Education Commons^™

A Snapshot Of Postgraduate Research At Mtu 2023, Stephen Cassidy

Publications

As our postgraduate research students live and work in an increasingly digital and information-driven age, the ability to write and communicate in a variety of styles appropriate to a range of audiences becomes increasingly important. The Graduate Studies Office working with the MTU Library Service and others, supports research students to develop their writing skills not just for academic publication but also for communicating to the general public. As part of this initiative, we organized the second annual MTU Postgraduate Research Writing Competition. Its aim was to provide postgraduate research students from all disciplines across the University with an opportunity …

E-Learning Course Recommender System Using Collaborative Filtering Models, Kalyan Kumar Jena, Sourav Kumar Bhoi, Tushar Kanta Malik, Kshira Sagar Sahoo, N. Z. Jhanjhi, Sajal Bhatia, Fathi Amsaad

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

e-Learning is a sought-after option for learners during pandemic situations. In e-Learning platforms, there are many courses available, and the user needs to select the best option for them. Thus, recommender systems play an important role to provide better automation services to users in making course choices. It makes recommendations for users in selecting the desired option based on their preferences. This system can use machine intelligence (MI)-based techniques to carry out the recommendation mechanism. Based on the preferences and history, this system is able to know what the users like most. In this work, a recommender system is proposed …

Going The Extra Mile To Increase The Wilder School’S Student Enrollment, Xueming (Jimmy) Chen

GEHLI - 2026 VCUL Team Project Publications

To align with the themes and goals of VCU Quest 2028: One VCU Together We Transform, the Wilder School has prepared and will implement a schoolwide strategic plan to guide its development to 2028. In this strategic plan, one of the metrics of student success is student enrollment, which is of paramount importance.

After the background introduction, this report gives an overview of the student enrollment data of the five academic programs within the Wilder School during the past 5 years and takes a snapshot of the 2022 MURP student demographic data. Afterward, it briefly introduces the enrollment management strategies …

Unveiling Undergraduate Research Opportunities For All, Justin Fedoryk, Laniece Jones, Timothy Luckritz, Tracy Mcmullin, Teresa Salgado, Meredith Sisson

GEHLI - 2026 VCUL Team Project Publications

VCU is experiencing unprecedented levels of growth in its research operations, having secured more than $460 million in sponsored research funding in fiscal year 2023 and becoming one of the top 50 public universities in the country for sponsored research. Between FY18 and FY22, sponsored research funding at VCU increased by 49% (Crawford et al., 2022). Nonetheless, many faculty members are leaving a key resource untapped: VCU’s undergraduate students. According to Dr. Srirama Rao, Vice President of Research and Innovation, in a recent State of the Research address, only about 600 undergraduate students participate in sponsored research annually. Even faculty …

Vcu Job Shadowing, Austin Adam, Nora Bloch, Sue Kurgatt, Ezrah Medina, Erin Pacelli, Rebecca Segal, Stephanie Thulin

GEHLI - 2026 VCUL Team Project Publications

Job shadowing is an initiative aimed at bolstering students' career preparedness through an immersive exploration of the multifaceted landscape of career opportunities within higher education. By facilitating these experiential learning opportunities, this program endeavors to achieve a twofold objective. Firstly, it seeks to enhance the student experience at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) by cultivating meaningful interactions between students and VCU's typically non-student-facing staff and faculty members. Secondly, by facilitating direct engagement with our students, it is our aspiration that every member of the VCU community, regardless of their traditional roles, will have the opportunity to support our students' personal and …

Vcu Day Of Service Toolkit (Vcu-Dst), Christie Atkins, Jeff D'Ambrosio, Ann Deppmann, Keith C. Ellis, Alex Fisher, Javeria Kazi, Emilie Raymond, Lachelle Waller

GEHLI - 2026 VCUL Team Project Publications

This team designed and developed a digital Day of Service Toolkit (VCU-DST) to help facilitate the planning and execution of community service projects by VCU students, faculty and staff. The VCU-DST includes guidance and relevant procedures for all the aspects of planning needed to execute both large-scale and small-scale projects, including resources for strategic partnerships, financial planning and event logistics and evaluation. The VCU-DST is designed to be utilized for day-of-service projects planned and initiated by VCU students, student leaders, and organizations at all levels (undergraduate, graduate, and professional). The VCU-DST is designed to be flexible and adaptable, assisting in …

