and competencies – little is known about the hidden and null curricula that may implicitly or unintentionally shape students’ professional identities, values, and beliefs. While these less explicit curricular dimensions may have profound effects on how preservice recreational therapists conceptualize both recreational therapy and disability, their impact remains largely unknown. Therefore, the aim of this research …

I Was There, I Belonged There, And I Should Be There: The Adult Student Experience In Community College Courses Filled With High School Students, Charles Douglas Bowling

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The rapid expansion of dual-enrollment and early college high school programs in North Carolina has led to a substantial increase in the numbers of dual-enrolled high school students in community college classrooms. This exploratory case study examined how adult students described their experiences in university-transfer courses in which dual-enrolled high school students make up the majority of the class. It also examined how some of these adult students’ instructors described the experiences of these adult students.

The current study was conducted at three community colleges in rural counties in southern Appalachia and included semi-structured interviews with 18 adult students (24-60 …

Technical And Vocational High School Training And Graduates' Socioeconomic Insertion In Burkina Faso, Jacqueline Nikièma

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is widely promoted as a pathway to improving employment opportunities, supporting economic growth, and facilitating successful labor market transition. However, empirical evidence on its effectiveness remains limited in Burkina Faso. This study examined the relationship between TVET high schools and graduates’ socioeconomic insertion, with particular emphasis on employment in occupations related to the field of study (horizontal match) and examined the relationship between gender and this employment outcome. The study used descriptive statistics to summarize the characteristics of the sample, and logistic regressions to analyze the relationship between TVET training and employment in …

Becoming An Educator: A Narrative Inquiry Into The First-Year Journeys Of Community College Career-Switching Cte Faculty, Alisha Ferrington

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs in community colleges increasingly depend on career-switching instructors, professionals who transition from industry to teaching with substantial technical expertise but limited formal pedagogical preparation. Despite their growing presence in the community college workforce, the lived experiences of first-year career-switching CTE faculty remain underexplored, particularly regarding how the transition shapes professional identity, instructional practice, and institutional belonging.

This qualitative study employed narrative inquiry to examine the first-year teaching experiences of seven career-switching CTE instructors at community and technical colleges in the Gulf South region of the United States. Guided by transformative learning theory, communities of …

Analyzing The Institutional Factors Associated With Sense Of Belonging Among Stem Adjuncts At Community Colleges, Karuna Taneja

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

In this study I examined the relationships among organizational support, workplace conditions, and sense of belonging among adjunct faculty teaching STEM courses in community colleges. Grounded in the need-to-belong theory (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) and Herzberg’s two-factor theory (1968), I distinguished between relational and structural dimensions of faculty experiences. Perceived organizational support was conceptualized as a relational construct reflecting faculty members’ perceptions of being valued and included within their institutions, whereas workplace conditions were examined as structural factors influencing job satisfaction.

Using a quantitative, cross-sectional correlational survey design, data were collected from adjunct STEM faculty (N = 64) teaching at …

Exploring The Lived Experiences Of Parent-Educators In Pursuit Of Stability And Growth In The Early Education Workforce, Britney N. Patrick

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Early childhood educators who are also parents represent an important yet understudied population within workforce development research. This qualitative narrative inquiry explored the lived experiences of early childhood educators who are also parents as they navigated workforce development programs, parenting responsibilities, and organizational practices in pursuit of career advancement and economic stability. Guided by work-family border theory (Clark, 2000) and ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), the study examined how parenting responsibilities shaped engagement in workforce development opportunities and influenced professional trajectories over time.

Twenty-two early childhood educators who were also parents participated in virtual semi-structured interviews lasting approximately 60 to …

Individual Differences In Generative Ai Effectiveness: An Empirical Puzzle For Hrd Research, Nolan C. Lovett

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Professionals with similar backgrounds, given identical generative AI tools, achieve sharply different outcomes. This perspectives piece examines what explains that variance, reviewing evidence on cognitive capacity, domain expertise, metacognition, epistemic calibration, personality, and culture, and argues that existing user typologies describe these differences without predicting their consequences. It then extends the puzzle in a direction the static account misses: the same individual differences that shape AI effectiveness are themselves reshaped by sustained AI use, as cognitive offloading, deskilling, and upskilling inhibition operate differently across the expertise distribution. Recent evidence, including deskilling among experienced clinicians and suppressed learning among students using …

The Tragedy Of The Cognitive Commons: How Ai Could Disrupt The Regeneration Of Professional Expertise, Nolan C. Lovett

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Artificial intelligence is reshaping cognitive work, but Human Resource Development scholarship has treated this transformation as an organizational training challenge, leaving the collective regeneration of professional expertise unexamined. This conceptual paper introduces the Cognitive Commons framework, integrating commons theory, HRD scholarship, and distributed cognition to explain how rational AI adoption decisions can deplete the shared expertise pool professions require for renewal. The framework distinguishes Internalized Mastery (deep domain knowledge from sustained practice) from Distributed Mastery (orchestrating human-AI systems), and develops the Validation Tether: effective AI oversight depends on the expertise AI adoption may undermine. Early labor market and clinical evidence …

