Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

Student Insights Into Cbe, Ginger M. Reynolds

Reports, Analyses, and other Publications

No abstract provided.

Student Behavior Ratings And Response To Tier 1 Reading Intervention: Which Students Do Not Benefit?, Wilhelmina Van Dijk, Christopher Schatschneider, Stephanie Al Otaiba, Sara A. Hart

Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling Faculty Publications

Core reading instruction and interventions have differential effects based on student characteristics such as cognitive ability and pre-intervention skill level. Evidence for differential effect based on affective characteristics is scant and ambiguous; however, students with problem behavior are more often non-responsive to core reading instruction and intensive reading interventions. In this study, we estimated the range of students' behavior ratings in which a core reading instruction intervention was effective using a data set including 3,024 students in K-3. Data came from seven independent studies evaluating the individualized Student Instruction (ISI) Tier 1 reading intervention and were pooled using integrative data …

Leadership Development In The African American Church, Barbara S. Houston

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

If the Church successfully fulfills its mission, it must have skilled and effective lay leadership. This research intends to examine the Christian organization's enhancement through discipleship and leadership development. Leadership development and discipleship are vital to every church organization. However, research shows that many historically African American denominations are challenged perhaps more than others to find and educate new religious leaders for their congregations (Johnson, 2017, kindle, loc. 179). What most African American pastors have discovered is that aging leadership is prominent in all denominations. The reality is that many African American churches are on life support; they are clinically …

A Phenomenological Study Of Middle School Teachers’ Experiences Of Implementing Social Promotion Policies In A Public School District, Kelley L. Duffy

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe middle school teachers’ experiences of implementing social promotion policies at a public school district in the southern United States. The study advanced understanding about teachers’ perceptions implementing social promotion policies and how those perceptions impacted their professional behaviors and identity. Weick’s sensemaking theory guided this study as it explains how individuals define and give meaning to their reality when ambiguities and uncertainties exist. The study was designed to explore the central research question, what are middle school teachers’ shared experiences with social promotion policies at a public school district in …

Analysis Of Attitudinal Student Learning Benefits From A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (Cure) Adapted For Online Format, Ambika Kapil, Luis C. Gonzalez Isoba, Niraj Pathak, Arthur Sikora, Santanu De

FDLA Journal

Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) are an increasingly utilized model for exposing students to research. The lack of robust assessments is a major hurdle to wider adoption of CUREs. The Coronavirus Infectious Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic necessitated a drastic shift of in-person courses to the online format. Using the Participant Perception Indicator (PPI) survey, we measured students’ self-reported changes in learning from such a biochemistry course at a large university in south Florida based on the Biochemistry Authentic Scientific Inquiry Lab (BASIL) model. By doing this, we were able to better understand the student-benefits of CUREs and how these benefits …

The Effects Of Family Size And Birth Order On Students' Social Emotional And Cognitive Development, Mary Watson

Honors Projects

This project sought to analyze and understand the differences in student’s cognitive and social emotional development based on their number of siblings (also referred to as family size) and birth order. To accomplish this, a 130-question survey was created and emailed to approximately 125 teachers. 27 survey responses were received, which is a response rate of approximately 21.6%. The response data was categorized by only child, oldest child, youngest child, child with one or two siblings, child with three or four siblings, and child with five or more siblings. Though the responses were varied, the data showed that oldest children …

Machine-Learning Approaches For Developing An Autograder For High School-Level Cs-For-All Initiatives, Sirazum Munira Tisha

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Most existing autograders used for grading programming assignments are based on unit testing, which is tedious to implement for programs with graphical output and does not allow testing for other code aspects, such as programming style or structure. We present a novel autograding approach based on machine learning that can successfully check the quality of coding assignments from a high school-level CS-for-all computational thinking course. For evaluating our autograder, we graded 2,675 samples from five different assignments from the past three years, including open-ended problems from different units of the course curriculum. Our autograder uses features based on lexical analysis …

Improving Teacher Intervention Decisions Using The Fraction Error Flowchart, Katherine Pettrey

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In the U.S. the fifth-grade mathematics curriculum is largely devoted to building fraction skills, providing an essential foundation for future success in mathematics (National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008). Unfortunately, students in the U.S. struggle with fraction proficiency (National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2022; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2018). Even when teachers facilitate interventions for struggling students those interventions may not be aligned with student need (Riccomini, 2005). Additionally, teachers struggle to identify research-based practices (RBPs) when presented with student data (Means et al., 2009). The purpose of this study was to create and test a flowchart that could …

