Education Commons^™

College As Capability Enhancement, Cristina Lee

CMC Senior Theses

In this thesis I wanted to apply the Sen’s framework in Development as Freedom to college campuses. In my experience at Claremont McKenna College, I have seen how some students are able to take advantage of the resources better than others. Given that we were all accepted by the same admissions office, I always questioned why did some students know how to take advantage of the system. In order to explore this, I first discuss Sen’s capability approach. Then, I show how the capability approach is more comprehensive than social networking theory and William Deresiewicz’s account on elite colleges. Finally, …

A Tradesperson’S Transition To Vocational Technical (Vt) Teaching, Susan J. Sylvia

Educational Studies Dissertations

This qualitative study examined survey and interview data collected from tradespeople who transitioned to vocational technical (VT) teaching in regional vocational technical schools in Massachusetts. This study included two research questions that inquired about how tradespeople’s prior experiences, beliefs, and thoughts influenced or inspired them to pursue a transition to vocational technical (VT) teaching and about how their anticipated transitional experiences aligned with their actual transitional experiences. The survey phase included 170 respondents. Survey responses provided an overview of participants, which was integral in identifying four interview participants who were digitally recorded during one-to-one interview sessions. A multiple Case Study …

Moments, Tiffany Bouchard

Theses and Dissertations from 2017

Moments is a series of creative nonfiction essays depicting life with a child who is severely autistic. I compare events from my life prior to having children with life events after I became a mother. My goal is to present a side of autism that is not always seen – the meltdowns, the aggression, the injurious behavior. My desire is to show that, despite the obstacles this life has presented us with, I have been able to experience life with a beautiful, misunderstood human who has changed my life for the better.

Understanding The Right To Education In The Early 21st Century South African Context, Robert T. Zipp , '18

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

Evaluating the implementation of human rights norms as broad as the right to education at the domestic level requires the use of supplemental analytical frameworks. In this project, I discuss the implementation of the core norm of the right to education as it manifests in the prescriptive norms guided by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Using the framework set forth by Betts and Orchard, I find that the current structural and ideational factors influencing access to primary education in South Africa are impacted by the country's historical legacy of racial inequality and the economic decisions of the post-apartheid government in …

Discovering The Leader Within: An Autoethnophenomenographic Study Of Mindfulness In Educational Leadership, Alyssa Fraser

Educational Studies Dissertations

This qualitative study combined autoethnographic and phenomenological methods to examine a researcher-leader’s attempt to cultivate cognitive, relational, and emotional capacities through regular mindfulness practice, and how the cultivation of such capacities aligns with the enactment of leadership. The interrogation of lived experience and self-analysis was entered with the intention to better understand the promise of mindfulness as a resource for the development of educational leaders. This study explored the perceived connections between mindfulness practice and the enactment of educational leadership by examining internal and external perspectives of an individual leader’s practice. Methods of self-observation, including both interval and occurrence recording …

Implementing For Success And Sustainability, Michele Paulo

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Nurses, including those with additional education and training as professional development specialists, face challenges to implementing evidenced-based practice changes effectively and efficiently. Nurse bedside performance can drift away from evidence-based practice (EBP) and revert to methods previously taught when the strategy, planning and implementation lacks resources to support sustainable change. While knowledge and skills attainment are important, they do not ensure the successful transition in practice change at the point of care. An intervention has been developed that integrates several evidence-based implementation concepts and frameworks into a single framework named the Identify and DRIVE framework. Additionally, the Identify and DRIVE …

Behavior Modification: Addressing The Challenging Behaviors Within An Early Childhood Program, Marie Gewiss

Graduate Education Student Scholarship

Addressing challenging behaviors in our Early Childhood Programs will always be a topic of concern for the teachers as well as for the students. One solution in avoiding misbehavior is to find the antecedent before the behavior can begin to be a disruption. A discussion of the consequences are also important aspects for children and adults to understand when thinking about how to control an unwanted act of aggression. “Aggressive behavior usually follows an event that the patient perceives as provocative. Types of provocation include perceptions of disrespectful treatment; unfairness/injustice; frustration/interruption; annoying traits, and irritations” (Daffern & Tonkin, 2010, para. …

