Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

Picking Up The Mantle Of “Expert”: Assigned Roles, Assertion Of Identity, And Peer Recognition Within A Programming Class, Deborah A. Fields, N. Enyedy

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Changing an established role in a classroom is difficult. It involves constructing a new set of relations within a community. In this article we investigate how students with newly developed interest and experience in programming developed outside the classroom pick up and establish their roles as experts in programming within the classroom community. More specifically, we focus on how two 11-year-old software designers shifted their established roles in their classroom to gain status as expert programmers. We use an identity lens to understand how peer expertise was established in the context of a classroom community, adopting a multifaceted perspective of …

As Seen Through The Lens: Students’ Encounters And Engagement With Science During Outdoor Field Trips, Jonathan Z. Boxerman, Victor R. Lee, J. R. Olson

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Collaborative Research Network: An Institutions Perspective, Darren Gibson

ECU Presentations

No abstract provided.

Analyzing The University Of Kentucky’S Top 20 Business Plan, Kenny Blair

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study is to begin laying a foundation for assessing the degree of progress the University of Kentucky (UK) has made toward the goals defined in the Top 20 Business Plan. The plan was created to guide the university’s efforts in becoming a top twenty public research institution by 2020 per a mandate by the Kentucky General Assembly.

Up to two strategies and/or policy suggestions were chosen for analysis for each of the four major domains outlined in the plan (undergraduate education, graduate education, faculty recognition, and research). Academic quality indicators were then developed for these strategies …

Teaching Excellence : An Illusive Goal In Higher Education Teaching And Learning, Heather Sparrow

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In the last decades of the 20th Century, and through the first decade of the 21st Century, both the natural world and human society have experienced dramatic change. Contemporary society world-wide has high expectations of the contribution that universities can make in helping people learn to live with change, to lead change, to manage change, and to support improvement in all spheres of life. The global community seeks ‘excellence’ across all higher education roles: community engagement and leadership, research and innovation, and teaching and learning. However, universities are not always regarded as effective in fulfilling the needs of students, business …

The Reality Of Reform : Teachers Reflecting On Curriculum Reform In Western Australia, Jessica Lyle

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Australia is implementing its first national curriculum, the Australian Curriculum, after many years of debate regarding the validity and practicality of such an undertaking. Although it is widely accepted that “the effects of education policies and programs depend chiefly on what teachers make of them” (Cohen & Ball, 1990, p. 233), little is known about teachers’ perceptions of the Australian Curriculum or their prior experiences of mandatory curriculum reform as they begin engaging with this unique reform. To provide a means of exploring these perceptions and experiences, 18 teachers, four Head of Learning Areas (HOLAs) and the principal from a …

Community College Presidents' Perspectives Of Dichotomous Events: The Consequences Of The Great Recession & Coincidental Increased Enrollment, Corey W. Carlson

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The community college, like all of higher education, has been significantly impacted by the Great Recession and coincidental increased enrollment. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the decision making processes of community college presidents as related to resource allocation and the impact of these decisions on the comprehensive community college mission. Declining state funding and increased enrollments have greatly impacted how community college leaders make decisions with leaders incorporating shared governance and informed decision-making. Community college leaders have also been proactively seeking out alternative revenue streams in order to help offset decreased state funding. Findings of this …

The Contribution Of Work-Integrated Learning To Undergraduate Employability Skill Outcomes, Denise Jackson

Research outputs 2013

WIL has attracted considerable attention as an instrument for enhancing professional practice and developing work-readiness in new graduates. It is widely considered as a point of difference in developing graduate employability by enhancing skill outcomes, such as team-work, communication, self-management and problem solving, employment prospects and student understanding of the world-of-work. This paper investigates the role of WIL in improving undergraduate employability skills; gauging its impact on a range of skills; and identifying variations in outcomes for certain demographic, study background and placement characteristics using survey data from 131 WIL students in an Australian university. Results indicate a significant improvement …

Business Graduate Employability – Where Are We Going Wrong?, Denise Jackson

Research outputs 2013

Persistent gaps in certain non-technical skills in business graduates continue to impact on organisational performance and global competitiveness. Despite business school’s best efforts in developing non-technical skills, widely acknowledged as fundamental to graduate employability, there has been considerably less attention to measuring skill outcomes and even less on their subsequent transfer to the workplace. It appears stakeholders are assuming transfer occurs automatically in graduates, neglecting the influence of learning program, learner and workplace characteristics on this complex process and its potential impact on graduate employability.

