Education Commons^™

Rise Of The Administrator In Higher Education: Focus On Professionalization Of The Registrar At The University Of Kentucky From 1910 To 1937, Nancy D. Taylor

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

The decades following the Civil War saw a tremendous growth in the number of colleges and universities, both public and private, due in large part to funds provided by federal legislation under the Morrill Act of 1862 and a surge in philanthropy on the part of wealthy industrialists. In the early colleges and universities, administrations were typically run by the president alone. With increased enrollment and the demand for expanded services, one man could no longer handle all the administrative functions, and thus was born the administrative professional in higher education. Due to the increased demand for record-keeping, one of …

Gender Discrimination And Title Ix Implementation: Lessons From The Office For Civil Rights Resolution Letters 1997-2011, Laura S. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Gender discrimination, such as sexual harassment, sexual assault and inequitable treatment has long been considered a prominent issue on higher education campuses and is regulated under the Patsy Takemoto Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, commonly known as Title IX. Title IX is enforced by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) who responds to gender discrimination complaints on campus through investigations resulting in what are called OCR Resolution Letters. These letters define numerous policies and procedures Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) must put in place pertaining to the prevention of gender discrimination. This qualitative study looks specifically …

Good Leavers And Bad Stayers: Exploring The Influence Of Defining Student Success Outcomes With A Composite Measure Of Performance And Persistence, Curtis T. Sandberg

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Not all college “stayers” and “leavers” stay or leave for the same reason or with the same experience. However, traditional measures and studies of academic success have limited their scope to either performance or persistence as individual variables. This study explored whether a more nuanced definition of success as a composite of both performance and persistence (GPA and retention) produced different results than when using the variables separately. The influence of academic self-efficacy on student success served as the context for this exploration. The study used an existing incoming student survey dataset from a small private liberal arts college. Subjects …

The Learning Station: A Holistic Single-Case Study Of An After School Program To Address The Achievement Gap, Serenity Wright

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

The three parts of this dissertation provide multiple perspectives on a single-case study of the ways in which the achievement gap is defined in one Kentucky school district. The case study focuses on the Learning Station, an after-school tutoring program that intended to address the achievement gap for minority and low-income students. Given the intensity of high stakes testing and testing frequency becoming part of the national mainstream conversation, the first part provides a brief overview of the various state and district mandated tests that students are required to take throughout the course of the year. I use quantitative data …

Success After Failure: An Examination Of Credit Recovery Options And Their Effect On College- And Career-Readiness, Kathryn B. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations--Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education

More than ever before, educators and researchers are keeping a keen eye on student college- and career-readiness. The widely adopted Common Core State Standards were written with the explicit goal of helping students to be college- or career-ready by the time they graduate from high school. However, many students experience setbacks, such as course failure, within their educational career placing them at risk for not reaching this goal. Because the ACT can predict student success in college, states often use benchmark scores from the exam to measure student college- and career-readiness. A student who fails to learn fundamental concepts in …

The Use Of A Digital Game-Based Safety Program For All-Terrain Vehicles: Operational Knowledge For Youthful Riders, Mark Schneider

Theses and Dissertations--Curriculum and Instruction

Given the exposure and preference of digital natives for games, along with the proliferation of digital devices, there is a need to determine how effective digital games are in conveying operational knowledge to our youth. This quasi-experimental study examined whether a digital safety game increased high school student operational knowledge of All-terrain Vehicle (ATV) safety in contrast to conventional PowerPoint ATV safety training with commensurate information. The first treatment group consisted of “in class” students participating in the ATV game, the second treatment group was made up of “free play” students playing the game out of class, and finally the …

Transformative Participation In A Professional Community: A Holistic Case Study Of One Experienced Teacher’S Evolving Practice, Kim Zeidler-Watters

Theses and Dissertations--Curriculum and Instruction

This descriptive, holistic, single case study focuses on how an experienced teacher with 21 years of teaching was able to negotiate participation in a community of practice (CoP). The study applies Wenger’s (1998) Community of Practice framework as a lens through which to gain insight into the subject’s professional transformation. Wenger’s multilayered theoretical approach, including the four components of his social learning model, provides a common language to describe participation.

The specific research questions that frame this inquiry are: 1) How did an experienced secondary mathematics teacher, involved in an ongoing and dual-faceted professional development project, negotiate meaningful participation in …

The Influence Of Collective Instructional Leadership On Teacher Efficacy, Kyle A. Lee

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

In understanding leadership to be the single most important factor in shaping a school’s performance, and second highest factor influencing student achievement, it is a necessity for investigations to focus on what successful leaders do to have excelling schools. Research has alluded to the understanding that the principal can no longer serve as the sole instructional leader of a school. This need for collaboration within the organization places a weight on principals to incorporate others within the school decision-making process.

