Education Commons^™

A Case Study Of How Students Enrolled In Cte Programs And Faculty Understand And Assess The Implications Of Globalization On Career Preparation, Mohammad A. Moradi

Dissertations

Globalization reflects a shift in the workforce development paradigm. This descriptive qualitative case study was conducted at a Midwestern university with 12 student participants and three faculty members from three engineering programs. The purpose of this body of work was to explore the participants‘ perceptions of globalization, and to understand the implications of globalization on career and technical education (CTE) programs, program selection, and career choices, the training of the students enrolled in CTE programs, and the role of teaching faculty and the college in this process.

How CTE programs aligned many diverse programs to meet a growing demand for …

Stability Of Popular R-Cbm Progress Monitoring Tools: Dibels® Next And Aimsweb®, Christine Russell

Dissertations

Currently there is no agreed-upon method for determining the difficulty level, referred to as the readability level, of Reading Curriculum-Based Measurement (R-CBM) passages. A key tenant of R-CBM is that the passages across each grade level are equivalent in difficulty level and therefore can be used to monitor student academic improvement. The primary objective in this study was to evaluate the homogeneity of oral reading fluency progress monitoring passages of two popular passage sets that are used frequently in schools. The purpose of this research was to examine the stability of each R-CBM progress monitoring passage set as well as …

Learning Organization Principles: The Impact On A Midwest State Government As Perceived By Its Employees, Rosalee Billingslea Rush

Dissertations

This study sought to determine the extent to which learning organization constructs influence performance in state government. The overarching purpose was to examine the relationship between Peter Senge’s five learning disciplines and organizational performance.

The study utilized an ex post facto survey design. The sample population was composed of supervisors and professional and administrative staff within the 19 agencies of a Midwestern state government. Participants were administered an instrument that asked them to rate their perception of the organization and its performance along seven dimensions of learning. Of the randomly selected 381 participants, 110 (or 28.9%) returned the survey instrument. …

Understanding The Career Paths And Experiences Of Division I-A Athletic Directors: A Phenomenological Study, Harold Thomas Swift

Dissertations

The focus of this study was to understand the career paths and experiences of Division I-A Athletic Directors. There are only 120 of these coveted positions in the country. The limited research on how to obtain this position led to this investigation.

This research examined the career paths of 10 Division I-A ADs male (five African American and five White) and their experiences reaching their position. A qualitative phenomenological approach was used as the methodology. One-on-one phone interviews were conducted using open-ended interview questions that elicited information from each participant. The Social Cognitive Career Theory and Critical Race Theory were …

Reading, Writing, And Repetition: Performance On Nonword Measures Bystudents With And Without Language-Learning Disabilities, Patricia J. Tattersall

Dissertations

The central purpose of this three-paper dissertation was to explore the ability of school-age children with and without language-learning disabilities (LLD) to apply sound/word level structure knowledge when performing speaking, spelling, and reading tasks. Data came from a larger investigation that used stratified sampling to create two ability groups—children with typical language (TL) and with LLD—comparable in terms of age (range 6 through 18 years), sex, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

The central purpose of this three-paper dissertation was to explore the ability of school-age children with and without language-learning disabilities (LLD) to apply sound/word level structure knowledge when performing speaking, …

A National Study Of Parental Involvement: Its Trends, Status And Effects On School Success, Alandra Washington

Dissertations

Parental involvement has been emphasized as a mechanism for improving our public schools. In this study the author inquired into (a) the trend and status of parental involvement and (b) whether parental involvement is associated with schools meeting accountability measures. Secondary analyses were conducted on multiple waves of nationally representative data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) School and Staffing Surveys (SASS). Descriptive statistics, discriminant function analysis, logistic regression, among others, were used for the study.

The analyses on the trend and status of parental involvement indicated that there was a statistically significant increase in parental involvement …

Administrator Perspectives Of Post-Secondary Educational Opportunities For Michigan High School Students, Carl Wozniak

Dissertations

Administrator perspectives regarding current and potential increased participation in post-secondary educational opportunities by Michigan high school students were explored in this descriptive quantitative study. Targeted concerns included current institutional levels of involvement, personal knowledge concerning program rules and regulations, efficacy of existing programs, barriers to program expansion, and potential solutions to those barriers as perceived by the participants.

The study utilized an online researcher-created survey instrument and stakeholder and complexity/contingency theories to explore commonalities and differences between three administrator groups. These stakeholders included college dual enrollment officers, school district superintendents, and high school principals. Information gained from the exploration of …

The Experiences Of Married International Graduate Students And Their Accompanying Non-Student Spouses In The Us Culture: A Qualitative Study, Adriana Yellig

Dissertations

Many studies document the experiences of single international students in the U.S. culture. However, little is known about the experiences of married international students, their marital relationships, and the experiences of their accompanying nonstudent spouses in the U.S. culture.

