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Full-Text Articles in Education

Making In The Midst Of Pandemic: The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Two Public Library Makerspaces, Stacey Woods Aug 2022

Making In The Midst Of Pandemic: The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Two Public Library Makerspaces, Stacey Woods

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative research explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on makerspaces in the United States which were subject to public health guidelines and challenged with limited/no access to facilities. This multi-case study examined two public library makerspaces, and addressed these research questions: (1) How did the pandemic affect makerspace operations and access, and the teaching and learning that occurs there? (2) How did makerspace leaders respond to the challenges of the pandemic? (3) How did makerspaces evolve during the COVID-19 pandemic? I developed the Conceptual Framework for Studying the Impact of Pandemic on Public Library Makerspaces which informed the …


Ideological Misalignment In The Discourse(S) Of Higher Education: Comparing University Mission Statements With Texts From Commercial Learning Analytics Providers, Leif A. Nelson Dec 2019

Ideological Misalignment In The Discourse(S) Of Higher Education: Comparing University Mission Statements With Texts From Commercial Learning Analytics Providers, Leif A. Nelson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes, interprets, and compares texts from different educational discourses. Using the Critical Discourse Analysis method, I reveal how texts from university mission statements and from commercial learning analytics providers communicate and construct different ideologies. To support this analysis, I explore literature strands related to public higher education in America and the emerging field of study and practice called learning analytics. Learning analytics is the administrative, research, and instructional use of large sets of digital data that are associated with and generated by students. The data in question may be generated by incidental online activity, and it may be …


Chinese Transnational Adolescents’ Responses To Multicultural Children’S Literature In Culture Circles, Yuwen Chen Dec 2019

Chinese Transnational Adolescents’ Responses To Multicultural Children’S Literature In Culture Circles, Yuwen Chen

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine how Chinese transnational adolescents (CTAs) negotiate their identity based on their cultural knowledge and experiences through book discussion in Freirean “culture circle” (Freire, 2000, p. 120). This study is an interpretivist qualitative study of community-based action research (Glesne, 2010). The participants were seven American-born Chinese, two current Chinese and Taiwanese, and one Chinese adopted adolescent. Within the culture circles, CTAs responded to seven selected multicultural children’s literature which represents Chinese immigrants’ stories in the United States. The topics of the books included (1) who am I, (2) relationships with extended family I, …


Representative Bureaucracy: Representation Of American Indian Teachers And Their Impact On American Indian Student Access And Performance, Selena M. Grace May 2019

Representative Bureaucracy: Representation Of American Indian Teachers And Their Impact On American Indian Student Access And Performance, Selena M. Grace

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Using a cross-comparative, qualitative case study approach, my research seeks to determine whether the presence of American Indian teachers (passive representation) positively influences educational access and performance of American Indian students in two rural Idaho public school districts located within tribal reservations. One district has representation of American Indian teachers and the other does not. Representation of American Indian teachers is a form of passive representation which the theory of representative bureaucracy suggests should lead to active representation (implementation of culturally relevant curriculum and teaching practices). My research analyzes de-identified student- and district-level data on access and performance as well …


Principal Leaders And College And Career Readiness Programs, Inna Goretaya Polishchuk Dec 2018

Principal Leaders And College And Career Readiness Programs, Inna Goretaya Polishchuk

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the intersection of high school principals and college and career readiness initiatives in five high school contexts. Because school principals are responsible for setting the vision in a school, college and career readiness initiatives have the potential to overlap significantly with the principal’s direction of the school. Moreover, studies indicate college and career readiness programs might rely on the active support of the school administrator if they are to succeed. What the school leader cares about tends to be what staff focus on; therefore, this study examines how three factors influence the effectiveness of a college and …


Higher Education: The Impact On Bosnian Women Who Came As Refugees To The United States, Belma Sadikovic May 2017

Higher Education: The Impact On Bosnian Women Who Came As Refugees To The United States, Belma Sadikovic

