Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Assessing Artificial Intelligence Readiness Of Faculty In Higher Education: Comparative Case Study Of Egypt, Ayatallah Ali

Theses and Dissertations

The field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been gaining considerable attention from many countries worldwide due to its rapid development and its potential benefits in different sectors. One of the leading global sectors that are currently considering the adoption of AI is the education sector. As a developing country, Egypt is gradually realizing the importance of AI and has begun considering the integration of AI in numerous sectors. Despite the importance of the field, there is a lack of published research on the integration of AI in education in Egypt or on the readiness levels of any stakeholders in the …

Critical (Re)Approach To Higher Education Admission Policy: The Impact Of Open Enrollment Policy Implementation, Shirdonna Yvonne Lawrence

Theses and Dissertations

Federal and state policies affecting higher education, like the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1832, Brown vs. Board of Education, and Higher Education Act of 1965 have posited change regarding the proliferation of diversity and expansion of access (Thelin, 2011).

I analyzed BOT policies for enrollment and conducted a socio-diagnostic CDA on the implementation of admission policy to understand the impact of the policies’ implementation. I focused on 1) exploring how open enrollment (OE) policies were constructed, 2) how institutions adopt and interpret these policies, and 3) how individuals at the institution enact these policies, by conducting a discourse-historical analysis …

Assessing L2 Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (Eca) Learners’ Intercultural Communicative Competence, Ahmed Said Mohammed Elgebaly

Theses and Dissertations

This study assesses L2 Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA) Learners' Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC). The study participants were 19 L2 (ECA) learners who completed one semester at least in Egypt. The participants were only from two proficiency levels; the advanced and high-intermediate levels. The current study used a mixed methodological approach for data collection, beginning with an ICC test and concluding with a series of follow-up semi-structured interviews with ten participants. The ICC test employed in the current study was created based on a model that includes ten features of the ICC. The current study's findings revealed that although high-intermediate learners …

Improving Nutrition And Food Safety Knowledge Of Small-Scale Fish Processors In Delta State, Nigeria, Grace Adeola Adegoye

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Fish is an affordable animal source food that provides nutrition and serves as a source of income for many people especially women in Nigeria. Smoking and sun drying are the processing methods in practice that expose the fish products to possible contaminants which may consequentially negate their nutritive value.

Aim: To improve the knowledge of fish processors on nutrition and safe fish handling.

Methodology: A 3-day participatory training was organized to train 122 fish processors, 95 women, and 25 men. The training was conducted in the three senatorial districts in Delta State, Nigeria. Knowledge was assessed using the pre …

Supported Employment Services And Employment Outcomes For Low-Income Youth With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities: A Case Control Study, Hannah Seward Phd

Theses and Dissertations

Transition-age youth, ages 14-24 years old, with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) face unique barriers to entering the labor force when exiting high school. These barriers can be even more severe if the youth is from a low-income background. Supported employment (SE) services may help this population overcome these barriers and be employed in competitive integrated employment (CIE) settings. SE provides an employment specialist to guide them through obtaining and retaining a job (McDonough & Whittenburg, 2020; Wehman et al., 2007). However, limited research has been done on the SE experiences and outcomes of transition-age youth with IDD (Wehman et …

Applying Conditional Distributions To Individuals: Using Latent Variable Models, Feng Ji

Theses and Dissertations

This study proposes a new method to interpret individual results of psychological test batteries. The Mahalanobis distance is a commonly-used measure of how unusual an individual’s profile of scores is compared to a population of score profiles. In models in which there is a set of predictors and a set of dependent variables (e.g., cognitive abilities predicting academic abilities), it is useful to distinguish between a profile of dependent scores that is unusual because its profile of predictor scores is unusual and a profile of dependent scores that is unusual even after controlling for the predictors. The conditional Mahalanobis distance …

Secondary Student Information Literacy Self-Efficacy Vs. Performance, Jen Spisak

Theses and Dissertations

The amount of information in the world has grown exponentially in the last generation. Students often believe that growing up as digital natives means they have advanced information literacy skills. However, school librarians are not seeing evidence of this in their schools. The purpose of this study was to determine if secondary students overestimate their information literacy (IL) abilities, if relationships exist between IL self-efficacy and performance, and if grade level or self-efficacy level changes those relationships. To accomplish this, data were collected from two middle schools and three high schools from a total of 397 students in grades 6, …

Assessing Research Productivity From An Institutional Effectiveness Perspective: How Universities Influence Faculty Research Productivity, Michael M. Rawls

Theses and Dissertations

Faculty research productivity studies typically focus on the scholarly performance of the individual researcher, although environmental and organizational conditions that are largely outside of the researcher’s control can significantly impact that performance. From an institutional effectiveness perspective, it is imperative for the higher education administrators and leaders who share the responsibility of managing and supporting their university’s research enterprise to understand how the institutional environment itself impacts the productivity of its research community. In this sequential mixed methods study, a quantitative framework was tested for assessing institutional effectiveness in research administration based on the assertion that this concept can be …

Unemployment, Does It Really Hurt?, Claudia Vargas

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the consequences of changes in the unemployment rate in Colombia on the level of education attained for adolescents. Increases in the unemployment rate are associated with an increase in the average number of years of education. No significant effect was found for men of the same age.