This paper unpacks the concept of transfer and proposes a model of graduate employability which …

Student Perceptions Of The Importance Of Employability Skill Provision In Business Undergraduate Programs, Denise Jackson

Research outputs 2013

Studies examining student perceptions of employability skill development in business undergraduate programs are limited. Assurance of student buy-in is important to ensure learners engage with skill provision; to enable them to articulate their capabilities to potential employers and to facilitate the transfer of acquired skills. This study examines 1019 students’ perceptions of the importance of employability skill development, the relative importance of skills and the influence of certain demographic/background characteristics. Findings indicate undergraduates value skill development, most particularly communication and team-working, and some significant variations in importance ratings. Alignment with other stakeholder perceptions and the influence of context are discussed.

Using Digital Representations Of Practical Production Work For Summative Assessment, C. Paul Newhouse

Research outputs 2013

This paper presents the findings of the first phase of a three-year study investigating the efficacy of the digitisation of creative practical work as digital portfolios for the purposes of high-stakes summative assessment. At the same time the paired comparisons method of scoring was tried as an alternative to analytical rubric-based marking because we believed that it was likely that a more holistic approach to scoring would be more appropriate. Researchers created digital representations of the practical submissions of 75 Visual Arts and 82 Design students graduating from secondary school in Western Australia. These digital portfolios were scored using the …

Computer-Based Exams In Schools: Freedom From The Limitations Of Paper?, Christopher Paul Newhouse

Research outputs 2013

There is little doubt that the curriculum content and pedagogy in schools is driven by the structure and forms of assessment employed, particularly for summative purposes. When most such assessment was limited to what a student could do with a pen and paper in short ‘exams’ this pushed the content of the curriculum towards small descriptive chunks, and the pedagogy towards memorisation and replication techniques. Over the past two decades alternative forms of assessment supported by the power of computer systems have been conceived and tried. This paper discusses progress towards various forms of computer-based exams and how these may …

Digital Representation Of Visual Artworks For High-Stakes Assessment, Christopher P. Newhouse

Research outputs 2013

The collection and marking of student artwork across a large jurisdiction such as Western Australia is challenging where the work is submitted to a central location to be marked by experts and returned to students. An alternative approach would be to submit digital representations of the artworks online for marking. However, to give a valid and reliable measure the representations would need to be of adequate quality. Further, judgements of artworks are necessarily subjective giving concern about the reliability of marking for high-stakes assessment. The comparative pairs method of marking lends itself to addressing this problem and is feasible where …

Self-Assessment Of Employability Skill Outcomes Among Undergraduates And Alignment With Academic Ratings, Denise Jackson

Research outputs 2013

Despite acknowledgement of the benefits of self-assessment in higher education, disparity between student and academic assessments, with associated trends in over- and underrating, plagues its meaningful use, particularly as a tool for formal assessment. This study examines self-assessment of capabilities in certain employability skills in more than 1000 Australian business undergraduates. It evaluates the extent to which student self-assessments differ from academics, in what ways and the influence of certain individual and background characteristics - such as stage of degree, gender and academic ability - on rating accuracy. Explanations for documented disparities are presented, in addition to implications and strategies …

Engaging Students In Peer Review: Feedback As Learning, Catherine Moore, Susan Teather

Research outputs 2013

There is a growing interest in tertiary education in Australia about developing the capacity of learners to evaluate and improve both their own work and that of others (Boud & Falchikov, 2006; Oliver, 2011). In order to successfully direct their own learning beyond university (and engage in lifelong learning), students need to be able to evaluate their performance in relation to a standard, identify gaps, and determine how to bridge them in order to achieve the desired standard if required. One strategy that can be employed to help students achieve this is engaging them actively in a feedback process, so …

Engaging Students In Peer Review: Feedback As Learning, Catherine Moore, Susan Teather

Research outputs 2013

There is a growing interest in tertiary education in Australia about developing the capacity of learners to evaluate and improve both their own work and that of others (Boud & Falchikov, 2006; Oliver, 2011). In order to successfully direct their own learning beyond university (and engage in lifelong learning), students need to be able to evaluate their performance in relation to a standard, identify gaps, and determine how to bridge them in order to achieve the desired standard if required. One strategy that can be employed to help students achieve this is engaging them actively in a feedback process, so …

Predictors Of Academic Success Between On-Track And Off-Track Students In A Mexican University, Jesus Francisco Hinojos

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The main purpose of this study was to assess how predictors of quality of academic effort relate to academic success and student persistence of on-track and off-track students in a higher education institution in Northern Mexico; to investigate the relationship of pre-entry attributes,

family background and academic success as expressed by GPA among on-track, off-track and dropout students. And to examine the relationship between participants quality of effort invested in their own learning and development in six academic areas and four areas of college students' social activities.

