Education Commons^™

The Educational Journeys Of First-Generation College Women In Stem: A Grounded Theory Study, Susan Geier

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the various factors that influenced these first-generation college women as they chose a college and selected a STEM major and subsequently persisted to upper level (junior/senior) status. Twenty-five first-generation college women in STEM majors who attended a research-intensive university in the Midwest were interviewed. Approaching this study using constructivist grounded theory provided the opportunity for deeper insights by examining data at a conceptual level while preserving the voices of the women in this study. The women faced numerous challenges on their journeys, yet they persisted. As the women in this study selected …

An Examination Of Indiana Early College High School Students Who Attended Purdue University Between 2006 And 2015, Lisa P. Kirkham

Open Access Dissertations

Early College High Schools (ECHS) are an educational intervention designed to promote rigor in high school education along with increased post-secondary access and success for disadvantaged students. Based on evidence, the Early College High School program is effective at helping students who traditionally are not in college-bound tracks find their way into that path. ECHSs provide a comprehensive, rigorous high school experience allowing students to earn an associate’s degree along with the high school diploma. Regarding structure, the ECHS is an entire high school, with all students earning college credits. Examining post-secondary experiences of students participating in Early College High …

A Phenomenographic Study Of The Ability To Address Complex Socio-Technical Systems Via Variation Theory, John A. Mendoza Garcia

Open Access Dissertations

Sometimes engineers fail when addressing the inherent complexity of socio-technical systems because they lack the ability to address the complexity of socio-technical systems. Teaching undergraduate engineering students how to address complex socio-technical systems, has been an educational endeavor at different levels ranging from kindergarten to post-graduate education. The literature presents different pedagogical strategies and content to reach this goal. However, there are no existing empirically-based assessments guided by a learning theory. This may be because at the same time explanations of how the skill is developed are scarce.

My study bridges this gap, and I propose a developmental path for …

It Is "Broken" And "Accented": Non-Native English-Speaking (Nnes) Graduate Students' Perceptions Toward Nnes Instructors' English, Hyo Jung Keira Park

Open Access Dissertations

This study investigates the perceptions of non-native English-speaking graduate students towards non-native English speaking (NNES) instructors’ accented English. Students (N=161) who were enrolled in an oral English course at Purdue University participated in a survey. Follow-up interviews were conducted with voluntary participants (N=9) to examine the perceptions of NNES graduate students towards NNES instructors in depth. The findings in the survey showed that more than one third of the participants experienced difficulty with their NNES instructors due to their limited intelligibility and restricted command of English. Furthermore, one third of the participants expressed that they would transfer to another section …

Promoting Teaming Metacognition, Lee Kemp Rynearson

Open Access Dissertations

Improving students’ capacity to effectively perform teaming skills is a crucial outcome for engineering education, and has been the subject of considerable prior and ongoing research. Based upon review of research on teaming, it was hypothesized that greater awareness of appropriate opportunities to use teaming skills in authentic contexts would lead to greater teaming skills employment over time. Further, it was hypothesized that greater psychological safety in student teams would lead to more students choosing to employ appropriate teaming skills over time. An intervention to achieve such increases could therefore be expected to promote student teaming skills performance improvement. Seeking …

An Analysis Of The Current Strength Of The Academic Relationship With The Aerospace Industry, James A. Stratton

Open Access Dissertations

The objective of this research was to discover which methods of technology transfer were most commonly accessed within the Indiana manufacturing sector in an effort to best serve companies in the Hoosier State. Previous work has explored the perceived importance of various academic sources, but there has not been an investigation to identify the specific preferences of industry professionals. If these preferences can be identified, university assistance programs and other academic engagement programs will be able to predict, and hopefully influence how to grow and develop the domestic manufacturing sector, ultimately strengthening the channels of knowledge transfer between academia and …

Navigating Stress In Public Education: A Personal Reflection And Narrative Study Of My Closest Relationships In Teaching, Stephen I. Smith

Open Access Theses

This study originally intended to explore the various effects of burnout – defined by the researcher as the steady decline of joy and increase of stress associated with teaching – on secondary school teachers. Using narrative inquiry, the researcher’s story and that of three other male eighth grade junior high school teachers close to him shaped the core of the study. Students the researcher taught in a first year undergraduate course exploring teaching as a career were also surveyed to look for any possible link between preservice teacher enthusiasm and the harsh realities of teaching. A question addressed was if …