This study examined how collective instructional leadership is currently influencing teacher efficacy in high performing central Kentucky elementary schools. Data …

Concept Mapping: Effects On Content Knowledge And Engagement With Content In Elementary Students’ Persuasive Writing, Melissa E. Gardner

Theses and Dissertations--Curriculum and Instruction

This comparative pre-test/post-test quantitative study investigated the effect of an instructional strategy using concept mapping as a graphic organizer on the quality of persuasive writing compositions produced by fourth grade elementary school students. Six fourth grade classes were assigned as intact groups to three conditions: concept mapping treatment, four square treatment, and control. Participants wrote a pre-test essay prior to treatment. Treatment consisted of an instructional unit collaboratively developed by the researcher and classroom teachers on persuasive writing. Instruction for the three treatment groups was the same except for type of graphic organizer used (Concept Map, Four Square, or none). …

The Use Of Contrastive Analysis In Code-Switching From Appalachian English Dialect To Standard English Dialect, Shayla D. Mettille

Theses and Dissertations--Curriculum and Instruction

This study examined the use of an intervention, Contrastive Analysis (CA), with fourth-graders’ writing in a Central Appalachian elementary school. The purpose was to improve the use of Standard English in students’ writing in Appalachia by decreasing the number of vernacular features typically used in the writing. The researcher collected data through Consent and Assent Forms, interviews with the fourth-grade teacher, classroom observations and an accompanying CA observation evaluation rubric, pre- and post-writing prompts, selected writings and Writer Self-Perception Scale (WSPS), as well as communication data. Data analysis was accomplished for both the prompts, writing pieces and the WSPS scores. …

A Study Of Teacher And Principal Perceptions Of Professional Learning Communities, Jeffrey C. Stamper

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

Throughout the post-modern or post-professional age (2000-present), high stakes testing and accountability of public schools forced educational organizations to improve their professional practices to work collaboratively (Little, 2003). As a result, professional learning communities (PLCs) have been found to improve student learning among educational organizations (DuFour, 2007; Hord, 2004). During the past 20 years, a significant amount of research has been conducted, which describes PLCs in the educational settings (Vescio, Ross, & Adams, 2008) Researchers note a lack of empirical research which focuses on teacher and principal perceptions of PLCs (Hord & Sommers, 2008).

The central focus of this study …

Mad Men In The Classroom: A Collection Of Classroom-Tested Teaching Tools, Rebecca Johnson, Jimmie Manning

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

This chapter includes classroom materials ranging from detailed lecture notes to assignments and activities to complete syllabuses that can be adopted for personal use.

The Extraordinary Voyage Of Kamome; A Tsunami Boat Comes Home, Lori Dengler, Amya Miller, Amy Uyeki

Trade & Scholarly Monographs

This sweet story, intended for lower elementary grades, is intended to provide a window for discussing earthquakes, tsunamis, marine debris, preparedness and cultural awareness in the classroom and within families.

On April 7, 2013, a little over two years after the magnitude 9 Tohoku-oki Japan earthquake triggered a massive tsunami off the coast of northeastern Japan, a lone boat washed up on the shores of Crescent City, California. The confirmation of the boat as belonging to a high school in Rikuzentakata was first step in an amazing story that has linked two tsunami-vulnerable communities on opposite sides of the Pacific …

Development Of The Professional School Social Work Survey: A Valid And Reliable Tool For Assessment And Planning, Catherine E. Randall

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

School social workers are currently in a unique position to support and lead schools through the change process initiated by districts' adoption of a Response to Intervention model. This dissertation describes an exploratory study to develop and pilot-test a self-administered survey for use by school social workers for the purpose of assessing the effectiveness of school social work practice. The survey was developed using DeVellis' 8-step process for survey design. The survey consisted of four subscales theorized to measure school social worker effectiveness as determined by a review of current literature in the field: Response to Intervention, Evidence-Based Practice, School …

Altering Tian: Spirituality In Early Confucianism, Jacob Thomas Atkinson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to analyze the three earliest Confucian thinkers and the foundational texts associated with them. In studying these texts this paper attempts to discover how these early Confucian thinkers conceived of Tian. This paper claims the early Confucian thinkers did not make as radical of a departure from the Ancient Chinese religiosity as many modern scholars have suggested. It has often been asserted that the tradition presented by these Confucian thinkers was entirely humanistic, altogether separate from the Ancient Chinese religiosityThis paper contests such claims,instead insisting that the early Confucian spirituality still viewed Tian as God and that …

Validity Testing Of A Preschool Reading Screening Device For Pediatricians, Erika Elaine Blue