Building Adaptive Leaders: Examining The Relationship Between Undergraduate Co-Curricular Leadership Roles, Change Readiness, And Leadership Self-Efficacy, Reneldo N. Randall

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The contemporary workforce is characterized by ongoing organizational change, requiring individuals to demonstrate adaptability and the capacity to lead within evolving conditions. Institutions of higher education increasingly emphasize leadership development as a mechanism for preparing students for these demands; however, limited empirical research has examined how participation in formal co-curricular undergraduate leadership roles relates to students’ readiness to engage with organizational change. This study addresses the gap by examining the relationship between leadership self-efficacy and resistance to change among undergraduate student leaders.

Guided by the Leadership Identity Development (LID) model, this quantitative study employed a non-experimental, correlational design. Data were …

Career Pathways Program Annual Report For Ay 2025/26, Wie Yusuf

Career Pathways

Career Pathways launched in August 2017 as the university-wide initiative to provide career and professional development to graduate students. It encompasses both the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) and the Preparing Future Professionals (PFP) Certificates. The Preparing Future Faculty Certificate was established in 2007, while the Preparing Future Professionals Certificate was launched in 2017, concurrently with the introduction of Career Pathways. The Career Pathways program prepares graduate students for a successful transition into thriving careers. With the PFP Certificate, the emphasis has been on addressing the existing gap in career and professional development for master’s and doctoral students with career plans …

Commedia Dell’Arte - Serious Funny Business, Caleb Dransfield

Course Materials

[From Introduction]

Picture this. It’s the year 1570. You fi nd yourself in Venice for the fi rst time and you are delighted by the unique culture around you. It’s a city built on the water, streets are replaced by canals. St Mark’s Basilica, the Doge’s palace, and the piazza do not disappoint. The Rialto is a hive of markets and vendors. As you wander the city you encounter something you haven’t seen before. A wooden stage erected, backed by a simple cloth. Onstage, actors in masks are leaping about and speaking to each other animatedly. Even with your limited …

Poetry Personified, Joseph Midolo

Course Materials

[From Introduction]

This chapter introduces several important elements of poetry, including figurative language, sound devices, Mood & Tone, theme, and common poetic forms. Throughout the chapter, readers will examine examples of poems and literary devices while learning how poets use language to shape meaning and emotion. Students will also practice identifying poetic techniques and analyzing how these elements work together within a text.

Check Before You Trust: Teaching K–12 Students To Evaluate Digital Information, Elexia Hertel

Resources for Educators

[First paragraph]

Students in K–12 schools encounter digital information every day, but they are not always prepared to decide whether that information is credible, useful, biased, incomplete, or misleading. This chapter is written specifically for K–12 school library and classroom instruction, not for academic library users or college-level research instruction. Its primary audience is upper elementary, middle school, and early high school learners who are beginning to conduct research, cite sources, compare online information, and participate in digital life.

The Lived Experiences Of Master's Level Counselors In Professional Counseling Association Leadership, Catalina R. Kraft

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

Leadership and advocacy are essential for all counselors (Lewis, 2022; McKibben, 2016; Paradise et al., 2010; Sweeney, 2022). However, within research and professional counseling associations, there appears to be a bias in which counselor educators are the expected, default leaders within the counseling profession (Burns, 2015; Kleist, 2018; Speciale & Goodrich, 2020). While counselor educators may have experience as counselors, they primarily work in academia, so their experiences do not authentically represent the needs of professional counselors. Counseling leaders need to represent and understand the people they serve: counselors. Therefore, this study sought to understand the lived experiences of master’s …

Assessing Shifts In Leadership Language: A Comparative Study Of The Aacc Competencies For Community College Leaders, Bethany A. Siehr

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Leadership competency frameworks are widely used in community colleges to guide hiring, professional development, and succession planning. However, little is known about how leadership expectations evolve within these frameworks over time or how revisions reflect shifts in what the field values as legitimate leadership preparation. This study examined longitudinal change in the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Competencies for Community College Leaders across four editions published in 2005, 2013, 2018, and 2022.

Using a structured comparative document analysis, the study applied an extraction grid, a modification classification framework, and the Semantic Aspect Scale to identify additions, deletions, augmentations, separations, …

Perceptions Of The Community Eligibility Provision (Cep) Program, Angela H. Napier

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

This study examined how educators and families perceive and experience the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) and its influence on student attendance, engagement, well-being, and school climate within one public school division. While prior research has established quantitative links between universal meal programs and academic outcomes, limited research has explored how stakeholders interpret and experience these effects in practice. Addressing this gap, this study employed a convergent mixed-methods design, integrating archival attendance data, surveys, and semi-structured interviews with principals, assistant principals, teachers and families. Quantitative findings revealed modest but inconsistent changes in absenteeism following the CEP implementation, while qualitative findings provided …

Identifying Professional Development Needs Of Deans At California Community Colleges, Matilda D. Chavez

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

This quantitative, descriptive study examined the professional development needs of deans, associate deans, and directors in the California Community Colleges System. Using the American Association of Community Colleges leadership competencies, the study analyzed how mid-level leaders rated the importance of leadership tasks and their ability to perform them. It also compared results by gender, race or ethnicity, years in the role, district type, and preferred professional development methods.

