Education Commons^™

Post-Concussion Experiences Of Collegiate Student-Athletes, Kaitlin Iris Singer

Doctoral Dissertations

Sports-related concussions are a major public health concern affecting a significant number of collegiate student-athletes. Medical and public health research has addressed every aspect of concussion management processes including concussion education, medical diagnosis, recovery, and returning to sport and classroom. This research has led to several best-practices for concussion management. Since 2010, the NCAA has mandated that its member institutions maintain concussion management policies and procedures. However, the current recommendations, based primarily on medical research, have been found in quantitative studies of the behaviors and practices of athletic trainers, coaches, and student-athletes to be ineffective. To date, no studies have …

Investigating The Relationship Between Implicit Theories About Intelligence And Teacher-Student Relationship Quality, Woodbury B. Clift

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigates the influence of teacher held implicit theories about intelligence on the quality of their relationships with students within the context of a school co-located in a secure juvenile justice setting serving adjudicated adolescent boys. In Massachusetts, adjudicated youth attending schools co-located in juvenile justice residential settings have significant gaps in their formal schooling, are culturally diverse, come from impoverished communities, and have high rates of learning disabilities. Their teachers, on the other hand, are mostly middle class, white, and well educated. As such, an immense social and cultural relational divide inherently exists between the teachers and their …

Acculturation Stress, Psychological And Sociocultural Adjustment, And Development Of American Adolescents: A Qualitative Study Of Newton High School Exchange Students In China, Binbin Zhu

Doctoral Dissertations

Theories from the extant acculturation literature functioned to categorize international students’ adaptation experiences and predict their acculturation outcomes. Also, relevant studies focused mainly on students at the tertiary level. For adolescent students seeking self-development toward independence and autonomy, how they negotiated their identity challenges and tensions in a cross-cultural context, and how surrounding others in their socialization impacted on their psychosocial adjustment process and transformative experiences have not been actively explored. This qualitative study approached adolescent students’ acculturation as an integrated development and learning process to explore the effects of developmental and cultural factors on their cross-cultural adaptation, especially examined …

Shared Focus/Collective Responsibility: The Lived Experience Of Educators As Members Of A Data Team In A Connecticut Public High School, Abbie-Jean M. Lareau

Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT SHARED FOCUS/COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY: THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF EDUCATORS AS MEMBERS OF A DATA TEAM IN A CONNECTICUT PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL This study explores the experiences of five high school English Teachers in a Connecticut public school acting as an Instructional Data Team as prescribed by the Connecticut Accountability for Learning (CALI) model. Data Teams are teams of educators that participate in collaborative, structured, scheduled meetings, which focus on the effectiveness of teaching as determined by student achievement. Data Teams adhere to continuous improvement cycles, analyze trends, and determine strategies to facilitate analysis that results in action. Data Teams can …

Institutional Expenditures And State Economic Factors Influencing 2012-2014 Public University Graduation Rates, Brian Todd Hester

Doctoral Dissertations

American higher education has seen public postsecondary funding sharply decline over the past couple of decades and has now fallen behind other countries in being the world leader in college degree production. Many U.S. states have begun to place more accountability on their public institutions to prove they are using appropriations as effectively and efficiently as possible. State financial support is increasingly being appropriated on the basis of performance – i.e. student outcomes, primarily measured by student graduation rates. The better an institution can use its financial resources to increase its graduation rates, the more state financial support it will …

Turning Around The Culture Of Teaching And Learning: A Turnaround School Success Story, Rachael B. Lawrence

Doctoral Dissertations

In 2009-2010, Riverton Elementary School in Portland, ME was awarded a School Improvement Grant (SIG), supported by the Federal Department of Education (Federal DOE) through the Maine Department of Education. With this funding, Riverton undertook the challenge of the turnaround school model between 2010-2013, which resulted in positive change in academic achievement for their students and an improved teaching and learning climate and culture. This dissertation examines why the turnaround model may work, what is currently known about SIG funded turnaround schools, and what the specific actions and changes that led to the successful turnaround of this school were. While …

Principals' Perceptions Of The Tennessee Teacher Tenure Law: A Concurrent Mixed Methods Study, David John Lomascolo

Doctoral Dissertations

This concurrent mixed methods study examined principal perceptions of the teacher tenure law in Tennessee. The study examined the perceptions of K-12 public school principals toward the Tennessee teacher tenure law under Senate Bill 1528 and how principals perceived that the law has affected their ability to evaluate and retain effective teachers. The investigation followed a concurrent mixed methods design (QUAN + QUAL). The Tennessee Teacher Tenure Principal Perception Survey was adopted and slightly modified from Davidson’s (1998) study of principal perceptions of teacher tenure in Tennessee. At the conclusion of data analysis, findings were integrated and triangulated through Hess’ …

The Learning Projects Of Municipal Elected Officials, Rebecca Campbell Smeltzer

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this exploratory study was to describe the learning projects related to the governmental role of a selected sample of elected municipal officials in a geographic region of a Southeastern state. The study includes the revision of Tough’s (1975) learning projects interview schedule and the addition of eight demographic items.