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite efforts to improve access to early literacy intervention in the United States, there are still children entering kindergarten that are not adequately prepared for school and are unlikely to catch up to their peers (National Education Association, 2014). Preschool programs are actively involved in screening their students for potential literacy difficulties; however, there are children who do not attend preschool and may not have their literacy development assessed. One solution to this problem is to involve other individuals who routinely see preschool age children. Pediatricians are one such group as children come to them for their wellness visits and …

The Relationship Of Pre-Enrollment Timespans To Persistence And Time-To-Degree Of Transfer Students At A Four-Year, Metropolitan University, Michelle Denise Bombaugh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research study investigated the relationship to the pre-enrollment factors of admissions-to-enrollment and orientation-to-enrollment timespans to transfer student success as measured by persistence and the length of time taken to earn a baccalaureate degree. This quantitative study analyzed secondary data (N = 357) from a large, four-year, public research institution in the southeast United States. A logistic regression analysis was used to explore the relationships between the pre-enrollment timespans and persistence. The relationship between the admissions-to-enrollment timespan and persistence was not statistically significant. The orientation-to-enrollment timespan was found to have a statistically significant relationship to persistence (p < .05). This indicated that students who had increased orientation-to-enrollment timespans were more likely to persist. To further explore this relationship, a multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted to control for possible extraneous demographic, pre-enrollment, and enrollment variables. The relationship of orientation-to-enrollment timespan and persistence continued to be statistically significant. An ordered logistic technique was used to explore the relationship between the admissions- and orientation-to-enrollment timespans and time-to-degree completion. Neither timespan was found to have a significant relationship with time elapsed to complete the degree. Implications for admissions and orientation timespans were discussed in relation to transfer student transitions.

Compassion Fatigue And Self-Care Strategies Among Addiction Professionals: A Qualitative Study, Amanda Depippo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Addiction is a prevalent disorder and is on the rise. Addiction has serious symptomology and can negatively impact an individual’s life in several areas. Not only can the person addicted become negatively impacted, but the addiction professional that treats this disorder can become negatively impacted as well. Because there is often a high co-occurrence of addiction and trauma among addiction clients, this intensifies the clinical profile of such clients which compounds the risk for addiction professionals. It is the addiction professional’s response to this combination of addiction and trauma that can cause these professionals to experience compassion fatigue.

Research has …

Iwitness And Student Empathy: Perspectives From Usc Shoah Foundation Master Teachers, Brandon Jerome Haas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative interview study explores the perceptions of five USC Shoah Foundation Master Teachers who integrate IWitness in teaching about the Holocaust. The study focused on the perceptions of teachers as their students interact with survivor and witness testimony in IWitness as well as how IWitness provides a framework for moral education in comparison to other primary sources. Data gleaned from this study demonstrates the influence of personalized learning through testimony-based education on the development of empathy in secondary students. As IWitness is a new resource that engages students with Holocaust survivor testimony in innovative ways, this study fills a …

The Role Of The Interruption In Young Adult Epistolary Novels, Betty J. Herzhauser

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Within the genre of young adult literature, a growing trend is the use of epistolary messages through electronic methods between characters. These messages are set apart from the formal text of the narrative of the novel creating a break in the text features and layout of the page. Epistolary texts require a more sophisticated reading method and level of interpretation because the epistolary style blends multiple voices and points of view into the plot, creating complicated narration. The reader must navigate the narrator’s path in order to extract meaning from the text. In this hermeneutic study, I examined the text …

Help! I Have To Teach Math: The Nature Of A Preservice Teacher's Experiences Enacting Mathematics Instruction In A Final Internship, Lori Rakes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this case study was to better understand the nature of the experiences of a preservice teacher, self-identified as having mathematics anxiety as she planned and implemented instruction during her internship by answering: What is the nature of the experiences of a preservice teacher, self-identified as having mathematics anxiety, as she planned for mathematics instruction during her final internship? What is the nature of the experiences of a preservice teacher, self-identified as having mathematics anxiety, as she implemented mathematics instruction during her final internship? Using an interpretivist approach to a case study inquiry, I used semi-structured interviews, observations, …

Interleaved Effects In Inductive Category Learning: The Role Of Memory Retention, Alex Mackendrick

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Interleaved effects are widely documented. Research demonstrates that interleaved presentation orders, as opposed to blocked orders typically benefit inductive category learning. What drives interleaved effects is less straightforward. Interleaved presentations provide both the opportunity to compare and contrast between different types of category exemplars, which are temporally juxtaposed, and the opportunity to space study of the same type of category exemplars, which are temporally separated within the presentation span. Accordingly, interleaved effects might be driven by enhanced discrimination, enhanced memory retention, or both in some measure. Though recent studies have largely endorsed enhanced discrimination as the critical mechanism driving interleaved …

Consequences Of Non-Modeled And Modeled Between Case Variation In The Level-1 Error Structure In Multilevel Models For Single-Case Data: A Monte Carlo Study, Eun Kyeng Baek

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Multilevel modeling (MLM) approach has a great flexibility in that can handle various methodological issues that may arise with single-case studies, such as the need to model possible dependency in the errors, linear or nonlinear trends, and count outcomes (e.g.,Van den Noortgate & Onghena, 2003a). By using the MLM framework, researchers can not only model dependency in the errors but also model a variety of level-1error structures.