Characteristics Of Adult General Education Learners And Courses: A Correlational Study On The Elements Of Success, Daniel Jennings Stackhouse

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if a correlation exists among characteristics common to successful adult career and technical students in the traditional classroom setting, the online mode of instruction, and a hybrid of the traditional and distance mode of instructional delivery. A gap in the literature exists, resulting in a lack of knowledge specific to the reasons for success or failure of these adult career and technical students, specifically in relation to mode of instructional delivery: traditional classroom, online, or a hybrid of both.

This study is a quantitative correlation study of explanatory and predictive design using …

Supporting Teen Leaders: Validation Of The I Drive Smart Survey, Cynthia M. George

Theses and Dissertations

Recent policy change allows states to spend federal dollars directly on teen-led driver safety efforts and requires regular evaluations of effectiveness. There are currently no standardized instruments to measure change in teen driving behavior relevant to teen leaders. This study serves the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, Tennessee Highway Safety Office and their network of teen leaders to empirically test and refine the I Drive Smart survey developed by partners and grounded in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The survey is designed to be administered by teen leaders to their peers and produce data relevant for use …

Illinois Teacher Evaluation Student Growth Component: A Predecision-Making Policy Analysis, Joshua Robert Olsen

Theses and Dissertations

ILLINOIS TEACHER EVALUATION STUDENT GROWTH COMPONENT:

A PREDECISION-MAKING POLICY ANALYSIS

Joshua R. Olsen

122 Pages May 2015

Public school districts in Illinois are going to face massive changes to their evaluation systems in the coming years. Thanks to the adoption of the Performance Evaluation Reform Act of 2010 and Senate Bill 7 of 2011, teacher evaluation must contain student growth as a significant factor, beginning with the 2016-2017 school year. Not only must student performance on tests become part of the evaluation of teachers, but, moreover, teacher evaluation will play a greater role in the hiring, retention, and release of …

Inferential Procedures For Dominance Analysis Measures In Multiple Regression, Shuwen Tang

Theses and Dissertations

In order to better interpret a selected multiple regression model, researchers are often interested in whether a predictor is significantly more important than another or not. This study investigates the performance of the Normal-Theory based (asymptotic) confidence interval and bootstrap confidence intervals for predictors' dominance relationships using both normal and non-normal data. The results show that asymptotic confidence interval method is adequate to make inferences for comparing two general dominance measures when the distribution is multivariate normal or slightly non-normal and when the effect size is no less than 0.15 and the sample size is at least 100. However, the …

Dif Analyses In Multilevel Data: Identification And Effects On Ability Estimates, Yao Wen

Theses and Dissertations

Fairness is an important issue in educational testing in that different groups of examinees should have equal probabilities of answering an item correctly, provided they have the same capabilities. Therefore, differential item functioning (DIF) analyses were developed due to the possibility of bias in cognitive or achievement tests. Data are multilevel structured in educational testing as students are nested within teachers who are nested within schools, and which may further be nested within districts. Although DIF analyses have been discussed for decades, they are rarely investigated in multilevel data. In this study, DIF analyses in multilevel data were investigated via …

Food Landscapes: A Case Study Of A Cooking And Art- Focused Program For Teens Living In A Food Desert, Jessica R. Norris

Theses and Dissertations

This study constructs themes and propositions about the experiences of youth participants in the fall 2013 Food Landscapes program at the Neighborhood Resource Center in Richmond, Virginia. During the program, youth participated in cooking-based volunteerism with adults with disabilities and created short videos about their experiences. In this study, I analyzed pre- and post-program participant interviews, twice-weekly program observations, and facilitator reflections to understand how Food Landscapes affected youths’ conception of community engagement and communication strategies. This case study offers insight into how youth experience after-school programming of this design. Based on my findings, youth develop and rely upon a …

Disparity Of Principal Accountability, Mary Kathryn Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

This study begins with a review of court cases that have helped shape public education in America. Following the review is an analysis of federal reform in education from 1965 to the present, paired with educational leadership literature to highlight a disparity in what federal mandates and state policies have in place for accountability measures. The study ends with a state analysis of Illinois and Iowa to find the strengths and weaknesses of state policy in the area of principal accountability.

As policymakers have worked to increase accountability in K-12 education, efforts have focused on a variety of measures to …

Evaluating Experiential Leader Development: A Programmatic Of The Effectiveness Of Us Air Force Squadron Officer School Curricula, Jeffrey G. Holland

Theses and Dissertations

Leader development programs often employ experiential learning exercises. The impact of such exercises is not clear. This research investigated experiential leader development using a quasi-experimental design to analyze the differences in two consecutive US Air Force Squadron Officer School (SOS) in-residence classes. The curriculum was altered between classes by the addition of the Combat Leadership Exercise (CLX), an experiential war-gaming activity. Experiential programs regularly use mean differences between pretest and posttest measurements to represent program impact. However, research shows that participants may change the way they evaluate themselves between test administrations due to their experiences in the programs, a phenomenon …

Family Life Education In The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints In The 20th Century: A Historical Review, Ray W. Stringham

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reviewed selected educational literature in almost 350 texts published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) from General Authorities and manuals which included content curriculum in adult family life education; for the adult women's organization (Relief Society); for the men's Melchizedek Priesthood; and for parents instructing their children at home (Family Home Evening).

Topics were ranked by century, according to frequencies of occurrence (FO) in the five major publications. Topics were also summarized by each decade. Tables were provided which summarized the top 40 of 78 topics identified. Recurring Themes suggest family is the basis …