Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

A Conceptual Model On The Impact Of Mattering, Sense Of Belonging, Engagement/Involvement, And Socio-Academic Integrative Experiences On Community College Students’ Intent To Persist, Esau Tovar

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Community colleges continue to experience high levels of student attrition and low degree/certificate completion rates. Given extant literature, there appears to be a need to reexamine how interactions between students and the institution, and students and institutional agents are taking place, with the aim of identifying institutional practices that deleteriously or positively impact degree completion and thus guide colleges to develop action plans to improve conditions for student success.

This study examined how factors such as institutional commitment to students, mattering, sense of belonging, interactions with diverse peers, perceptions of the campus climate, engagement/involvement, socio-academic integrative experiences, and goal commitment …

Homeschool Participation In Public School Extracurricular Activities In Tennessee: A Case Study, Elizabeth Rockholt

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The study describes a qualitative collective case study regarding the possibility of homeschool participation in public school extracurricular activities in West Tennessee. Literature exists on extracurricular activities but not on the effect on the homeschooled student specifically. The research questions addressed: How do homeschool parents in west Tennessee whose children are involved in one or more extracurricular activities outside of the public school system feel about current legislation regarding homeschool students being excluded from participation in public school extracurricular activities other than sports? Why would homeschool parents in west Tennessee allow their child to participate or why would they not …

12-Month Enrollment 2013-14, Uno Office Of Institutional Effectiveness

IPEDS 12-month Enrollment

IPEDS 12-month Enrollment annual report contains the following information:

• 12-month unduplicated headcount, by level of student and race/ethnicity and gender
• Full year instructional activity, measured in credit and/or contact hours
  • Used to compute full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment

Student Financial Aid 2013-14, Uno Office Of Institutional Effectiveness

IPEDS Financial Aid

IPEDS Student Financial Aid annual report contains the following information:

• Number and percent of undergraduate and of full-time, first-time, degree/certificate-seeking undergraduate students receiving student financial aid, by type of aid and average amount of aid received

The Traits, Characteristics, And Qualities Of International Christian School Teachers Valued By Third Culture Kids, Dale B. Linton

Dissertations

The Problem. In this qualitative study, 24 participants, ages 18-30, who had previously attended international Christian schools for at least 2 years at the secondary level, or a combination of 4 years at the primary and middle school levels, were interviewed to determine the traits, characteristics, and qualities they valued in their teachers.

Methodology. Incorporating principles of Grounded Theory, a series of rigorous steps associated with the validity process of Grounded Theory construction was employed. These steps included the simultaneous involvement of the researcher in the data collection and analysis process. Twenty-four participants were interviewed, and written notes were taken …

Startsmart Impact Report, Commonwealth Bank Foundation

Program monitoring and evaluation

The Commonwealth Bank Foundation’s school-based, financial education program, StartSmart, was developed with the assistance of education experts and launched in 2007. The StartSmart program – is a series of interactive, financial literacy workshops delivered in classrooms by a team of facilitators which works in partnership with school teachers to deliver effective financial education. The program extends to students in primary, secondary and vocational education settings. The Commonwealth Bank Foundation engaged the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) to undertake an evaluation of the StartSmart program. The purpose of this research was to measure the impact of StartSmart on students’ financial …

Partnering For School Improvement : Case Studies Of School-Community Partnerships In Australia, Sharon Clerke

Program monitoring and evaluation

The case studies in this booklet illustrate the creative ways in which Australian schools are responding to local needs by establishing and building partnerships with community organisations and businesses. These partnerships have been formed to share resources, both human and material. They are providing students with access to breakfast clubs, homework and tutoring programs, after-school fitness and sporting activities, and other programs designed to re-engage students. Local businesses that want students to know more about employer expectations and the realities of the workplace are providing work placements and work experience, traineeships and apprenticeships. Some schools are partnering with other educational …

Assessing Critical Thinking Skills In First-Semester Freshmen: A Case Study: A Collaboration Between St. John Fisher College Freshmen Seminar Faculty And Lavery Library Librarians, Nancy M. Greco, Melissa Jadlos

Lavery Library Faculty/Staff Publications

First-year programs assist new students in adapting to college life, developing skills for academic success and increasing retention. The Freshmen Seminar course at St. John Fisher College is such a course, taught by college faculty and staff with collaboration from departments across campus. Participants will experience a stand-alone lesson created by the college archivist with the objective of identifying a baseline assessment of critical thinking skills. Presented as a complete package from learning objectives to assessment tools, the class session is purposely designed to be easy to replicated.