Participants were selected by using a random number generator to choose 12 cities from seven population groups, creating a stratified sample of 68 elected officials, 41 of whom agreed to be interviewed. Demographic information revealed that the participants were a mix of mayors (26.8%), vice-mayors (19.5%), and city …

Solving The Migrant Children Public School Enrollment Issue In Urban China: A Policy Study Perspective, Hui Huang

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is designed to learn lessons from China’s experiences of seeking to solve the migrant children’s education issue, specifically, the city public school enrollment issue. In China, access to public schools is the main channel for migrant children to be well educated. With the hope to inspire education policy makers and researchers on solving this issue, it is important to find out how the central and local governments work out proper policies to ensure equal compulsory education for migrant children. Qualitative research methods including content analysis and historical analysis are deployed in this dissertation to review related policy documents …

Herstory: Dr. Ruth Simmons’ Journey To The Presidency, Patricia Yvette Jones

Doctoral Dissertations

This study’s goal is to give voice to the experiences of one individual: Dr. Ruth Simmons, the first woman president of Brown University and the first African American president of an Ivy League institution. Simmons’ HerStory is a narrative of her becoming rather than being. It is a story of her moving forward. In this study Simmons is permitted to take back her narrative by telling HerStory, in her own words and along with sharing her ethos. HerStory provides insight into and a deep understanding of how Simmons became the president and what shaped her development spanning from her childhood …

The Adjustment Of First Year African American Women To Predominately White Institutions: Implications For Best Practices, Maisha Beasley

Doctoral Dissertations

Currently, both scholarly literature and educational practice are lacking depth and scope about the lived experience of African American (AA) female students, and, as a result, they lack effectiveness for this population of students. In particular, they do not address the varying ways AA female students adjust to the university during their first year, the most critical year for student retention and persistence in the college experience (Pike & Kuh, 2005), nor do they recognize how intersectionalities of identities in AA women are salient to successes and challenges at PWIs. This study addresses this gap in the research by not …

Voices Of Female, Rural Superintendents As They Implement California's Local Control Funding Formula Policy, Claudia Coughran

Doctoral Dissertations

Improving American schools, and as a result, the educational leaders who guide and oversee American schools, has an historic background; yet research to accomplish the improvement is rooted in urban schools and male educational leaders, particularly the superintendent of schools. National and state leaders have used education policy as a means to improve student achievement for decades. California played a pivotal roll in the national trend for numerous years; most recently with the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) policy passed in 2013. The purpose of this study was to listen to the voices of female, rural superintendents as they implemented …

The Perceived Influence Of Lasallian Mission Formation Programs On Participants From The District Of San Francisco New Orleans, Gary Cannon

Doctoral Dissertations

The Perceived Influence of Lasallian Mission Formation Programs on Participants from the District of San Francisco New Orleans

The mission of Catholic education involves the faith formation and the integral human development of individuals (Second Vatican Council, 1965a). The Catholic Church recognizes that the realization of this two-fold mission, religious and academic, is primarily dependent upon school faculty and staff. The De La Salle Christian Brothers have made mission formation of faculty and staff one of their principal aims. Within the United States, they provide a variety of Regional and District formation programs to assist their faculty and staff advance …

San Francisco Bay Area School Districts Contracted With California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers) And The Impact Of The Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act Of 2010, Michael David Blanco

Doctoral Dissertations

San Francisco Bay Area school districts contracted with California Public Employees’ Retirement system (CalPERS) and the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010

This qualitative study examined the impact of high cost CalPERS medical plans on the participant’s school district in regards to the 2020 Cadillac Tax, the types of administrative action the participants have taken to comply with the mandated reporting to the IRS, and the types of administrative measures the participants have taken to comply with the offer of coverage to employees working a minimum of 30 hours per week. The theoretical framework used …

The Experience Of Principals At Catholic Schools Implementing A Pranayama Practice For Stress Coping, Scott Roos

Doctoral Dissertations

This study explored and documented the experiences of Catholic School principals in Northern California who implemented a one-month pranayama (yoga breathing) practice to help reduce their stress. The participants, four men and three women, were primary and secondary school principals at Catholic schools, including both diocesan and independent Catholic schools. This study utilized an embedded mixed methods design in which both qualitative and quantitative data were collected concurrently. Participants were asked to practice Ujjayi pranayama for eight minutes a session four times per day. Participants took the Administrator Stress Index and Perceived Stress Scale at the start of the intervention …