Contents, Discovery Editors

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

Featured Faculty Mentor/Student Team, Gisela Erf, Alessandro Rocchi

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

Temporal, Phenotypic, And Quantitative Characterization Of Thyroid Infiltrating Mononuclear Cells During Development Of Spontaneous Autoimmune Thyroiditis In Obese Strain Chickens, Katelyn M. Clark, Chrysta N. Beck, Gisela F. Erf

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

The Obese strain (OS) of chickens spontaneously develops autoimmune thyroiditis (SAT) and is a well-established biomedical model for Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in humans. Both conditions are characterized by the infiltration of thyroid glands with mononuclear immune cells resulting in the destruction of thyroid tissue and impairment of the thyroid’s endocrinological functions. Past studies described immune cell infiltration in thyroids of the OS chickens, but the time-course, cell composition, and relative amounts of the various immune cells infiltrating the thyroids have not been well defined. In this project, frozen and stored thyroid glands that were previously collected at 1, 4, 7, 14, …

Determining The Effectiveness Of Rosemary Essential Oil On The Shelf Life Of Ground Beef Under Different Lighting Conditions, Jordan T. Looper, Kelly R. Vierck

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

This study determined the effectiveness of rosemary extract on the shelf life of ground beef patties under different retail display conditions. Ground beef patties were produced from an 85%:15% blend (lean:fat). Patties were formed from batches of control or amended with rosemary extract. Patties were individually packaged using overwrap. Groups were assigned into one of two lighting groups (3000K and 3500K). Patties were placed in a simulated retail display for 5 d under continuous lighting and rotated once a day. Lipid oxidation and color samples were taken each day. Relating to lipid oxidation, there was no three-way interaction between display …

Instructions For Authors, Discovery Editors

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

Culturally Responsive One-Shots Flowing From Institutional Data, Hope Y. Kelly Phd

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Explore how aggregated institutional data can inform culturally responsive instructional design and delivery through a case from a public, urban, minority-serving institution.

Virginia Commonwealth University’s Office of Strategic Enrollment Management and Student Success annually shares a “Freshman Profile” that helps instructors gain insight into the student population we see in our library instruction sessions. This descriptive data paints a general picture of our first year students while maintaining individual privacy. This information is used to design and develop culturally responsive one-shot instruction that is in dialogue with race, gender, economics, family educational experience, academic preparedness and motivation, and social factors. …

Implementing Education For Maternity Nurses To Improve Nurses’ Knowledge, Attitudes, And Practices Regarding Postpartum Depression: A Quality Improvement Initiative, Haley Merrill

Master's Theses and Capstones

BACKGROUND: Postpartum depression (PPD) is the most common complication of childbirth, but often goes undiagnosed. Adequate patient education on PPD increases the patient’s knowledge and supports enhanced communication between patients and provider. Maternity nurses have continued interaction with new mothers and are in a vital position to educate patients regarding PPD. However, maternity nurses may lack confidence in delivering the appropriate education and resources for PPD to postpartum women.

LOCAL PROBLEM: Within the given microsystem, there was currently a gap that existed between PPD education for nurses and the delivery of PPD patient education.

METHODS: Utilizing the Plan-Do-Study-Act model, a …

Episcopal Church Home For Children Records - Accession 31, Episcopal Church Home For Children

Manuscript Collection

This collection is a valuable source on the Church’s historical effort to extend its services for the social improvement of South Carolina (in this case the Episcopal Diocese’s program for destitute children.) While there is information on the Episcopal Home for Children from its beginning in 1850 to 1967, the actual records do not start until 1866. A centennial history of the Episcopal Home will serve as an aid and general guideline to the researcher. (See box 1, folder 1). The collection consists of minutes, reports of the annual meeting, general correspondence, superintendent’s records, health records, attendance registers, financial records, …

Executive Function & Self-Regulation In Preschool Age Children: Mindfulness Intervention, Larissa Lamarca

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Executive function is an umbrella term used in psychology to define a number of cognitive processes that are important for success in daily life. Both self-awareness, being able to focus one’s thoughts and behavior, and self-regulation, being able to manage emotional and behavioral responses, are important components of executive function. Between three- and five-years of age, children begin developing such skills rapidly which are necessary for school readiness. This study recruited children participants from four local preschools to test for improvement in attention and self-regulatory skills. Two schools completed a mindful yoga activity for five consecutive days, while a second …

The Relationship Between Academic Advising And Students' Completion Of Corequisite Gateway Courses, Michael P. Moran