Process Evaluation Of The Basic Training Program At A State Corrections Academy In The Southeast, Wendy Dawn Williams

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to provide law enforcement and corrections administrators with current information about the components of basic training that can affect the retention of newly employed trainees during basic training. Attracting qualified applicants for law-enforcement jobs is a challenging task, and the preemployment screening and hiring processes are very expensive for agencies already plagued with reduced budgets. By the time a trainee actually makes it to basic training, a great deal of time and money has already been invested by the agency, and the trainee becomes an investment. When more than 20% of trainees exit a basic …

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 …

Strategy Use Of Russian Pre-Service Tefl University Students: Using A Strategy Inventory For Program Effectiveness Evaluation, Alla Zareva, Anna Fomina

English Faculty Publications

The focus of the present study is on identifying categories of learning strategies that are mostly used by Russian university students in an English Linguistics Program with a TEFL concentration. The more specific goal of the study is to offer a model of evaluation of the effectiveness of TEFL-oriented programs in terms of the language learning strategies their students use and recognize as pedagogically applicable to their EFL environment. To this end, two groups of students were compared on their self-reported frequency of strategy use -- 1st year students (n = 23), who had just entered the program, and 4th …

The Relationship Between Curriculum-Based Measures In Oral Reading Fluency And High-Stakes Tests For Seventh Grade Students, Sawyer Hunley, Susan C. Davies, Christina R. Miller

Counselor Education and Human Services Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between oral reading fluency and performance on a statewide reading achievement test for middle grades students. Participants in this study were 75 seventh-grade students. One month before the students were administered the state test, each student read three probes from their current basal reader to determine an oral reading fluency rate. The Ohio Grade 7 Reading Test scores were correlated with oral reading fluency rates to determine the extent of the relationship between the results. Results support the use of oral reading fluency assessment as a valid tool for identifying …

International Computer And Information Literacy Study: Assessment Framework, Julian Fraillon, Wolfram Schulz, John Ainley

ICT - Digital Literacy

The purpose of the International Computer and Information Literacy Study 2013 (ICILS 2013) is to investigate, in a range of countries, the ways in which young people are developing computer and information literacy (CIL) to support their capacity to participate in the digital age. To achieve this aim, the study will assess student achievement through an authentic computer-based assessment of CIL administered to students in their eighth year of schooling. It will also collect and report on analyses of data about student use of computers and other digital devices as well as students’ attitudes toward the use of computers and …

Developing A Pre-Departure And Re-Entry Orientation For Study Abroad Students At The Univerisidad Católica De La Santísima Concepción, Jennifer Ramos

Capstone Collection

Due to the Chilean government’s recent realization of the importance of international education, the concept of studying abroad is gradually becoming a more realistic opportunity for students pursuing undergraduate degrees in Chilean tertiary education than before. However, although the opportunities have increased, the support services/guidance offered to the students has remained at an extremely limited standstill. The Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción (UCSC) is a small private university located in Chile’s second largest city, Concepción. The majority of the students attending the UCSC are from the lower half of the socioeconomic scale in Chile as well as first-generation university …

Suggestions For The Design Of E-Learning Environments To Enhance Learner Self-Efficacy, Charles B. Hodges

Leadership, Technology & Human Development: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Inter-Agency Coordination: The Key To Successfully Transition Juvenile Offenders Back Into The Educational Mainstream, Robyn Beth Gordon

Dissertations

The focus of this study was to determine the characteristics of successful re-entry programs for youth as they transition back into the educational mainstream. The study was also used to determine the implementation needed for effective inter-agency coordination of social service systems for students to successfully transition into the educational setting. The NCLB accountability measures were reviewed to discover how the measures influenced educators and created a reluctance to accept delinquent youth when they re-enter public school. The three overarching questions addressed in this study were: What inter-agency involvement is necessary in implementing a successful re-entry program? What are the …