This study utilized the College Student Experience Questionnaire (CSEQ) to determine the quality …

Factors That Are Associated With Workkeys® Assessment Scores Of Inmates In Michigan Department Of Correction's Community And Employment Readiness Training Program And Michigan State Industries Program, Pamela S. Jackson

Wayne State University Dissertations

Inmates face challenges in obtaining employment once they leave prison because many are undereducated and lack work skills. This study examined demographic and criminogenic variables of inmates in Michigan Department of Correction's (MDOC) Community and Employment Readiness Training (CERT) and Michigan State Industries (MSI) programs that were associated with their scores obtained on the WorkKeys® assessment test. MDOC uses the WorkKeys® to assess the gaps between inmates' current job readiness skill level and skills needed for various types of jobs upon release. There is no published literature comparing MDOC's Community and Employment Readiness Training (CERT) and Michigan State Industries (MSI) …

Three Times Blind: The Wandering, Wondering Path To Asking The Right Question, Bradley W. Bergey

Publications and Research

In this chapter, Bradley Bergey, a 2nd-year doctoral student, tells the tale of his ethnographic journey. He focuses on how he struggled to settle on a question for his project. Bradley had done a good bit of thinking about questions, their nature, and development prior to embarking on this study. In this chapter he explores the relationship between question development, data collection, and crafting an answer to his research question. He de- scribes how his question developed while he developed his own set of “eth- nographic eyes” as a researcher and how he worked to settle on a question that …

Teacher Beliefs, Teacher Concerns, And School Leadership Support As Influences On School Readiness For Implementing A Research-Based Reform Model, Elizabeth Hoag Carhart

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Federal policy makers and school leaders increasingly recognize middle school math as a turning point in students' academic success. An i3 scale-up grant allowed grant partners to conduct a large-scale implementation of Power Teaching (PT), a research-based reform to increase student math achievement. In a mixed-methods study during the pilot phase of the project, eight schools' readiness for reform was explored. Teacher questionnaires; interviews with project managers, school leaders, and teachers; classroom observations; and school evaluation forms were used to describe school characteristics that affected variability in initial implementation of the PT model. A cluster analysis demonstrated the relative importance …

Exploring Best Practices For Research Data Management In Earth Science Through Collaborating With University Libraries, Ting Wang, Benjamin D. Branch

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

To address the growing demand for managing earth science data, the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) partners with the Library and Technology Services (LTS) of Lehigh University and Purdue University Libraries (PUL) on hosting postdoctoral fellows in data curation activity. This inter-disciplinary fellowship program funded by the SLOAN Foundation innovatively connects university libraries and earth science departments and provides earth science Ph.D.s opportunities to use their research experiences in earth science and data curation trainings received during their fellowship to explore best practices for research data management in earth science and find out answers to:

How can the …

A Study Of Teacher Effectiveness Evaluation Models In American Schools, Lacey Bowman

Open Access Theses

Bowman, Lacey C. M.A., Purdue University, December 2013. A Study of Teacher Evaluation Effectiveness Models in American Schools. Major Professor: F. Robert Sabol, Ph.D.

The quality of education in America is an issue currently being examined through various perspectives. The use of a teacher effectiveness evaluation model is one method used to determine the link between student achievement and the instructional practices of the teacher. The study reported here will focus on the factors leading up to the increased attention on student achievement in American schools, the role of teacher effectiveness evaluation models in delivering a quality education, and the …

The Influence Of Race And Socioeconomic Status On Routine Screening Practices Of Physician Assistants, Deshana Ann Collett

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Health disparities in minorities and those of low socioeconomic status persist despite efforts to eliminate potential causes. Differences in the delivery of services can result in different healthcare outcomes and therefore, a health disparity. Some of this difference in care may attribute to discrimination resulting from clinical biases and stereotyping which may provide a possible source for the persistence of health disparities. Health disparities may occur because the delivery of services at some level is inadequate. Disparities resulting from the quality and quantity of care delivered by a practitioner result in differentiated delivery of healthcare, thus unequal health outcomes. The …

Academic Support Of Division I Head Coaches: Perceptions Of Student-Athletes, Mikaela M. Raddatz

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Intercollegiate athletics in the United States have continuously become more commercialized, pressuring athletics departments and coaches to produce winning teams. The commanding expectations for successful programs have been thought to take away from the academic mission of colleges and universities, focusing efforts on athletics over academics. This phenomenon has been examined, but the role head coaches play in support of student-athlete academics has yet to be explored.