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This bivariate correlational quantitative study sought to determine how variables predicted students’ course outcomes in first-year English and mathematics courses within a corequisite learning support model. Course outcomes were defined dichotomously on a successful completion or unsuccessful completion basis. The participants of this study included those who initially attempted first-year English (n = 2,055) and mathematics (n = 2,843) course(s) in a corequisite learning support model for the first time between Fall 2018 and Spring 2022 and were assigned as advisees to the professional academic advisors in the centralized advising model. The examined predictors were students’ frequency of sessions, length …

Middle Savannah River: An A/R/Tographic Ecopedagogical Ethnography Experimenting With Rhizomatic Perspectives, Lisa Augustine-Chizmar

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This research is an experiment in perspective. Using the four commonplaces (Schwab, 1978), I practiced letting the Savannah River teach me what there is to know about the water, the land, the people, and the other entities that depend on ki through artistic, ethnographic, and ecopedagogical lenses. The ethnographic findings describe the social actors that depend on ki and give a voice to the River. The a/r/tographic findings display the River on a canvas map through two hundred years using paint, clay, photography, video, abstract acrylics, and fabric. Together, these methods contribute to a unique ecopedagogical journey. This word cloud …

Supports And Services To Improve Academic Success Of High School Student Athletes, Samuel G. Nichols

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine whether supports and services offered in various study hall programs (Traditional, Objective Based, and/or Objective Based +) at the high school level to help student athletes be academically successful in terms of achieving a minimum GPA of 2.0 or above. Basketball programs were used for this study because it is a major sport in the school district in which the data were collected. Data were sought via questionnaires of chosen participants via convenience sampling from eight eligible high school athletic directors in one school district in Georgia. This study called for the …

Assessing The Fidelity Of School-Level Professional Learning Community Implementation, William W. Thigpen Ii

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

As schools face increasing accountability, many have turned to professional learning communities (PLCs) as a possible solution. The challenge is that many schools are not implementing PLCs with fidelity. It is imperative that school leaders assess PLC practices to ensure that critical components are being implemented effectively. This research provides a framework for school leaders to assess school leader, teacher, and support staff perceptions of various PLC dimensions. Descriptive statistics were used to determine levels of agreement with statements related to six PLC dimensions. A one-way univariate analysis of variance tests (ANOVA) was used to analyze differences in mean …

Promoting The Positive: A Case Study Of The Influence Of School Climate On One Turnaround School From 2016-2022, Cynthia Gunner

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Schools across the country are finding various means to address the social realities that often exist in high poverty schools. School climate is one of those social realities. While there is research related to school climate in high poverty schools, there are limited case studies related to this subject. This qualitative case study examined how one elementary school was transformed by creating a positive school climate between 2016-2022. This study also explored the impact that the pandemic and subsequent school lockdown had on the newly established school climate. Findings from this study indicated that PF Elementary School established a positive …

The Relationship Between Adverse Childhood Experiences And Resilience Through The Eyes Of Transition, Andrew J. Dies

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This study focuses on the role that Adverse Childhood Experiences play in the lives of today’s college students and how Protective Factors can be integrated and enhanced to increase a student’s level of Resilience. This descriptive, causal-comparative quantitative study looked at participants’ levels of Resilience, what Adverse Childhood Experiences they entered college with, and what role Protective Factors played in mitigating the impacts of those Adverse Childhood Experiences on the levels of Resilience. Results indicated older students scored a higher Resilience score than their younger counterparts. Goal efficacy had the strongest effect on Resilience levels, while planning and goal efficacy …

Understanding And Enacting Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy Through Multicultural Children's Literature: A Case Study Of Preservice Teachers In Georgia, Heather M. Huling

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This study explored how preservice teachers understand culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) and used multicultural children’s literature (MCL) as a way of enacting CSP in their field placement experiences. This qualitative study utilized the theoretical framework of culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris & Alim, 2017) and a single case study design (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2018) to explore five preservice teachers’ understanding and perceptions of CSP and its enactment in the classroom through MCL during their final student teaching semester in their hometowns. Data collected through lesson plans, literature lists, video recordings, and semi-structured interviews and then inductively coded through holistic coding and …

A Paradox Of Fact And Fiction: Cultivating The 'Literary Imagination' Through Quiet Rebellion, Eden A. Evans

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The dissertation explores the problems that patterned and processed teaching and learning poses for implementing principles of critical pedagogy in English Literature courses. I apply multiple theoretical frameworks including literary theory, critical theory and post-humanism to place my own experiences amidst the on-going conversations about standardization and democracy. I draw upon the work of educational theorists such as Maxine Greene, Martha Nussbaum, Louise Rosenblatt, and Mary Aswell Doll to explore the ways that literature can enrich students’ lives and society, and Geneva Gay and Lisa Delpit to explore how cultural bias regarding linguistics can function when teaching literature and language …