Data were collected with a 47-item, fixed-format survey using Qualtrics. The sample was a nonprobability quota drawn from 17 California community colleges (N = 71). Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses, including t-tests …

Paraeducators' Implementation Fidelity Of Functional Communication Training Following An Intervention Package Of Behavior Skills Training And ECoaching, Autumn M. Alexander

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Theses & Dissertations

My first purpose of this study was to determine if an intervention package of Behavior Skills Training (BST) and eCoaching was effective in increasing and maintaining paraeducator implementation fidelity when implementing Functional Communication Training (FCT) with students with multiple disabilities. Second, I sought to measure the effectiveness of FCT on three students’ challenging behavior and a functional communicative response (FCR). Third, I collected information from paraeducators and teachers about the perceptions of the training methods and FCT for practical usage in the classroom. I used a multiple-probe research design across three paraeducator and student dyads and demonstrated that the intervention …

Considering Special Education Program Performance Analysis And Teacher And Student Involvement In Transition Planning: A Delphi Study To Prioritize Student Interests, Strengths, And Transition Assessment, Charles S. Thull

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Individualized education program (IEP) transition plans are required to be based on student interests and strengths, and use age-appropriate transition assessments, yet limited guidance exists on how to prioritize these elements. Despite decades of transition planning research and policy development, students with disabilities continue to experience poor postsecondary transition outcomes, special education teachers report limited readiness to support transition planning, university special education programs lack transition focused coursework, and transition plans are created for compliance and lack transition assessment information. Considering these concerns, this study used a modified Delphi method, informed by Human Performance Technology (HPT) and Ecological Systems Theory …

The Role Of Autonomy And Motivation On Teacher Retention: A Mixed Methods Study, Jordan Overton

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Teacher retention remains a persistent concern in the United States, with nearly 13% of classrooms unfilled by licensed teachers. Grounded in self-determination theory and basic psychological needs theory, this mixed methods sequential explanatory study examined the relationship between teacher autonomy, motivation, and intentions to leave, while also exploring the contextual factors that shaped teachers’ perceptions of autonomy within their work environments.

In the quantitative phase, survey data were collected from 123 elementary and middle school teachers across three school divisions in Southeastern Virginia. Measures included teacher autonomy, work motivation, and intentions to leave one’s school or division and the teaching …

A Transcendental Phenomenological Study Of The "Intervention Implementation Experience" With Department Chairs And Program Coordinators During A Performance Improvement, Courtney W. Schoolmaster

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Minimal research has been conducted on the experiences of department chairs and program coordinators with the implementation of performance improvement in learning outcome assessment. Focusing on a multidisciplinary college that offered associate degrees, technical diplomas, and certificates, located within the SACSCOC region, this transcendental phenomenology aims to understand the lived experiences of department chairs and program coordinators in a community college during the implementation/maintenance phases of a performance improvement initiative for the college’s program and general learning outcome assessment process.

This phenomenological study was conducted with eighteen department chairs and program coordinators, and two semi-structured interviews were conducted via Webex. …

How Women Community College Department Chairs Experience Leadership Work, Stephanie L. Goldenberg

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Women remain underrepresented in higher-level administrative roles in community colleges, a disparity shaped by systemic barriers, limited mentoring, and inconsistent pathways into leadership. Department chairs occupy a critical midlevel position that influences faculty, students, and the implementation of institutional priorities, yet little is known about how women experience this role or how their pathways into leadership take shape. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how women community college department chairs experience leadership work and what experiences influence their entry into leadership roles. Guided by feminist standpoint theory and grounded in narrative inquiry methodology, this study centers the …

Effects Of Cross-Language Instructional Design On Foreign Language Learners' Cognitive Load: Approaching The Redundancy Principle Of Multimedia Learning, Leonor Mendiola Adams

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Because conceptualizations of cognitive resources play a critical role in determining the effectiveness of instructional design (Greeno, 2011; Greeno et al., 1996; Mayer, 2011, 2019), this study explores the effects of cross-language instructional design on learners’ perceived intrinsic, extraneous, and germane cognitive load content corresponding to content complexity, instructional presentation demands, and depth of understanding and schema construction, respectively.

Grounded in the redundancy principle of the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning, this research further investigates whether the principle operates differently when learners’ native language is strategically incorporated into foreign language learning contexts. According to the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, …