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the impact college education has on Bosnian refugee women who resettled to the United States. The research findings help us better understand the effect higher education has on female students who came to the United States as refugees, their self-sufficiency and their overall integration into their new society. Using Kunz’s refugee theory and Bourdieu’s theory on social and cultural capital as a theoretical framework, the study explores socio-cultural factors that enable and constrain the ability of Bosnian women to navigate the facets of higher education, and how those factors affect their self-sufficiency and overall integration. The participants …


Currere As A Method For Critical Reflection In The Profession Of Academic Librarianship, Richard A. Stoddart Dec 2015

Currere As A Method For Critical Reflection In The Profession Of Academic Librarianship, Richard A. Stoddart

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Academic librarianship has an intimate association with narratives and stories from their traditional role in curating, caring for, and making collections accessible. Librarians also experience the intricacies and challenges of narrative inquiry through the qualitative research they undertake, oral histories they gather, reflective teaching practices they facilitate, and oral-traditions they interact with. Despite these intersections with reflection and narratives, academic librarianship, and library sciences as a whole, have not fully incorporated their own narratives within their practices. Academic librarianship has the ability but not the spaces to critically reflect in a holistic manner. Shadiow (2013) encourages us all to “recall, …


A Structurational Approach To Organizational Change: Exploring Idaho’S Students Come First Initiative, Matthew Aaron Mccarter Aug 2015

A Structurational Approach To Organizational Change: Exploring Idaho’S Students Come First Initiative, Matthew Aaron Mccarter

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This study embraces a structuration approach to explore how the staff at the Idaho State Education Agency (SEA) reacted to implementing a unique and sweeping K-12 education reform package commonly known as “Students Come First.” By embracing a communicative perspective to studying change in public education, this study provides insights to how public sector employees at an SEA who work in a field governed by a unique set of features (politically-driven policies from elected officials and outcome expectations from the electorate), and who are driven by a passion to serve children engaged in changes that challenged their everyday understandings of …


Education, Print Culture, Social Literacy, And Religiosity: A Multi-Grounded Theory Of Textual Mediation Found In Early And Contemporary Mormonism, Ezra G. Gwilliam Dec 2013

Education, Print Culture, Social Literacy, And Religiosity: A Multi-Grounded Theory Of Textual Mediation Found In Early And Contemporary Mormonism, Ezra G. Gwilliam

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This study is a multi-grounded theory (Goldkuhl & Cronholm, 2010) approach to identify potential relationships between print culture, uses of social literacy, and education found in historical Mormonism (1830-1844) and the contemporary church, which has a reported parity between education and religiosity (Cooperman, 2012). Through the theoretical model of multi-grounded theory, scholars of Mormon history were identified and interviewed to help establish what relationship may have existed and if there is relevance between the past and present church in the context of print, literacy, religiosity and education. Two literacy theories, Venezky’s (1996) theory of literacy expansion and Barton and Hamilton’s …


Schools, Community, And Family: The Promises Of Community-Based School Reform And School Success, Shannon Sue Rishky May 2010

Schools, Community, And Family: The Promises Of Community-Based School Reform And School Success, Shannon Sue Rishky

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

A new trend in U.S. education is community-based schools. Community schools offer on-site programs and services to whole families to improve student success. Community-based schools can improve student learning, increase parent participation, give teachers more time to focus on instruction, and create the necessary conditions for learning. But we know relatively little about successful new programs in rural states and smaller urban centers. This thesis, a case study of an elementary school in a small U.S. urban center, identifies key factors for the success of such programs. Through in-depth interviews with administrators, teachers, and support staff the following factors were …


Information Technology Infrastructure Library Problem Management Practices In Higher Education: A Maturity Model Approach, Peter Allyn Jurhs Mar 2009

Information Technology Infrastructure Library Problem Management Practices In Higher Education: A Maturity Model Approach, Peter Allyn Jurhs

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This study addresses the movement from a traditional to an ITSM approach for Help Desk services in Higher Education. The central goal of the study was the development of a Problem Management Maturity Model. The Problem Management Maturity Model was constructed by reviewing the Information Technology Infrastructure Library Problem Management literature for core components to include in the model. The data collected from surveys of Help Desk managers was used to place Higher Education institutions on the specific level of the Problem Management Maturity Model. Several different hypotheses about predictors for Problem Management maturity were tested but none proved to …