Education Commons^™

Factors That Affect The Outcome Of A General Fund Referendum In Indiana, Andrew Charles Sargent

Open Access Dissertations

School finance elections in Indiana were a relatively rare occurrence prior to a series of new legislation enacted in 2008 that, through the imposition of property tax caps statewide, resulted in sweeping reforms to education funding. These new laws coupled with a national recession resulted in many school districts not having the necessary financial resources to maintain programming and personnel consistent with their needs. With this in mind, many of these districts turned to the General Fund referendum as a mechanism to raise more revenue for their districts through an increase in local property taxes as decided by the voters …

A Multilevel Analysis Of Project Lead The Way Implementation In Indiana, Brandon H. Sorge

Open Access Dissertations

Using data from the 2010 Indiana public high school graduating class (N=55612), this project employed a multi-level analysis to determine, what if any differences occurred in majoring in STEM and freshman to sophomore year persistence, between students attending a school that offers Project Lead the Way and students that don't, while controlling for being a PLTW student. Additionally, this project explored the mitigating institutional factors that influenced a student majoring in STEM or persisting from their freshman to sophomore year in post-secondary education and if and how these factors varied depending upon if a student took PLTW courses, attended a …

A Sociosemantic Examination Of Secondary English Teacher Written Feedback, Ryan Angus

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to provide a functional linguistic based description of teacher writing comments in secondary ELA classrooms. Based within a case study methodology, this study used analytical tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) in order to discover the various meanings that teachers make through their commenting practices. The findings of the study show that teacher comments focus on the content of the student writing, but also, significantly, help teachers to discursively realize various teacher identities. It was also found that teacher comments tended to either be concrete in their reference to …

A Qualitative Analysis Of The Impact Of The Reform Of The College Of Science Undergraduate Core Curriculum At State University, Dean Ballotti

Open Access Dissertations

The Dean of the College of Science at State University, a large public Midwestern research university, in a memo to the faculty and staff initiated what he called a "review" of the undergraduate science core curriculum. He formed a task force that was to investigate on three issues; a reassessment of the undergraduate core curriculum, the recruitment and retention of qualified undergraduate students with an emphasis on diversity, and strategies that would address these issues. The age of the curriculum, 40 years since the last significant change, was an important factor in the review of the curriculum. This qualitative study …

Diagnosing Undergraduate Biology Students' Experimental Design Knowledge And Difficulties, Annwesa Dasgupta

Open Access Dissertations

Experimental design is an important component of undergraduate biology education as it generates knowledge of biology. This dissertation addresses the challenge undergraduate educators face for assessing knowledge of experimental design in biology by examining knowledge of, and difficulties with, experimental design in the context of first-year undergraduate biology students at Purdue. The first chapter reviews several recent reports that highlight the necessity to increase understanding of the experimental research process as a core scientific ability (for e.g., AAAS, 2011; AAMC-HHMI, 2009; NRC, 2007). Despite its importance, there is limited information about what students actually learn from designing experiments. In the …

Understanding The Rhetorical Engineer, Zachery W Koppelmann

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to describe the development of the Purdue School of Mechanical Engineering Writing Enhancement Program and its definition of good engineering writing. Based on the work with the Mechanical Engineering Faculty and the Writing Enhancement Program, it was determined that good engineering writing is aware of its need to address specific rhetorical contexts and expectations. The Writing Enhancement Program was created to provide additional writing instruction to undergraduate mechanical engineering students Purdue University. Its development did not follow standard writing across the curriculum methods; it was developed following a modified writing center methodology. The modifications …

Factors That Contribute To Principal Trust In The Principalteacher Relationship, Eric Melnyczenko

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this study sought to use qualitative research methods to answer the overarching question: Why do principals trust teachers? This study was generated from a lack of research noted by Wahlstrom, Leithwood, Louis, and Anderson (2010). I created open-ended questions to interview each participant regarding his/her lived experience with trusting teachers. ^ The qualitative data were collected from six principals of the Illinois Principals Association, two from each of the following three categories: zero to three years of their career principalship; four to six years of their career principalship; or, seven or more years of their career principalship. …

Culturally Responsive Engineering Education: A Case Study Of A Pre-College Introductory Engineering Course At Tibetan Children's Village School Of Selakui, Marisol Mercado Santiago

Open Access Dissertations

Culturally responsive teaching has been argued to be effective in the education of Indigenous youth. This approach emphasizes the legitimacy of a group's cultural heritage, helps to associate abstract academic knowledge with the group's sociocultural context, seeks to incorporate a variety of strategies to engage students who have different learning styles, and strives to integrate multicultural information in the educational contents, among other considerations. ^ In this work, I explore the outcomes of a culturally responsive introductory engineering short course that I developed and taught to Tibetan students at Tibetan Children's Village of Selakui (in Uttarakhand, India). Based on my …

The Effects Of A Humorous Instructional Video On Motivation And Learning, Hans P. Aagard

Open Access Dissertations

This study examines the effects of humor within an instructional video on student learning and motivation. Humor in education has been shown to improve students' perception of the instructor and learning environment, with mixed results on gains in actual learning. Humor has been suggested as a strategy to gain and maintain attention, improving motivation to learn. With the dramatic increase of online multimedia instruction, research on the use of humor on multimedia instructional materials can help us determine if it can be used to improve learning and motivation.