This qualitative phenomenological study focused on the experiences of married international graduate students and their accompanying spouses in the U.S. culture. Additionally, the study explored the impact of cultural influences on the participants' marital relationships, as well as the impact of marriage on their adjustment to the culture.

The study included twenty participants (ten couples) from a range of countries, most …

Professional Learning Communities And First-Year Composition Instructors., Erinn Bentley

Dissertations

This study is situated within the field of writing teacher education and investigates the professional development of first-year composition instructors. The purpose of this study is to examine the flexibility of one K-12 teacher professionalization model, the professional learning community (PLC), for offering first-year composition instructors ongoing support and for promoting instructors' pedagogical content knowledge growth.

This study builds upon scholarship within the field of rhetoric and composition to examine current trends in training graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) who teach first-year composition courses (Dobrin, 2005; Latterell, 1996; Pytlik & Liggett, 2002; Tremmel & Broz, 2002; Yancey, 2002). Such research indicates …

The Impact Of The Head Start Parent Teacher Partnership On Home Based Mathematical Interventions Provided By Single Rural Head Start Mothers, Curtiss J. Babcock

Dissertations

Increased research in the area of early childhood education has expanded knowledge in the area of educating young children and improving school readiness. In Head Start, as well as other preschool programs, attention has recently focused on the pre-mathematics component of early education and school readiness.

The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the home-based mathematic activities and experiences single rural Head Start mothers use to provide math-related instruction to their children prior to Head Start entry. Also examined was the preschool teacher's influence on parent initiated in-home mathematics practices.

This study looked for relationships between the …

Children‘S Protagonism At The Centro Cultural Da Criança: A Case Study, Claudia Protasio Ceccon

Dissertations

This dissertation provides a thick description and discussion of how child protagonism, participation and autonomy were implemented in an out of school center – The Children‘s Cultural Center – in a favela, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The researcher visited the center for more than two years, twice a week from February 2008 to June 2009, and once a week from June 2009 to July 2010. She conducted in-depth interviews with educators and children, recorded observation sessions in the activity rooms, and observed actualization sessions for educators and family days. This study describes the perspectives and expectations of the Center‘s …

An Examination Of Post-Secondary Education Access, Retentionand Success Of Foster Care Youth, Angelique Day

Dissertations

Changes in the U.S. economy have made the attainment of a higher education credential more important than ever to ensure self-sufficiency. Therefore, it is critical that the child welfare, K-12, and higher education systems encourage and support the postsecondary educational aspirations of court wards. When the state makes the decision to remove a child from his/her biological home, it bears the responsibility to provide the educational guidance as well as assistance otherwise provided by families during the transition from high school to college.

This dissertation explores the educational outcomes of older youth in care by first looking at the perceptions …

Experiences That Influence A Student's Choice On Majoring In Physics, Donya Rae Dobbin

Dissertations

Currently the production of college graduates with science and engineering degrees is insufficient to fill the increasing number of jobs requiring these skills. This study focuses on physics majors with an in-depth examination of student transitions from high school to college. Many different areas of influence could affect a student's decision to major in physics. The first phase of this study addresses all of the potential areas of influence identified from the literature. The goal was to identify common influences that might be used to increase students' interest in majoring in physics. Subjects (N=35) from the first phase were recruited …

How Politics, Economics, And Technology Influence Evaluation Requirements For Federally Funded Projects: A Historical Study Of The Elementary And Secondary Education Act From 1965 To 2005, Maxine R. Eversley-Gilling

Dissertations

Program evaluation does not take place in a vacuum. Its context is the interaction of political, economic, and technological developments that influenced the formation of federal policies for mandated evaluation requirements. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 established policies to provide “financial assistance to local educational agencies serving areas with concentrations of children from low-income families to expand and improve their educational program” (Public Law 89-10—Apr. 11, 1965). This legislation also had another consequence: it helped drive the establishment of educational program evaluation and the field of evaluation as a profession.

The purpose of this study is …

Evaluating The Effects Of A Job-Aid For Teaching Visual Inspection Skills To University Students, Candice M. Jostad

Dissertations

Visual inspection is the primary method of data analysis used in behavior analysis. Thus, it is important that behavior analysts have the skills necessary for accurate visual inspection. Research has shown that visual inspection can sometimes be unreliable, which has broad implications for the evaluation of treatment effects using this method. Traditional lectures have been shown to be ineffective in teaching visual inspection skills to a satisfactory level, although improvements in visual inspection have been accomplished using statistical methods and aids such as celeration lines superimposed on graphs. However, these methods are not effective when the aids are removed and …