Education Commons^™

The Impact Of Prior-Prior Year On Federal Student Aid Eligibility, Valerie A. Mockus

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Each year, millions of Americans complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in hopes of securing federal, state, and institutional funding to support their educational goals. The FAFSA recently changed the age of tax data used to determine eligibility for aid, including the Federal Pell Grant—eligibility for which is often used as a proxy for students with the highest need. This study includes a comprehensive review of the extant literature on the subject of prior-prior year. It is also the first look into the actual impact of the recent shift from Prior Year (PY) tax information to Prior-Prior …

Positive Deviance As A Framework For Understanding Motivations And Barriers To Exercise For University Students At Campus Recreation, René Dario Herrera

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis was to use qualitative research methodologies to better understand motivations and barriers to exercise for university students at campus recreation. The secondary purpose was to identify any correlations between physical activity habits and academic success. Ethnographic data obtained from a positive deviance sample and critically analyzed with feminist and postmodern theory could provide additional validation for campus recreation's value in positively contributing to the academic success of university students.

Participant observation, questionnaire, cultural domain analysis, interview, and focus group provided qualitative data.

Results indicate university students who frequent campus recreation to exercise are highly motivated …

Money Matters: An Examination Of Special Education Characteristics In Efficient And Inefficient Texas School Districts, Pakethia Harris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study veers from the traditional perspective of examining school efficiency or productivity as a cost minimizing process, in which educational inputs are minimized to achieve maximum outputs (student performance). Instead, it provides a critical examination of the dominant, cost minimizing assumption associated with efficiency models and suggest schools instead behave similarly to budget maximizers as presented in Niskanen’s (1971) seminal budget maximizing framework. The study examines the relationship between total student expenditures and subsequent student outcomes, establishing the relative efficiency of Texas school districts using stochastic frontier analysis within a budget-maximizing framework. Additionally, the study investigates how special education …

Case Study Of A Collaborative Approach To Evaluation Within A School District Central Office, Oriana Eversole

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This instrumental case study (Stake, 1995) provides an in-depth examination of a collaborative approach to evaluation within a school district’s central office. This study analyzes the implementation of collaborative approaches to evaluation (CAE) within a school district’s central office with an emphasis on evaluation use from the evaluators’ perspectives. It also explores the role and evolution of the evaluators throughout the evaluation process. Furthermore, this study adds to educational research on how to support the implementation and use of improvement processes in school district central offices. The analysis focuses on the evaluation activities that my colleagues and I led as …