The Lived Experiences Of Counseling Graduate Students And The Impact Of Their Studies In Their Marital Satisfaction, Vania S. Palacios

Theses and Dissertations

Due to high levels of stress that students find throughout graduate programs, professional and personal lives are at times not prioritized. The heuristic study focused on analyzing common themes among counseling graduate students at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, the coping mechanisms students have used to improve their marital/relational satisfaction, and common stressors in their marriage as a reflection of the counseling graduate program. The researcher provided a personal narrative for the study and analyzed transcriptions of the interviews of four counseling graduate students at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Liminal Surfaces, Georgina E. Grenier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The poet Ben Okri wrote: “Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations.” (Stibbe)

In the early 21st Century we are facing numerous environmental problems that are being caused by human activity. This era is termed the Anthropocene , a time when accumulated pollutants are causing detrimental ecological change. Ocean creatures are threatened by increasing seawater temperature, acidifying pH levels and melting ice. On land we are experiencing droughts, alteration of biomes, extinctions and an atmosphere that contains less oxygen per breath than …

Evaluating The Policies That Lead To Stem Educational Attainment At The University Of Arkansas For Transfer Students, Bryan Hill

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The US has a critical need to produce more STEM graduates and that need is exponentially more critical in Arkansas. Arkansas currently ranks last in the percent of STEM degrees conferred compared to overall degrees awarded. Students intending to pursue a STEM four-year college degree who start at a two-year college are significantly less likely to succeed in earning that degree. Arkansas passed Acts 672 and 182 aimed at strengthening the success of students who transfer from two-year colleges into four-year institutions. This study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the Acts by determining if the University of Arkansas (UA) …

Causality: A Comparative Study Of A Current Causality Model To That Of Synchronized Analysis Model (Sam) In A Rural Elementary School, Matthew L. Williams

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

The field of K-12 education has undergone an ever increasing strain to improve student and school performance in the last few decades. Many schools have failed to improve despite the attention they have been given.

The purpose of this study is to compare an elementary school’s current model of causality to the Synchronized Analysis Model (SAM) and Kaizen’s five why’s in determining low school performance. Using a qualitative instrumental case study design, surveys, interviews, and a focus group as the method of inquiry, nine employees were surveyed, four teachers and a principal were interviewed, and three leaders participated in a …

Restorative Justice Practices In Education: A Quantitative Analysis Of Suspension Rates At The Middle School Level, Barbara Katic

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The negative effects of retributive disciplinary measures in school settings are well documented. Exclusionary practices, such as suspensions, position students on the school-to-prison pipeline, perpetuating a cycle of failure. Restorative justice practices in educational settings provide an alternative to the retributive approach to student discipline. In this research study, a middle school in California was examined for its implementation of restorative justice practices. Numerical data pertaining to a five-year suspension history report for the school were utilized for the quantitative analyses, and four individual chi-square goodness of fit tests were conducted. The results demonstrated that the implementation of restorative justice …

Inentives And Education: Experimental Evidence From Medellin, Colombia, Theodore D. Wisinski, Alessandra Cassar

Master's Theses

This research uses an experimental design to investigate how incentive structure influences goal achievement among disadvantaged high school students in Medellin, Colombia. Of particular interest is how treatment effects influence school performance as well as how this may vary with differing key characteristics of the participants. Medellin, Colombia, like much of South America suffers from high levels of inequality in the city proper. Improving educational outcomes in impoverished neighborhoods is essential for the growth of these neighborhoods and the greater community in which they are located. The model used in this experiment is inspired by the Family Independence Initiative (FII). …

Goal Effectiveness In Achieving Educational Outcomes: Experimental Evidence From 9th Graders In Medellin, Colombia, Daniel Salicath, Alessandra Cassar

Master's Theses

Does goal setting among low-income ninth graders leads to higher average goal achievements of educational outcomes? This question is explored by a field experiment motivated by the acknowledged California-based Family Independence Initiative (FII), to analyze the effectiveness of individual goal setting, incentives and self-help groups on the achievement of educational goals. By randomizing treatments and control with the cooperation of the Secretary of Education in Medellin, different classrooms were assigned to five different experimental groups that met systematically for five months. The results show that goal setting is a cost-effective method to help low-income students achieve educational outcomes. Setting a …

Unemployment, Does It Really Hurt?, Claudia Vargas

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the consequences of changes in the unemployment rate in Colombia on the level of education attained for adolescents. Increases in the unemployment rate are associated with an increase in the average number of years of education. No significant effect was found for men of the same age.

