Current educational reforms call for higher student learning standards. The result is greater accountability for teaching and learning than ever before. School leadership mediates reform implementation so that the intent of the policy is transferred into teaching practice. I suggest that how teachers make sense of leadership reform activities…

This study examines the impact of social capital on mathematics achievement in eight European cities. The study draws on data from the 2008 Youth in Europe survey, carried out by the Icelandic Center for Social Research and Analysis. The sample contains responses from 17,312 students in 9th and 10th grade of local secondary schools in the…

Identifying specific leadership behaviors of elementary school principals that create conditions for positive change is critical to implementing educational reform. The purpose of this research is to identify specific leadership behaviors of principals that have positively impacted the implementation of the Common Core State Standards through the…

Internships, externships, apprenticeships and co-operative education programs are all forms of experiential learning in a workplace setting that community colleges sponsor to enhance learning and career outcomes for their graduates. Previous studies have examined wage gains associated with co-op participation at the baccalaureate level, but no…

Researchers have calculated the relationship between human capital development and economic output by various means of econometric modeling and by use of numerous indicators under the context of an assortment of human capital theory. This study was conducted to identify new interpretations of the expansion of human capital in the form of tertiary…

Globalization and the influx of multinational corporations over the past 30 years have significantly impacted the educational system in Costa Rica. The need for knowledge-based workers has become essential in continuing to strengthen the economy and attracting foreign direct investment. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the…

This dissertation builds on an alternative framework for evaluation of science, technology and innovation (STI) outcomes--the scientific & technical (S&T) human capital which was developed by Bozeman, Dietz and Gaughan (2001). At its core, this framework looks beyond simple economic and publication metrics and instead focuses on…

This study investigated relationships between student's Collegiate DECA commitment, psychological capital, mentoring, and perceived career commitment. Proposed relationships were supported with several psychological theories and frameworks including Organizational Commitment, Psychological Capital, and Social Identity Theory. Data was…

Teacher retention is a concern in all educational sectors in America. It is of special importance to Islamic schools, which tend to lack the resources necessary in recruiting and training new teachers. This dissertation addressed this problem in full-time Islamic schools in New York State by conducting a discrete choice experiment, which reflects…

The purpose of this study was to generate a theory that explained the beliefs and behaviors of participants from business, not-for-profit business, education, and government sectors when resolving the employability skills gap. Classical grounded theory was the inductive methodology applied to this study. The New North, an 18 county region located…

In the last 3 decades, Costa Rica has evolved its approaches to both education and the economy as a result of globalization and direct foreign investments. The presence of multinational corporations (MNCs) have played a key role in the approaches that the government has made to increase its human capital and meet the needs of MNCs with a…

This one-year long ethnographic case study seeks to add to the body of literature on EFL teachers' identities in Colombia by drawing on ethnographic methods and sociocultural theories to examine the identity construction of four EFL teachers at the university level. Specifically, this study explores how EFL teachers' identities shaped and were…

The overarching research issue addressed in this study is: what are the pathways and experiences formerly incarcerated people face when trying to acquire and/or use higher educational credentials (for example, Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees)? Another important question this study will examine is how ex-convicts successfully access…

The impact of globalization and technological advances created a global economic environment in which emerging countries can compete with traditionally economically dominant countries on an increasingly level playing field. Emerging countries can advance their economy through the attraction of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) more quickly than by…

This study applied four frameworks from academic literature in the areas of leadership, change process, 21st-century skills, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) to understand the various factors providing for success and participation of a school in the national science fair initiative (Programa…