A Usability Assessment For A Career Planning Educational Video Game, Jiaqi Wang

Open Access Theses

This study focused on the design, implementation and usability assessment of an educational 2D iPad job matching game The Place You’ll Go (TPYG), which meant for matching student skill sets with career profiles. The development of the game is conducted in collaboration with Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management and Polytech Institute. A total of 7 subjects, as high school teachers, participated in the usability study. TPYG as one possible solution for job matching data visualization, did not provide players with a good experience. However, conclusions and findings can be used in similar education game development. Based on survey and …

Writing Their Way To The University: An Investigation Of Chinese High School Students' Preparation For Writing In English In High Schools, Cram Schools, And Online, Cong Zhang

Open Access Dissertations

In this dissertation, drawing from activity theory, I investigate how Chinese students prepared themselves for undergraduate studies in U.S. universities in terms of English writing from three perspectives: English writing instruction in high schools, private supplementary tutoring (PST) in English writing in cram schools, and experience with writing online and using online resources. On the basis of data from a questionnaire, interviews, classroom observations, and examinations of written materials and a forum, I provide a picture of the writing instruction experience and writing background that Chinese students bring to writing classrooms in U.S. universities. It was found that other than …

Undergraduate Students' Goals For Chemistry Laboratory Coursework, Brittland K. Dekorver

Open Access Dissertations

Chemistry laboratory coursework has the potential to offer many benefits to students, yet few of these learning goals are realized in practice. Therefore, this study seeks to characterize undergraduate students’ learning goals for their chemistry laboratory coursework. Data were collected by recording video of students completing laboratory experiments and conducting interviews with the students about their experiences that were analyzed utilizing the frameworks of Human Constructivism and Self-Regulated Learning. A cross-sectional sampling of students allowed comparisons to be made among students with varying levels of chemistry experience and interest in chemistry. The student goals identified by this study were compared …

A Collaborative Integrated Stem Teaching: Examination Of A Science And Math Teacher Collaboration On An Integrated Stem Unit, Drew C. Ayres

Open Access Theses

The integration of science, technology, engineering and mathematics curriculum in middle school science and math classrooms is a reform effort currently taking place. The teachers are being encouraged to teach integrated content through national and state standards. The teachers have not been trained to do this form of teaching, which has led to feelings of discomfort or incompetence to fulfill those standards. This has led to a need for professional developments to train these teachers. Those developing the professional developments are seeking to identify ways to encourage teachers to continue to implement integrated units.

The purpose of this study was …

Community Engagement, Graduate Students, And "Naive Complicity": Service In The University, Jonathan S. Isaac

Open Access Theses

This thesis takes issue with current models of community engagement and service learning that do not take into consideration the constraints imposed upon graduate students or short-term instructors who teach a service learning course or who undertake community-oriented research. Bound up in the long history of academic needs overshadowing or entirely neglecting community concerns, campus-community partnerships involving graduate students are much more likely to maintain, to quote Linda Flower, a “naïve complicity in the social structures that put power and prestige on the university side of the ledger while putting passive need and incapacity on the debit, community side” (105). …

Mining Big Data To Create A Tool For Empirical Observation Of Continuous Safety Improvement In A Construction Company - A Progressive Case Study In The Lean Environment, Nicolas J. Michuda

Open Access Theses

In any iterative process, without a system of measurement, controlled improvement cannot be recorded. This is especially true in the construction industry, where error occurs, often with fatal repercussions. As part of a process to facilitate the establishment of this metric, an entirely new application was created. The goal of this application is to measure the causal factors that lead to incidents, which will allow the user and administration to track the circumstances and types of incidents. This enables the company to focus on these problem areas and improve through training. By analyzing these incident trends over time, the company …

Enhancing The Campus Experience: Helping International Students To Adapt To North American Campus Life, Qiaoying Wang

Open Access Theses

This thesis investigates how culture adaption topic can be applied to a design solution by enhancing international students experience on North American campus. Each year more than half a million international students enroll in American colleges and universities. Many will spend several years on a campus working toward their degree. Most of them arrive with clear academic goals, but they may have no clue what their social lives will be like. In that case, a common phenomenon that most of the international students need to get along with is called “Culture Shock”, which involves culture and academic adapting difficulties, limited …

Self-Regulation To Practice: Incorporating The Strategy To An Early Childhood Special Education Setting, Kathryn L. Szwed

Open Access Dissertations

Preschool students who display social emotional deficits pose challenging issues for families, caregivers and teachers who educate them. In this study, the effectiveness of an assistive technology based treatment package consisting of video self-modeling and behavior management software was investigated to determine if its combined use would result in increased student self-regulation skills. Using a multiple baseline design, three students used the treatment package to increase self-regulation skills. During the investigation, the accuracy to self-identify behaviors, the documentation of desired and undesired behaviors and the overall impact of the treatment package was studied. Interobserver agreement (IOA) was used to determine …

