Education Commons^™

“My Training Wheels Are Off:” How First Generation College Students Made Meaning Of The Influence Of Their College Access And Support Programs, Staci Weber

Dissertations - ALL

This research explored how 47 first generation college students at a private university in the Northeast used non-profit and government-funded college access and support programs to make meaning of their college-going journeys. The participants used college access programs to prepare themselves for, gain access to, and persist at a selective postsecondary institution directly after high school. This research asked what skills and knowledge do first generation college students learn through their college access and support programs? How do first generation college students use the skills and knowledge they obtained through their college access and support programs to help navigate their …

Free To Be: One Charter School's Approach To Supporting Gender And Sexual Minority Students, Katherine Sieger

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation presents three and a half years of ethnographic data from an “LGBT” charter school. It explores how gender and sexuality appear within educational spaces and how providing students an anti-heteronormative inclusive education impacts a student’s sense of self. I show how critical pedagogy is deployed as an anti-heteronormative approach to supporting all students. The term anti-heteronormative is used to express an explicit rejection of heterosexism and genderism, acknowledging the complex oppressive factors that develop given the normative expectations of gender and sexuality and the impact such expectations have on all bodies and all students. Findings reveal how the …

Like A Duck On Water: Chinese Academic Migrants In The U.S. And Their Suburban Weekend Chinese School, Jianping Xu

Dissertations - ALL

Current literature is scarce on the diverse experiences of hundreds of thousands of mainland Chinese who, since 1979, have come to the U.S. primarily for graduate study and mostly settled here afterwards in dispersed university or corporate jobs and suburban residences. After the Immigration Act of 1990, many of them have become visible experts in science and engineering. Yet their struggles as Chinese academic migrants simultaneously privileged by their educational backgrounds and disadvantaged by their outsider status in the U.S. often remain invisible. Possibly due to the myth of “model minority,” mainstream America has seen them as doing-well and well-behaving, …

Cognitive, Academic, And Neuropsychological Effects Of Treatment, David Scott Gordon

Dissertations - ALL

This study explored the effects of number of intrathecal chemotherapies and time off therapy on cognitive, achievement, and neuropsychological functioning of post treatment children with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). Participants consisted of sixteen sibling pairs between the ages of eight and fourteen who were grouped into the high or low group for number of intrathecal chemotherapies (IT), and then regrouped for high or low time off therapy (TOT). Participants were administered a battery of cognitive, achievement, and neuropsychological tests. Matched sibling difference scores from these tests were analyzed. Results found that children with ALL performed in the average range, although …

Self-Initiated Creativity In The Elementary Classroom, David Rufo

Dissertations - ALL

In this study, the researcher used an action research methodology to investigate the self-initiated creative processes and artifacts of his fourth and fifth grade students over the course of one school year in an attempt to shed light on the pedagogical effects of an elementary classroom that allows its students significant creative agency. The majority of the literature on the self-initiated creativity of children examines the work of primary grade students in an art room setting, revealing a gap in the literature and the need for a study regarding self-initiated creative processes and products made by children in an intermediate …

Ego Identity Development As A Mediator Between Negative Affectivity And Wellness Of College Students, Sarah F. Spiegelhoff

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For emerging adults, the college experience is a time for new experience that create excitement, lifelong memories, spiritual enrichment, cultural development, and success. Yet for many, the college experience presents with a series of physical, emotional, and psychological challenges, and for some even failure. It is expected that many of these students will experience such stressors, given the complexity of the stage of development, as they move away from adolescence and into adulthood. As college students move away from parental figures and develop more independence, a prominent time for identity development to thrive is created. There is a great deal …

The Big Picture School Model: Understanding The Student Experience, Amanda Leigh Alger

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The outdated industrial education system, dropout crisis, and disengagement in the learning process are not new issues within the educational debate and continue to raise concerns among school stakeholders. The role of education should be to encourage students to be creative and foster a love for continuous learning; however, this does not seem to be the case in many traditional school systems. In order to address the growing needs of different types of learners who are no longer engaged in traditional settings, alternative education sites have become a popular answer for some families.