Journey Of Realization And Adaptation Through Auto/Ethnography: A Shift To Transformative Educational Research, Tara Paudel, Bal Chandra Luitel, Niroj Dahal

The Qualitative Report

This reflective paper explores Tara's doctoral research journey of realization and adaptation in auto/ethnography as a transformative research methodology. While reflecting on Tara’s journey, the auto/ethnographic paper emphasizes cultural perspectives, interpreting one's own experiences, thoughts, actions, and behaviors relating to society and culture. Likewise, auto/ethnography investigates and associates an individual's confrontation within specific educational, societal, and cultural contexts. With this ethos, the paper demonstrates how Tara, a mathematics teacher and doctoral student, encountered and observed auto/ethnography and discovered it as a path to transformation as a paradigm shift in transformative educational research by connecting lives and research (Dahal et al., …

Faculty Achievements, April 2023, Otterbein University

Faculty Achievement Reports

No abstract provided.

Nursing Faculty Perceptions Of Stress, Coping, And Intent To Leave The Profession In The Ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic: A Quantitative Study, Lynlee Morgan

Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted all of society to varying degrees; this impact was especially true in higher education due to an overnight transition to distance learning and incessant pivots to meet new guidelines and overcome obstacles. Nursing faculty were significantly impacted due to the responsibility of producing safe, qualified, competent practitioners to provide care in the clinical setting. The limitations in or exclusions from clinical experiences combined with the fact that faculty were managing personal concerns and had never encountered these unprecedented conditions exacerbated the challenge of preparing new nurses. This study was critical due to the faculty role and …

Fulbright Foreign Student Program At Wmu Assessment Of Student Needs & Support, Michelle Metro-Rolland

Assessment Grants

Funding is sought to conduct a survey and focus groups with the Fulbright Foreign Students (FFS) at Western Michigan University and recent Fulbright graduates in order to assess student needs and better align program support. Fulbright students are supported by the Fulbright Foreign Student Advisor who liaisons with the placement agencies, departments, and international admissions as well as provides guidance to students in navigating university bureaucracy. The FSA also provides cultural programming.

Take A Bite Out Of Health Disparities, Betty D. Dennis

Assessment Grants

In spring 2023, the College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) launched a new lunch and learn series called “Take a bite out of health disparities.” Speakers, internal and external to CHHS, are invited to lead informal conversations about four specialty topics to address the myriad of individual, environmental, and social factors that contribute to these various health disparities. We also discuss the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexual identity. The goal is to teach faculty, staff, and students in health services their role in teaching compassionate care. We will expand this series in 2023-2024 by adding new topics and …

Assessment Of An Interdisciplinary Climate Change Facultylearning Community: From Course Redesign To Implementation, Elise Decamp

Assessment Grants

This project is an IRB approved secondary data analysis that serves as a program assessment of the Climate Change Across the Curriculum learning community facilitated in Spring 2022. The primary objectives are to evaluate the learning community’s (1) success in supporting the integration of the complex topic of climate change across the curriculum through interdisciplinary faculty collaboration and (2) the role of this programming in promoting climate literacy among WMU students. Data include pre-/post-survey data on the learning community’s faculty participants, session notes, faculty module and course revision plans, faculty reflections on implementation of their plans, and pre-/post-climate literacy quizzes.

Aligning Course Learning Objectives And Program Learning Outcomes With Data Visualization, Jessica Cataldo

Assessment Grants

The proposed project will result in the creation of two data visualization tools that map course learning objectives to program learning outcomes for the new Health Administration bachelor’s program. These tools will guide the development of a skill level curriculum map to determine which course(s) are most appropriate to assess program outcomes. Since the program is new, program assessment is in its infancy, thus the project will serve as a catalyst for developing a comprehensive program assessment plan. The project will also support the program’s goal of obtaining Association of University Programs in Health Administration certification.