The effect of misspecification in the level-1 error structure has been well studied for MLM analyses. Generally, it was found that the estimates of the fixed effects were unbiased but the estimates …

Student-Teacher Interaction Through Online Reflective Journals In A High School Science Classroom: What Have We Learned?, Megan Elizabeth Ehlers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Three challenges in current secondary school science classrooms are (a) meaningful integration of technology, (b) integration of reading and writing in content courses, and (c) differentiation of instruction to meet individual student needs in courses. This is an exploratory study of an urban, high school marine science course in which a teacher added communication with her students via asynchronous online journals. This intervention was intended to enable the teacher to understand how students were constructing knowledge and their understanding of marine science topics. Data included journal postings from all students and the teacher throughout the semester, as well as the …

Attachment, Social Support Satisfaction, And Well-Being During Life Transition In Emerging Adulthood, Joel A. Lane, Robert S. Fink

Counselor Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

The present study was designed to investigate the relations among attachment, social support satisfaction, and well-being in a cross-sectional sample of emerging adults (N = 213) experiencing one or more normative life transitions. The sample represented a range of educational and vocational backgrounds. The primary hypotheses were that social support satisfaction would mediate the associations between each attachment dimension and well-being. A corresponding theoretical model was tested using structural equation modeling. The model provided an excellent fit to the sample data. Social support satisfaction mediated the association between attachment anxiety and well-being, but not the association between attachment avoidance …

Unit Plan: The Role Of Community Organizations In The Oregon Civil Rights Movement, Michael Gifford, Lance Erickson

African American History in Oregon: Lesson Plans

This unit will introduce students to the role of Community Organizations in the Civil Rights Movement in Portland, Oregon. They will be presented with information on the various organizations and issues facing African Americans who lived in Portland during the civil rights movement. At the conclusion of the unit students will be able to discuss the community organizations played in relation to the success of civil rights protests in Portland. They will also have an understanding of how the African American civil rights movement served as a model for modern activism.

Unit Plan: The Desegregation Of Portland Public Schools, Sadie Adams, Dia Nelson

African American History in Oregon: Lesson Plans

The greatest turning point in United States history was when the Brown vs. Board of Education decision outlawed the policy of "separate but equal." It paved the way for equal rights to become a reality across the nation. This unit starts with the national context educating students on segregation before the Brown decision. As students move through the lessons they build background knowledge on the impact of Brown from a national context down to a more local context by focusing on the desegregation in Portland Public Schools in Portland, Oregon. Students will develop reading, writing, and critical thinking skills through …

Unit Plan: The Role Of The Urban League Of Portland In The African American Community, Amber Ferris, Andre Hawkins, Cari Yelvington

African American History in Oregon: Lesson Plans

This unit is intended for a high school social studies classroom. It can be utilized in a variety of social studies courses as it touches upon community organizing, Oregon history, and African American history. The lessons focus on the Urban League of Portland's role in "uplifting" the African American community, with particular attention to the issues of equality in housing and education. The unit materials provide some history and basic information about the Urban League of Portland as well. Developing student skill in text and chart analysis is emphasized in this unit. Formative assessments are embedded within the lessons. At …

Let's Learn: All About Maps - Teacher Guide, Center For Spatial Analysis And Research. Portland State University, Teresa L. Bulman, Morgan Josef, Gwyneth Genevieve Mckee Manser

Instructional Materials

Teacher activity book. Inside you will find fun activities to help you learn about maps and how they are used in everyday life.

The student guide can be found here: https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/27717

A Portrait Of Hope: A Beginning Teacher Learns About Community, Kathleen Cowin

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

A question listed in the call for this issue was: What are the sources and examples of hope for teachers, school leaders, and students as experienced and gained through learning,…, [and] community connections? This portrait of a beginning teacher’s experiences learning about community as she navigates her first year of teaching provides a way for readers to think about how to develop community within a classroom and school, the roles members of a school community play in community development, and how mentoring may influence community building. Through portraiture methodology (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) the reader will glimpse a deeper view …