How Scholarship Programs Facilitate First-Generation College Students’ Involvement, Maria C. Restrepo Chavez

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

As a first-generation college student, I am interested in the on-campus involvement and experiences of other first-generation college students. First-generation college students are those whose parents did not receive a university degree and tend to come from low-income families. This project explores programs designed to support and enrich the experiences of such students. The Centennial Scholars Program at James Madison University and the Presidential Scholarship Initiative at Virginia Tech aim to increase the socio-economic diversity on each campus. These programs provide students with full funding for four years, mentorship, professional development and social benefits, among others. In turn, students become …

Education As Counter Terrorism In Iraq, Thanaa Sulaiman

English (TESOL) Master Theses

There is not much research written about the relationship between education and the rise of terrorism. Some scholars have urged for educative response to end terrorism (Krueger and Maleckova, 2003; Brockhoff et al., 2015; Malazada, 2016; Illiteracy rates drop in Iraq: Government, 2014) In his study, Brockhoff et al., (2015) found that when country specific factors like the economic situation and political representation were unfavorable, education is the reason some individuals become terrorists. Abrifor (2008) concluded that abuse of students in Nigeria lead them to get involved in criminal activities, suicide bombing and terrorism. In light of these studies, it …

Communication Apprehension Among Community College Students: A Phenomenology, John R. Bragg Jr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A qualitative investigation was conducted to explore the phenomenon of communication apprehension among a purposeful sample of five community college students with high levels of communication apprehension. The phenomenon of Communication Apprehension (CA) is “an individual’s level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons” (Beatty, McCroskey, & Heisel, 1998, p. 197; McCroskey, 1970, p. 269). All individuals experience some level of CA, and between 30% and 40% of individuals are estimated to experience high levels of CA. For the community college student with high levels of CA, the introductory communication course …

Education Through The Eyes Of Foster Parents, Laresha R. Richardson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Not all children live with their biological parents. In 2013, approximately 60,000 children in California were in foster care. These children comprise a significant subgroup of students in public schools today and are one of the most educationally vulnerable student populations. Often they are, as a group but with individual exceptions, low-performing.

Parents’ involvement has often been credited with improving school achievement. Foster parents, therefore, play an important role in ensuring the academic success of foster care children. Foster parents encourage, provide emotional support and guidance to these children and advocate on their behalf.

The purpose of this study was …

The Best And The Brightest?: Race, Class, And Merit In America's Elite Colleges, Walter Chacon

Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Racial Integration And Institutional Change, 1965-1971: A Case Study Of Uw-Milwaukee’S Human Relations Institute, Center For Afro-American Culture And Spanish Speaking Outreach Institute, Toni Johns

Theses and Dissertations

This historical case study explores the development of the Institute for Human Relations, the Center for Afro-American Culture and the Spanish Speaking Outreach Institute. These three university entities demonstrate the evolution of class-and race-based policy development at UW-Milwaukee between 1965 and 1971. There is limited literature regarding the historical development of programs that served to racially integrate UW-Milwaukee. Much of the existing literature was written by former University administrators (Klotsche 1966, 1972, 1985, Cassell, Klotsche and Olsen 1992) and highlights the positive actions taken by the administration. Literature written by non-administrators (J. Rodriguez 2005, M. Rodriguez 2015) focuses on community …

Conditional Cash Transfers For Education: A Comparative Analysis Between Funder And Country, Wesley Marcum-Mullins

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

Educational Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) are market driven poverty alleviation interventions, which have been growing in popularity throughout Latin America and the Caribbean in the last 25 years. These are multilateral interventions with many different participants such as funders, national governments, municipal governments, school, teachers, students, and parents. This paper addresses the question: How are educational Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs discussed and rationalized by various state and funder participants? This paper compares funders, The World Bank and Inter-Americas Development Bank, and country CCT programs, Jamaica’s Program of Advancement through Health and Education and Brazils Bolsa Familia. The paper concludes …

Searching For Ourselves: African Cultural Representation In Children’S Books In The United States, And Implications For Educational Achievement, Lulama Moyo