Engaging Young Female Students In Digital Technology Programs: Part Two, Kristy Osborne, Rachel Felgate, Sarah Buckley

Digital learning research

This report is part of a larger project commissioned by CSIRO and designed to highlight the enablers and barriers to young female students engaging with digital technology through a primary research project. This research aimed to gain insight from teachers, students and tertiary educators in order to trace the pathway from primary through to tertiary digital technology education. The perspectives of these stakeholders are compared with the findings from Part One of the project. Part Two of the larger project relates to a primary research project designed to gain further insight into the factors that facilitate and hinder young female …

Exit Survey Development, Melinda Koelling, Cynthia Klekar, Todd Kuchta, Heather Petcovic, Linda Borish

Assessment Grants

In a department like Geography, an exit interview is used to assess programs. In a department like Mathematics, there is no existing exit interview or survey. Even for those interview and survey questions that exist, the questions could be shared and improved. A core group of chairs from Mathematics, Geography, and Philosophy would like to develop exit assessments. A larger group of units proposes to work together to develop a bank of exit interview assessment questions that can be used to assess undergraduate and graduate programs.

A Glimpse Into Arkansas Teachers’ Grading Practices, Sarah Morris, Sarah C. Mckenzie

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

This case study assesses the current, self-reported grading practices among Arkansas teachers. We distributed a Teachers’ Grading Perceptions survey in November, 2022, and we conducted semi-structured interviews with teachers and principals in January-February, 2023. We gathered both quantitative and qualitative data from the teacher survey, and we used interviews to collect themes for current grading practices in Arkansas’s schools. We generated a grading equity scale from the survey questions, verified by a reliable alpha coefficient = 0.83, and we use this in a multivariate regression to explore teacher characteristics and their likelihood of favoring grading equity practices. We collected themes …

Nefdc Exchange, Volume 37, Spring 2023, New England Faculty Development Consortium

New England Faculty Development Consortium Exchange

Contents

President's Message, Linda Bruenjes

Faculty peer coaching: Collaborative partnerships for instructional development

Swimming with students: Grading for learning at the University of Rhode Island

The art of the hook: How to engage your students from the first day of class to the last

Using feature films to explore the experience of individuals with severe disabilities: The role of critical reflection

Scoring online class participation based on concrete deliverables

NEFDC Board members

Assessing Inspera Assessment, Matthew Ross

Assessment Grants

This mini grant will allow for preliminary assessment of Inspera Assessment software at WMU. The Norwegian company Inspera AS presents a more versatile digital assessment platform than the Respondus lockdown browser which is the current WMU platform. Specifically, Inspera offers MS Excel enabled examinations which is not possible with Respondus or similar platforms such as Proctorio or TopHat. However, assessing the capabilities of Inspera is expected to be a challenging, multidisciplinary, and time-consuming endeavor. This grant application requests funding for faculty time to document the capacity of Inspera Assessment to support WMU finance courses.

Nordp Cassh Internal Funding Survey Data 28 Apr 2023, Allison Layfield, Angela Jordan, Allison Devries, Dean Gerstein

University Research Data and Datasets

This dataset contains findings from a 2023 survey conducted by the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (CASSH) affinity group within NORDP, which examined institutionally funded internal grant programs supporting CASSH faculty. With federal support for the arts and humanities declining in 2025, internal funding mechanisms have become increasingly vital. The survey, distributed to 66 CASSH members, yielded 24 responses describing 48 internal grant programs across R1 and R2/baccalaureate institutions. Key findings include median grant size, average program staff size, and tools and practices used to evaluate program impact.

A Mixed Methods Study Of Faculty Perceptions And Self Assessments Of Constructivist Teaching Methods At A Regional University In The State Of Georgia, Santha Kumari Jetty

Theses and Dissertations

The study, "A Mixed Methods Study of Faculty Perceptions and Self-Assessments of Constructivist Teaching Methods at a Regional University in the State of Georgia” examined the self-assessments and perceptions of faculty at a regional university in the State of Georgia. The study followed a sequential mixed-methods study with three phases of the study, namely, a quantitative ‘descriptive’ phase, a qualitative ‘bounded case study’ phase, and a mixed-methods phase in a joint display table. The purpose of this sequential mixed methods study was to examine the understanding and implementation of constructivist teaching practices by faculty in their classrooms at a regional …

A Systematic Review Of Research On Race In Rural Educational Scholarship Since 2001, Timberly L. Baker, Joy Howard, Amy Swain