Fall Enrollment (2013-14), Uno Office Of Institutional Effectiveness

IPEDS Fall Enrollment

IPEDS Fall Enrollment annual report contains the following information:

• Full- and part-time fall enrollments by level, by race/ethnicity and gender of student
• Number of students engaged in distance education, by level and location
• Age distributions by student level (odd-numbered years)
• State of residence of first-time first-year students (even-numbered years)
• Total number of students in the entering class
• Fall-to-fall retention rates of full-time and part-time, first-time degree/certificate-seeking undergraduate students (less than 4-year institutions), and first-time bachelor’s degree-seeking students (4-year institutions)

Finance 2013-14, Uno Office Of Institutional Effectiveness

IPEDS Finance

IPEDS Finance annual report contains the following information:

• Revenues by source (e.g., tuition and fees, government, private gifts)
• Expenses by function (e.g., instruction, research, plant maintenance and operation)
• Scholarships, physical plant assets and indebtedness
• Assets, liabilities and net assets
• Different formats are used based on the institution’s accounting standards

Graduation Rates 2013-14, Uno Office Of Institutional Effectiveness

IPEDS Graduation Rate

IPEDS Graduation Rates annual report contains the following information:

• Numbers of students entering the institution as full-time, first-time, degree or certificate-seeking in a particular year (cohort), by race/ethnicity and gender
• Number completing within 150% of normal time to program completion
• Number transferred to other institutions
• Developed to help institutions comply with requirements of Student Right-to-know
• Worksheets are provided to calculate rates

Have Federal Sanctions Helped Failing Schools? The Impact Of No Child Left Behind In Texas, Ernest W. Hayhurst

CMC Senior Theses

This paper will assess the effectiveness of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in the state of Texas. In order to do this, we examine how students’ performance levels from failing schools respond to sanctions imposed by the NCLB accountability system. Additionally, we explore achievement gap trends between white and minority students that attend these failing schools. By taking advantage of campus and year fixed effects, as well as controlling for student demographic characteristics, we find that sanctions employed by NCLB have had a statistically significant positive impact on academic achievement gains for all students. However, our results also …

Shaping The Journey Of Emerging Adults: Life-Giving Rhythms For Spiritual Transformation, Jeff Strietzel

Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christians in Student Development

No abstract provided.

Obstacles To Developing Digital Literacy On The Internet In Middle School Science Instruction, Jamie Colwell, Sarah Hunt-Barron, David Reinking

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Obstacles, and instructional responses to them, that emerged in two middle school science classes during a formative experiment investigating Internet Reciprocal Teaching (IRT), an instructional intervention aimed at increasing digital literacy on the Internet, are reported in this manuscript. Analysis of qualitative data revealed that IRT enabled students to explain and demonstrate appropriate strategies for locating and evaluating information on the Internet when they were asked to do so. However, students did not use these strategies or they quickly abandoned them when working independently or in small groups during inquiry projects. Data revealed three obstacles that inhibited efforts to promote …

Variable Appropriation Of An Online Resource Discovery And Sharing Tool, Victor R. Lee, Mimi Recker, Tamara Sumner

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Even when following best practices for participatory design, the appropriation of tools in formal education settings can be hampered by a number of factors. Drawing from a case of a web tool built to help teachers in five school districts find and share free resources in an educational digital library, we describe patterns of tool use and provide some explanations for variability in tool appropriation. We also suggest that future research consider school districts as complex systems of professionals whose interactions and inter-relationships may yield unexpected technology adoption behaviors.

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.

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 …

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 …

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 …

The University Of Kentucky's Freshman Summer Program, Geoffrey L. Griggs

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The substantial growth in the University of Kentucky’s African American population since its integration in 1948 by Lyman T. Johnson and difficulties some of these students had succeeding at UK has resulted in increased spending by the university to improve retention. Programs, departments, and scholarships have been implemented to get those of African American descent to not only attend the University of Kentucky, but to leave with a degree. While this has been a pivotal issue here in Lexington as the city has hidden behind the shadow overcast which attempts to cover up the deep racial history marked in the …