The purpose of this study is to measure student-athlete perception of academic support from Division I head coaches. Current literature demonstrates the strong influence of coaches on student-athletes, but the effect in the …

A Content Analysis To Investigate The Evidence Of 21st Century Knowledge And Skills Within Elementary Teacher Education Programs In The United States, Mary Margaret Ruettgers

Dissertations

Are graduates of teacher preparation programs adequately prepared with the skills and knowledge to teach in the 21st century classroom? This study consisted of a quantitative content analysis to investigate the presence of 21st century knowledge and skills within a stratified random sample of teacher preparation programs in the United States as measured by the 21st Century Learning Framework. Based on the current literature, the researcher identified 21st century competencies: global awareness; digital competencies; critical thinking; collaboration; cross-cultural; communication; and problem solving. For null hypothesis numbers two through eight, the researcher determined how closely the institution’s mission statements, course descriptions, …

A Case Study Of The Impact Of An Intervention Scheduling Model On Academic Achievement In English And Mathematics By Students In Need Of Remediation, Dora Harvey

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This case study explored the impact of a scheduling intervention on the Georgia High School Graduation Test standardized achievement test scores of students identified as in need of remediation in the content areas of English and mathematics, paired with the perception of this scheduling model from key informants in the study. Students in the scheduling intervention were enrolled in a year-long, alternating content-day block scheduling model. The quantitative portion reviewed Georgia High School Graduation Test score data for students who participated in a modified block (referred to as Schedule Two) results were analyzed, indicating passing percentages, and number for each …

Convergent Validity Of The Functional Assessment Informant Record For Teachers (Fair-T), Laura E. Pierce

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

This study assessed the convergent validity of the Functional Assessment Informant Record for Teachers (FAIR-T; Edwards, 2002) with analog functional analyses (FAs). Participants were five teachers and students located at a specialized school serving individuals with disabilities. Teachers had worked with the student for a minimum of 1 month, and students displayed a variety of behavioral topographies. The FAIR-T was conducted by the researcher using telephone or video conferencing technology, and analog functional analyses were conducted in a clinic setting by trained therapists within the course of the student’s typical treatment plan. Results of the FAIR-T were coded according to …

Math Education At Its Prime?, Natalie Benet

Senior Honors Theses

Three main problems with current math education are negative mindsets toward math, the lagging comparison with advanced education in other countries, and ill-equipped teachers and school systems. The consequences of these problems have impacted math education by convincing students that they do not need to try at math, filling countless classrooms with ill-qualified teachers, and overall lowering the quality of U.S. math education compared to the education of rest of the world. In order to correct these problems and reverse the present and future consequences, the quality of math education must be increased. This can be done by changing the …

Accountability And Quality In Higher Education: A Case Study, Trudy Abadie-Mendia

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to gain a deep and rich understanding of the accountability process at a regional comprehensive university in the Southeast United States. Specifically, the present study sought to answer the following question: How is a regional comprehensive university in the Southeast United States substantiating the quality of undergraduate professional programs and the success of graduates. The study utilized a qualitative research methodology, specifically a descriptive embedded case study design. A total of 16 interviews were conducted with participants representing the program level, college level, and administrative level. Three subunits of investigation provided the program …

Perceptions Of Teachers And Administrators Regarding The Teacher Evaluation Process, Joy Davis Sheppard

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Teacher evaluations can be a tool for increasing teacher effectiveness and accountability if it is determined how evaluations can be best used. According to current literature, this is not the case. It is more pertinent than ever that administrators use evaluations to strengthen marginal teachers and further develop skills of teachers who are already proficient. However, few studies exist pertaining to teacher and administrator perceptions of teacher evaluation effectiveness and even fewer focus Georgia teacher evaluations. The purpose of this descriptive study was to investigate perceptions of the teacher evaluation process held by teachers and administrators in southeast Georgia so …