This qualitative case study focuses on one …

Business Calculus Students’ Reasoning About Optimization Problems: A Study Of Quantitative Reasoning In An Economic Context, Thembinkosi Mkhatshwa

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While the opportunity to learn mathematics via textbooks is well documented at the secondary and elementary levels, research on the opportunity to learn mathematics via textbooks at the undergraduate level has received little attention. Furthermore, research that examines the role of mathematics textbooks in students’ learning of important concepts such as marginal change in applied calculus is scarce. Research on students’ quantitative reasoning at the post-secondary level is lacking. This qualitative study investigated the opportunity to learn about optimization problems, marginal change, and quantitative reasoning in an economic context via a business calculus textbook and from lectures in a business …

An Analysis Of Talk And Interactions In Initial Sessions In The Context Of Counseling And Family Medicine, Yihhsing Liu

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This study used conversation analysis, a method that directly investigates language use and interactions at both the thematic level and microanalytic level, to explore the processes of talk and interactions of initial sessions between trainees and their clients/patients in two professions, counselor education and family medicine. The naturally occurring, audio and/or video-recorded data regarding initial sessions conducted by trainees in both professions were used to explore three overarching questions: (1) How are the conversations between trainees and clients developed and maintained in their initial encounters? (2) How are therapeutic relationships and therapeutic discourses developed in initial sessions? (3) How do …

A Multivariate Exploration Of School Counselor Engagement With Students With Disabilities, Jaime Hernando Castillo

Dissertations - ALL

Students with disabilities are at risk for a myriad of academic and personal/social challenges. School counselors are in a unique position to act as advocates for students with disabilities and their families to ensure that they have the educational and community supports they need for healthy academic, career, and personal/social development. Unfortunately, the professional school counseling literature highlights that school counselors are not adequately trained to effectively engage with students with disabilities. This study explored the predictive factors that may play an influential role in the engagement of school counselors in school counseling activities with students with disabilities. Variables explored …

An Investigation Of Us And Chinese Prospective Elementary Teachers’ Problem Posing When Interacting With Problem-Solving Activities, Jinxia Xie

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This study examined the patterns of problem posing shown by United States (US) and Chinese prospective elementary teachers during problem-posing processes when problem-solving activities were involved in an alternating manner. It further explored the features of the relationship between problem posing and problem solving. Data were collected by asking 32 US and 55 Chinese prospective elementary teachers to pose problems for Translating, Comprehending, Editing, and Selecting processes (Christou, Mousoulides, Pittalis, Pitta-Pantazi, & Sriraman, 2005) before a problem-solving task, and then to pose two more problems after that problem-solving task, namely, problem posing after the problem solving process. All participants completed …

Pre-Service Elementary Teachers Learning To Facilitate Students’ Engagement Of The Common Core State Standards’ Mathematical Practices: Balancing Attention To English Language Learners, To All Learners, And To One’S Own Mathematical Learning, James Stephen Ewing

Dissertations - ALL

Keywords: English language learners; Mathematical Practices; pre-service teachers; mathematics methods course.

In this dissertation I examine the experiences of eight pre-service elementary teachers (PSTs) in a mathematics methods course as they learned how to teach Mathematical Practice 1 (make sense of problems and persevere to solve them) and Mathematical Practice 3 (construct viable arguments and critique the arguments of others) from the Common Core State Standards to elementary students in general, and to English language learners in particular. While the principal question that motivated this study concerned PSTs’ preparation to teach mathematical practices to English language learners, it became apparent …

Blazing Trails, Being Us: A Narrative Inquiry With Five High School Students With Autism Who Type To Communicate, Casey Lee Woodfield

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation chronicles the experiences of five high school students with autism who type to communicate as they navigate the terrain of high school, adolescence, and identity through collaboration and dialogue with one another, their school support team, and the inquirer (researcher). This study employs a multilayered approach to narrative inquiry to unravel and (re)present the students’ (co-inquirers) individual and collective stories as constructed through observation, performance, dialogue, and art. While acknowledging the importance of families and school personnel, the students’ storied lives and perspectives—as well their participation in constructing the inquiry process—are foregrounded to supplement research dominated by adult, …

Chinese Female Graduate Students On Us Campuses: Negotiating Classroom Silence, The Leftover Woman And The Good Woman Discourses, Yuan Dickerson