In a pretest-posttest controlled design, students viewed a short multimedia instructional video. …

Exploring Literacy And Technology With Middle School English Teachers: Articulating Understandings Of Knowledge And Teaching Practices, Benjamin A. Boche

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate five middle school English teachers' understandings of literacy and technology. In particular, how do they define literacy, view literacy and technology learning and teaching, and how do they use (or not use) technology to enact their views of literacy in their classrooms. This narrative inquiry qualitative study consisted of three open-ended interviews, written literacy narratives, and multiple classroom observations with each participant as well as the collection of various teacher documents, such as lesson plans, presentation notes, rubrics, and student handouts. Narrative methods were used in the data analysis. ^ Findings were …

The Composition Of First-Year Engineering Curricula And Its Relationships To Matriculation Models And Institutional Characteristics, Xingyu Chen

Open Access Dissertations

The preparation of technically excellent and innovative engineering graduates urges for a reform of the engineering curriculum to meet critical challenges in society (National Academy of Engineering, 2005). An examination of the current engineering curricula is needed to offer a baseline to further discuss if the curriculum reform meets the critical challenges. Meanwhile, concern about engineering retention prioritizes a review of the first-year engineering curricula. The existing literature does not include a nationwide examination of the first-year engineering curricula and introductory engineering courses. This study aspired to fill the gap by providing a detail description of the composition of first-year …

Engineering Faculty Views Of Teaching Quality, Accreditation, And Institutional Climate And How They Influence Teaching Practices, Jacqueline C. Mcneil

Open Access Dissertations

There is wide agreement that teaching quality matters in higher education, but faculty have varied ideas about the definition of quality. This dissertation examined data from a survey administered in 1997, 1999, and 2002 at institutions of the Southeastern University and College Coalition for Engineering Education (SUCCEED) supplemented by a survey administered more recently to a subset of those institutions and two additional institutions. All participating institutions are large public universities. The data collected included faculty teaching practices and three influences on those practices—the faculty member’s definition of quality teaching, their perspective on ABET accreditation processes, and the climate for …

An Exploratory Factor Analysis And Reliability Analysis Of The Student Online Learning Readiness (Solr) Instrument, Taeho Yu

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to develop an effective instrument to measure student readiness in online learning with reliable predictors of online learning success factors such as learning outcomes and learner satisfaction. The validity and reliability of the Student Online Learning Readiness (SOLR) instrument were tested using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and reliability analysis. Twenty items from three competencies, i.e. social competencies, communication competencies, and technical competencies, were designated for the initial instrument based on the Student Online Learning Readiness (SOLR) Model as a new conceptual model. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed that four factor-structures of the instrument …

The Journey Of Chinese Students From English 106 Maintstream Composition Courses To The Purdue Writing Lab: An Institutional Needs Analysis Of Chinese Students, Aylin Baris Atilgan

Open Access Dissertations

According to the Purdue University International Students and Scholars Enrollment & Statistical Report 10-year Enrollment Trends (2014), over the past ten years there has been an 85% growth in the number of international students matriculating at Purdue. As stated in the Purdue University Fall 2014 International Student and Scholar Enrollment & Statistical Report (2013), Purdue University now enrolls 9,080 international students representing 123 countries. This being the case, Purdue University is among the first five top institutions in the nation hosting international students (Open Doors Report-Institute of International Education, 2014). In recent years, Chinese students make up the largest international …

Engineering Community Engagement Partnerships: Investigating Motivation, Nature, And Structure, Julia D. Thompson

Open Access Dissertations

Engineering community engagement programs have increased in popularity over the last decade or so, with related research and scholarship in this area focused primarily on student motivation and learning outcomes. Since 2000, however, the wider service-learning field has started investigating partnerships and community voice. Building from the existing service-learning literature, this study aims to better understand community-university partnerships in engineering community engagement programs from the perspectives of both the academic program and the served community. This study addresses three research questions: (1) Why are individuals and local community organizations involved in engineering service-learning partnerships?, (2) How does engineering community engagement …

Graduate Students' Motivation To Teach Plant Sciences To K-12 Audiences, Melissa Leiden Welsh

Open Access Dissertations

Graduate students' motivation to share their knowledge and research with K-12 audiences as future scientists is informed by their beliefs and perceived value of science literacy outreach. Graduate training programs in academia integrate outreach teaching components to equip future scientists with a variety of communication skills, which may reflect either a transmission of knowledge to the learner or through engagement with the learner. As such, the education component of the "Partnership for Research and Education in Plant Breeding and Genetics" grant sought to train graduate plant science students ( N = 17) to disseminate their research to K-12 audiences. Graduate …

The Relationship Between Teacher Collaboration And Student Achievement, Davin E. Harpe

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this concurrent embedded mixed-methods study was to develop an instrument to measure principals' perceptions of teacher collaboration in their schools. The study further examined the relationship between perceptions of teacher collaboration and student achievement as measured by the Indiana "A-F" Accountability Model. Four key components of teacher collaboration were identified through a review of the literature. Those key components of teacher collaboration included 1) Job-Embedded Collaboration Time; 2) Common Goals; 3) Results Orientation; and 4) Working Interdependently. ^ Using a survey, quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 359 Indiana elementary and middle school principals. Quantitative data …

White Racial Attitudes In The Age Of Obama, Ryan Jerome Lecount

Open Access Dissertations

What is the nature of White racial attitudes in the age of Obama? This dissertation project seeks to answer this question in three distinct ways. The first empirical chapter examines the role of economic insecurity and education on White racial attitudes. The second empirical chapter evaluates the relative importance of individual vs. contextual factors in shaping Whites' attitudes about race. The third empirical chapter seeks to evaluate the extent to which racial color-blindness (as opposed to other racial attitudes) motivates White opposition to race-targeted programs. Findings in empirical chapters one and two are conditional, while clear evidence is demonstrated that …