Toward A Genre Writing Curriculum: Schooling Genres In The Common Core State Standards, Michael J. Maune

Open Access Dissertations

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS), published in 2010 and adopted by the majority of U.S. states, established a set of expectations for student writing in K-12 education. In describing these expectations, the CCSS used three general “text type” classifications: Narrative, Informative/Explanatory, and Argumentative. While the CCSS outlines the general expectations for students writing in these text types, the linguistic and genre expectations were not fully expressed. This study examines 34 student exemplar texts provided in an appendix to the CCSS in order to determine the genre and linguistic expectations for student writing in K-12 education. Using a genre typology …

Analysis Of Scientific Argumentation In Two Physical Chemistry Classrooms Using The Pogil Approach, Alena C. Moon

Open Access Dissertations

The benefits of facilitating argumentation in science education have been well reported (Jimenez-Aleixandre & Erduran, 2007). Engaging in argumentation has shown to model authentic scientific inquiry as well as promote development of content knowledge. However, less emphasis has been placed on facilitating argumentation in upper level undergraduate courses, though it is important for evaluating undergraduate curricula to characterize upper level students’ scientific reasoning. This work considers two implementations of the POGIL physical chemistry curriculum and evaluates the classroom argumentation. The researchers aimed to consider the content of the arguments and dialectical features characteristic of socially constructed arguments (Nielson, 2013). To …

Effects Of A Timed Dictation Activity In The Introductory Course In Japanese Focusing On The Accuracy And Fluency Of Writing Katakana, Aya Okada

Open Access Theses

The importance of mastering one of the Japanese syllabaries, Katakana, is acknowledged by both Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) learners and teachers. Katakana is a phonetic syllabary that is used to transcribe loanwords primarily from European languages and onomatopoeia words. These loanwords are nowadays called Katakana words. The number of Katakana words in Japanese language has been increasing, and it is reported that many JFL learners in Japan often encounter difficulty in understanding these words. Though teachers are also aware of the importance of teaching Katakana, it is treated less importantly. For example, after spending some time and effort …

Learning The Language Of Academic Engineering: Sociocognitive Writing In Graduate Students, Catherine G. P. Berdanier

Open Access Dissertations

Although engineering graduate programs rarely require academic writing courses, the indicators of merit in academic engineering, such as journal publications, successful grants, and doctoral milestones (e.g. theses, dissertations) are based in effective written argumentation and disciplinary discourse. Further, graduate student attrition averages 57% across all disciplines, with some studies classifying up to 50% of these students as “ABD” (All But Dissertation.) In engineering disciplines specifically, graduate attrition rates across the U.S. average 36% (both Master’s and PhD students), according to the Council of Graduate Schools. The lack of socialization is generally noted as a main reason for graduate attrition, one …

Modernizing The Current Afghan Engineering Education System: Challenges And Opportunities, Khalilullah Mayar

Open Access Theses

Having an effective engineering education system in place can play a crucial role in the development and reconstruction process of a war-ravaged country, such as Afghanistan, where tens of billions of dollars of international aid has been spent in the past 14 years for that process, including higher education. Unfortunately, at this point, the Afghan engineering education system is not yet financially self-sufficient nor can it address the education requirements of today’s job market. This thesis aimed to identify the major challenges still faced by Afghanistan and to provide a comprehensive list of recommendations and priorities that can make the …

A New Reality: Funding Formula Changes And Property Tax Caps And Their Effects On The Role Of The School Superintendent In The State Of Indiana, Patrick L. Gentry

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to discover how school superintendents were using general fund referenda to meet their school district’s operational budgets. However, after interviews began it became clear that the superintendents wanted to tell a different story and that was how the current school funding mechanism and property tax caps has changed the job of the school superintendent. The research consisted of one-on-one guided interviews of a mixed qualitative methods framework combining theories of hermeneutics and phenomenology. The interviews combined open-ended, guided questions and conversations and were with superintendents who were leaders of school districts that have …

A Standards-Based Grading Model To Predict Students' Success In A First-Year Engineering Course, Farshid Marbouti

Open Access Dissertations

Using predictive modeling methods, it is possible to identify at-risk students early in the semester and inform both the instructors and the students. While some universities have started to use standards-based grading, which has educational advantages over common score-based grading, at–risk prediction models have not been adapted to reap the benefits of standards-based grading. In this study, seven prediction models were compared to identify at-risk students in a course that used standards-based grading. When identifying at-risk students, it is important to minimize false negative (i.e., type II) errors while not increasing false positive (i.e., type I) errors significantly. To increase …