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Informed by intersectionality (Collins, 1995, 2000; Crenshaw, 1991, 2000; hooks, 1984, 1989, 2000; McCall, 2005; Mohanty, 1988, 2003; Zerai, 2000) and a postpositivist realist account of identity (Mohanty, 2000; Moya, 2000), this qualitative project explored twenty Chinese female students’ experiences with gender and nationality while attending graduate schools in four universities on the East Coast of the US. Challenging the academic discourse that reduced the vast range of experiences to linguistic and cultural accumulation (Kasper, 1997; Klomega, 2006; Lewthwaite, 1997; Misra & Castillo, 2004), this study focused specifically on Chinese women’s narratives of negotiating classroom silence, the leftover woman discourse, …

Claiming Knowledge, Claiming Lives: Decolonial Feminist Pedagogy And The Experiences Of Low-Income Women Undergraduates In Community College, Meredith Madden

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This qualitative study explores the experiences of low-income women undergraduates in a community college classroom anchored in decolonial feminist pedagogy. Analyses of in-depth interviews, student writings, and questionnaires are offered to further understanding of the impact of decolonial feminist pedagogy on the experiences and learning outcomes of low-income women undergraduates in community college, and also works to shed light on how the praxis of decolonial feminist pedagogy disrupts traditional hierarchies and claims to epistemic authority in the community college classroom.

The Effect Of Multimedia Cases On Science Teaching Self-Efficacy Beliefs Of Prospective Teachers In Kenya, Peter Rugano Nthiga

Dissertations - ALL

This study examined the effects of multimedia cases on science teaching self-efficacy beliefs of prospective teachers in Kenya using mixed methods in data collection and analysis. Collaborating with two teacher educators at Central University, I designed and implemented two multimedia case-based intervention lessons, one with prospective chemistry teachers and the other with prospective physics teachers. I determined the changes in self-efficacy beliefs using a pretest and posttest with the Science Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument (STEBI) for N=41 participants. I also collected data using a worksheet during the intervention lesson. When the prospective teachers went for their field practice, I sampled …

A Quantitative Assessment And Comparison Of Conceptual Learning In Online And Classroom-Instructed Anatomy And Physiology, Joel Yager Humphrey

Dissertations - ALL

Online and virtual technologies have allowed higher education institutions to expand educational opportunities to a broader range of students. The number of students enrolling in online courses is rapidly accelerating, and therefore performance-based evidence of the effectiveness and equivalence of such courses to enhance student learning is necessary, especially in lab-based science courses – where research is currently lacking. This study compared conceptual learning of online and on-campus students in a two-semester anatomy and physiology course sequence. Two terms of students (N=397) completed standardized pre-test and post-test assessments designed to assess content knowledge and conceptual learning based on change scores …

Assessing Formative Assessment: An Examination Of Secondary English/Language Arts Teachers' Practices, Leigh M. Tolley

Dissertations - ALL

This study examined how “formative assessment” (FA), a term that encompasses all of the assessment and instructional activities undertaken by teachers and their pupils to improve student learning, occurs in a secondary English/language arts (ELA) context. A sequential explanatory mixed methods approach, using a series of weekly self-report checklists about teachers’ assessment practices and semi-structured interviews, was used to address the following: (a) what assessment practices secondary ELA teachers use; (b) how these teachers determine what assessment practices to use and when to use them; (c) what these teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the assessment practices that they use …

Mlearning In The Organizational Innovation Process, Micah Joseph Shippee

Dissertations - ALL

Mobile devices have connected seven billion users across the world (Sanou, 2015) reaching areas that go beyond the electrical grid (Nique and Smertnik, 2015). The ubiquity of mobile devices has created an advantage for organizations to leverage hardware compatible with reaching their target audiences. A strategic response is necessary to address the complexity of employing mobile technology for mobile learning (mLearning) in order to reach it’s full potential as a new learning medium (Peters, 2009). The purpose of this research study was to explore the process by which an organization adopted and engaged in an mLearning initiative.

Built on Rogers …

The Tensions Of Northern Imports: Disability And Inclusion In Kenyan Primary Education, Brent Carson Elder

Dissertations - ALL

In this dissertation, I explored the tensions that arise when Northern concepts of inclusive education and disability rights are imported to countries in the global South. Specifically, through this project I examined the development of a sustainable inclusive education system in western Kenya through community-based participatory research (CBPR) and critical disability studies (CDS). Through three cycles of qualitative interviews with a variety of stakeholders in inclusive education, participants explained what they saw as foundational components of how to create more inclusive primary school classrooms utilizing existing school and community resources. With a qualitative approach to data analysis (e.g., grounded theory) …