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

Using documentary and discourse analysis of children’s literature I explore the extent to which there is a multicultural gap in children’s literature to reveal the prevailing challenges of the colonized and Eurocentric values embedded in the contemporary education system that supports the monocultural socialization of young children in their early formative years. I translate my research through examining four thematic ways on how the multicultural gap is manifested which are subject matter, the lack of African writers, degree of complexity of diasporic experiences, and confronting whiteness. By focusing more specifically on the gap in African diasporic children literature, I review …

Contextualized Education In Global Schools: Conceptualizing School Systems In A Global World, Loren Guerin

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

Education has been prioritized by global agencies as a universal right and current trends in the United Nations global benchmarks and development agencies call for education for all and a set of global values to guide educational policy and practice. This paper aims to problematize the current understanding of schooling and educational systems in a globalized world while demonstrating the need to move away from a global curriculum based on homogenized values and towards a contextualized education system. By looking at the evolution of Western Education, the use of education by colonial powers, and an in depth case study of …

A Path To Academic Success: Learning Disabilities, Finding A Way, John S. Cooper

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will highlight the difficulties students with learning disabilities have in the post-secondary environment. Special interest is given to how colleges and universities help these students become successful and graduate from college. Two universities are examined, the University of the Ozarks and the University of Arkansas. Each school has its own programs that provide accommodations to students with learning disabilities. The thesis will follow a student from each university, as they attend classes and Social activities.

Error Analysis: A Case Study On Non-Native English Speaking College Applicants’ Electronic Mail Communications, Casey Kraichoke

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to discover major writing problems international college applicants make when composing electronic communications by analyzing the nature and distribution of their writing errors. Additionally, the researcher seeks to discover if there is a relationship between non-native English speakers’ (NNS) writing errors and demographics, which include: gender, country of origin, country of origin’s official language, program level, and program of study. The researcher hypothesizes that countries with English as an official language and the language of instruction in higher education are the most significant predictor of non-native English speakers’ writing errors in terms of count …

Lgbt Student Experiences In Boston Public Schools: A Case Study, David Geyer

Honors College Theses

While the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community has overcome great obstacles in its fight for equality, the newest challenge has become the poor mental health of the LGBT youth. In this study, the experiences of a recently graduated LGBT Boston Public Schools student were investigated through qualitative research methods. Interviews with the student were analyzed to determine what factors contributed to his overall positive experiences and mental health as a bisexual student attending Boston Public Schools. The showing of support from his mother and peers, along with the presence of a Gay-Straight Alliance club at his school positively affected …

Progressive Education In Appalachia: East Tennessee State Normal School And Appalachian State Normal School, Holly Heacock

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this thesis, I am examining how East Tennessee State Normal School in East Tennessee and Appalachian State Normal School in Western North Carolina interpreted progressive education differently in their states. This difference is that East Tennessee State began as a state funded school to educate future teachers therefore their school and their curriculum was more rounded and set to a structured schedule. Appalachian State Normal School was initially founded to educate the uneducated in the “lost provinces” therefore, curriculum was even more progressive than East Tennessee State’s – based strongly on the practices of farming, woodworking, and other practical …

The Missouri Student Transfer Program, Howard E. Fields Iii

Dissertations

In 1993, the state of Missouri passed the Outstanding Schools Act. This law was created as a means to ensure that “all children will have quality educational opportunities, regardless of where in Missouri they live.” Section 167.131 of this law states that an unaccredited district must pay the tuition and transportation cost for students who attend an accredited school in the same or adjoining district. This portion of the law became known as the Student Transfer Program.

The Riverview Gardens School District (RGSD) was one of three unaccredited school districts in the state of Missouri in 2013. With close to …

An Investigation Into The Teaching Of International Public Relations To Undergraduates, Matthew Wisla

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Currently, most U.S. multinational companies increasingly rely on international markets for revenue and growth. Public relations professionals, whether they are on assignment in a foreign land or based in the U.S. as part of an international team, must possess the skills to communicate effectively with target audiences from other cultures. The purpose of this study is to better understand the international qualifications and background of instructors teaching international public relations to U.S. undergraduates. This study is based on data collected through telephone interviews with select academic thought leaders in the field of teaching international public relations, and a broad email …