The Rural Educator

This systematic review of literature on race in rural educational scholarship addresses the research question: 1) How are race and racism typically represented (defined, discussed) in rural education literature? a) What factors have been explored at length in regard to race and racism? b)Where are the predominant gaps in the research literature? In answering these questions we reviewed literature published in three rural education journals from 2001-2022 and used a systematic approach to the data collection, extraction, and analysis. The overall findings about race yielded four themes: Race as– descriptor, located within a racial hierarchy, socially constructed, and an element …

Impact Of The Pandemic On Computer Science Education, Dwight Miller, Guy Trainin

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

This poster examines the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on computer science education in Nebraska. Data collected by Code.org on student and teacher engagement in CS education in Nebraska public and private schools helps paint a picture of the changing landscape.We reveal a significant decrease in rural student participation since the 2019-20 school year, a minimal increase in the number of teachers teaching with Code.org, and a significant drop in participation of girls at the secondary level. By uncovering these trends in engagement, we hope to inform and inspire educators and administrators to take action.

The Impact Of Usu Extension On Agricultural Productivity, Justen Smith

Outcomes and Impact Quarterly

Utah has over 18,000 farms and ranches spanning 11 million acres, which generate more than $21 billion in total economic output (after adjusting for the multiplier effect). While it is true that Utah becomes more urbanized each year, it is also true that agriculture continues to play a vital part in our state. As the population of Utah and the United States continues to grow, food production is more important than ever before. Utah State University (USU) Extension has led the way for 105 years in providing non-biased, research-based technical assistance to producers and the Utah agricultural industry.

The Impact Of Usu Extension On Sustainable Natural Resources And Ecosystems, Justen Smith

Outcomes and Impact Quarterly

The natural resource base of any economy is critically important to the economic and aesthetic environments for that area. Decisions and policies related to climate change and natural resource use lead to complex economic and social issues and concerns. The efficient management of natural resources is a primary concern for all individuals, and this is particularly true for Utah where natural resources are used for a variety of economic and social benefits. USU Extension addresses the issue of climate change and the management of natural resources through the Sustainable Natural Resources program.

The Impact Of Usu Extension On Building Vibrant Communities, Heidi Leblanc

Outcomes and Impact Quarterly

Utah consists of many rural counties spread out over vast areas of land, and only a few urban counties in centralized locations. As a result, there is an increasing disparity in economic opportunities for residents in rural counties. Therefore, the aim of the Vibrant Communities program at Utah State University (USU) Extension is to strengthen communities across Utah through facilitated community-focused coalitions and partnerships, entrepreneurship education, and strategic initiatives to facilitate economic and social well-being.

The Impact Of Usu Extension On Public Food Safety, Heidi Leblanc

Outcomes and Impact Quarterly

With a large variety of food products moving through complex distribution systems, food safety is a critical issue for producers, processors, distribution systems, and the final consumer. Foodborne illness is a major cause of death, claiming the lives of our most vulnerable populations; the elderly, young, pregnant women, people with impaired immune function, and the chronically ill. Improper food handling and preparation of food in food service establishments and the home contribute to food-borne illnesses. The Public Food Safety Education program at Utah State University (USU) Extension aims to provide relevant research-based education to Utah residents on best practices to …

The Impact Of Usu Extension On Public Nutrition And Health, Heidi Leblanc

Outcomes and Impact Quarterly

There is a need to provide effective nutrition information and education to the public to enable consumers to make wise dietary choices. As the relationships between diet, physical and mental health, and disease prevention become clearer, the promotion of healthy eating behaviors and lifestyles for both youth and adults has received increased attention in recent years. With high levels of obesity, chronic disease, and poor dietary habits, there is a need for non-formal nutrition education that addresses individual and family health and wellness. The Public Nutrition and Health Education program at Utah State University (USU) Extension seeks to decrease the …

The Impact Of Usu Extension On Positive Youth Development, David Francis

Outcomes and Impact Quarterly

4-H programs are grounded in the belief that youth learn best by doing. Kids and teens complete hands-on projects in many educational areas including science, health, agriculture, and civic engagement. 4-H allows youth to engage in their educational interests in a positive environment where they receive guidance from adult mentors, while also being encouraged to take on proactive leadership roles. Kids can concentrate on one focus area or they can try a variety of programs throughout their 4-H experience. Major educational areas in Utah 4-H at Utah State University (USU) Extension include 4-H STEM, 4-H Healthy Living, and Civic Engagement.