Education Commons^™

Student Support Networks In Online Doctoral Programs: Exploring Nested Communities, Sharla Berry

Benerd College Faculty Articles

Aim/Purpose: Enrollment in online doctoral programs has grown over the past decade. A sense of community, defined as feelings of closeness within a social group, is vital to retention, but few studies have explored how online doctoral students create community.

Background: In this qualitative case study, I explore how students in one online doctoral program created a learning community.

Methodology: Data for the study was drawn from 60 hours of video footage from six online courses, the message boards from the six courses, and twenty interviews with first and second-year students.

Contribution: Findings from this study indicate that the structure …

What Women Know: Perceptions Of Seven Female Superintendents, Polly D. Allred, Gerri M. Maxwell, Linda E. Skrla

Benerd College Faculty Articles

An anomalous concentration of female superintendents in mostly rural South Texas prompted this inquiry. South Texas faces critical shortages in personnel due to impending retirement and turnover of existing school administrators and superintendents (Wesson & Marshall, 2012). It is difficult to recruit and retain the best talent necessary to solve tough school improvement challenges—high dropout rates, high poverty, low student achievement, and complex multi-cultural issues—in high needs, Hispanic majority, primarily rural school districts (Trevino Jr., Braley, Brown, & Slate, 2008; Wesson & Marshall, 2012). Krüger (2008) stated women are stronger educational leaders than men. Females seek and obtain leadership credentials …