Predicting Online Course Success From Usage Of An Online Tutoring System, Brett Miles

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

As online learning continues to grow in higher education, quality online support services must also be offered in order to meet the needs of online students. This study sought to investigate the relationship between the use of an outsourced online tutoring system and course success in select University System of Georgia eCore introductory online gateway courses to determine the extent of the relationship between tutoring usage and course success. The researcher employed logistic regression analysis to determine if using online tutoring increased the students’ probability for course success. Further, the researcher also studied the amount of usage to understand if …

The Association Of Student Achievement And The Frequency Of Curriculum Supervision And Evaluation Practices Of Principals Across Comparable School Clusters, James S. Reynolds Iv

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the frequency of principals’ curriculum supervision and evaluation practices across comparable school clusters. It was hypothesized that principals of the schools at the top of each cluster, sorted by student achievement, are more frequently involved in practices pertaining to the evaluation and supervision of written, taught, and tested curricula. Schools were grouped based on their enrollment and demographics using a cluster analysis approach, sorted from greatest to least by their composite student achievement score, then classified as a top or bottom-performing school within their cluster. This study identified differences in the frequency of the principal's curriculum leadership …

Religiously Responsive Pedagogy In Christian Schools: A Qualitative Exploration Of Faculty Perceptions Of Faith Integration, Andrea R. Woodard

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study introduced a theoretical framework of Religiously Responsive Pedagogy (RRP) and explored the ways in which RRP is enacted in Christian schools, along with the barriers and supports that may exist for effective RRP within those schools. The study investigated PK-12 faculty perceptions of faith integration, responsiveness to students, and school support in order to develop this new framework. Twelve teachers participated in a semi-structured interview via Zoom, which included four scenarios to probe teacher perspectives on RRP. The data was coded recursively using Boeije’s (2002) constant-comparative method.

The primary research questions addressed were:

• How do teachers at …

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Exploring The Role Of Institutional Culture In Student Affairs Assessment Practitioners’ Experiences Implementing Equity-Centered Assessment, Jaime L. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Student affairs assessment is a field in higher education that emphasizes the measurement of effectiveness and student learning in student serving programs that take place outside of the classroom. Outcomes-based assessment is the basis of most assessment practices in student affairs, and focuses on the continuous improvement of out-of-classroom programs, services, and student learning. Many assessment practices stem from traditional research methods, which have been developed by people who hold mostly majority identities. These methods were not created with the rapidly changing demographics of today’s college-going students in mind. To help address the increasing diversity of college students and the …

Practice Elements Delivered By Teachers To Support Children Who Display Challenging Behaviors In Business-As-Usual Early Childhood Settings, Navneet Kaur

Theses and Dissertations

Approximately 15-25% of children ages 3 to 5 years in early childhood settings display chronic challenging behaviors that increase their risk for developing an emotional and behavioral disorder. The early onset of emotional and behavioral disorders has long-term negative implications for these children. Therefore, it is vital to address these problems early on. One approach is through teacher-delivered practices (i.e., specific strategies, such as praise) and programs (i.e., manualized interventions that contain a collection of practices) in the classroom. Some practices and programs have shown positive outcomes for children. However, when practices and programs do not outperform business-as-usual group (BAU), …

How Do Early Interventionists Adapt Instruction When Delivering Services In Natural Environments?, Brian C. Wysong

Theses and Dissertations

Early Interventionists (EIs) play a pivotal role in supporting development for young children with disabilities. It is vital that they are able to support child and family outcomes through building strong partnerships with families, utilizing best practices, and individualizing services to children and families. The purpose of this study was to explore early interventionists’ perceptions regarding how they adapted instruction when delivering services in natural environments. Specifically, this study aimed to understand how changes in the child’s skill level, interests, and level of engagement affected early interventionists’ decision-making process during service delivery. A qualitative research design was employed, utilizing semi-structured …

The Influence Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Rural Virginia Secondary Teachers’ Self-Efficacy, Sherol L. Southerland

Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented unique challenges for PK-12 education and exposed educators’ skill deficits. Teachers had to learn new approaches to doing their jobs while navigating the mental, emotional, spiritual, and financial impact of the pandemic on their personal lives. This undertaking was even more demanding for rural school divisions, which tend to lack the resources (e.g., personnel, technology, financial) that suburban and urban school divisions have. Schools reopened in fall 2020 offering fully remote, fully in-person, and hybrid modalities, however, there was no going back to teaching as it was before the pandemic. The present study sought to …