Currently, two-year colleges are teaching the lion's share of college composition classes, mainly consisting of developmental writing and first-year composition courses; however, those same two-year colleges have been slow in embracing the composition theory and practices that are studied and implemented at four-year colleges. One way to…

Leaders new to academic departments that possess dysfunctional histories due to ineffective "management" face many difficulties in the transformation of department dynamics. Indeed, the challenge for transformational department leaders is fostering positive and proactive attitudes among faculty where previous management was hostile,…

Today's educational mission statements at national, state, and local levels revolve around much the same thing--preparing students with skills to compete and succeed on a global level. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2008) reports cognitive skills are significantly more important for the global economic success of a country, and in order…

This nonexperimental, cross-sectional, explanatory, quantitative study sought to analyze the influence of length of school day on student performance on the third-grade New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge Language Arts Literacy and Mathematics total percentage of Proficient and Advanced Proficient scores. The data were obtained from the…

State Education Agencies (SEAs) face challenges to the implementation of computer-based accountability assessments. The change in the accountability assessments from paper-based to computer-based demands action from the states to enable schools and districts to build their technical capacity, train the staff, provide practice opportunities to the…

Since the mid-1990s, researchers have grown increasingly interested in the effect of spirituality on a person's ability to lead others. The spiritual leadership literature has expanded to include the role of spirituality in particular leadership settings, such as higher education, and within particular leadership types, particularly…

Both history and education courses comprise a significant portion of certification requirements for prospective history teachers. Teaching ambitiously requires mastery of many practices and bodies of knowledge, including disciplinary, pedagogical, and pedagogical content knowledge, learned in that history and education coursework. However,…

Through this capstone, I explore the unique dynamics I encountered in the Delaware Department of Education during the department's final year as a federal Race to the Top grant recipient. This document describes my intended work for the department, culminating in a two-year strategic plan. The goal of my theory of action was to ensure that the…

Academic couples make up a significant portion of the academic labor market. Unlike other dual-career households, academic couples must not only find employment in the same region, but often in the same institution. Previous work has not considered how outcomes may be different when dual career households work for the same employer. In the first…

Introductory biology and chemistry courses have some of the highest attrition rates at Delaware Technical Community College. High attrition rates in undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses are also present on a national scale (Chen, 2013). Research in student success points to a lack of student-centered…

This qualitative study sought to gain deeper insights into how English Language Heads of Department (H.O.D.) perceive their roles in teacher development and efficacy, what leadership styles inform their role enactment and the different skill sets and beliefs they take to their H.O.D. roles. The population was limited to selected schools in central…

The Georgia Department of Education requires students to earn 4 course credits in the area of mathematics in order to graduate from high school. Academic success for mathematics students in a school district in southern Georgia has been encumbered because teachers lack cultural competency in mathematics instruction, which has hindered minority…

The study investigated research topics of doctoral dissertations that examined issues in distance learning from 2000-2014. Twelve reviews of research on distance learning, spanning from 1997-2015, were identified. It was found that only one of these reviews of research (Davies, Howell, & Petri, 2010) looked at doctoral dissertations. The…

In the United States, the American College Test (ACT) is a standardized test that is used primarily as an indicator of college readiness and as a gauge for college admission. The governing bodies for Louisiana's public schools--The Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE)--made the ACT a…

This qualitative case study was proposed to gain understanding into how higher educational leaders perceive the transformation of their leadership roles and responsibilities. Leaders' accountabilities should be properly defined to establish a reliable and responsible association with all stakeholders affiliated with the institution. A lack of…