Teachers were once held to a professional dress code. This code has become lax, resulting in teachers dressing in more casual attire. A local middle school in rural Georgia was experiencing complaints about teachers' unprofessional attire from other teachers, administrators, and parents. Teachers play an integral role in modeling cultural and…

The active participation of alumni is necessary for the long-term health of institutions of higher education. Alumni contribute financially to higher education institutions by sharing their time and talents. Recently, a small private University in Macao initiated an alumni mentoring pilot program to engage alumni. However, it is unclear what the…

The remarkable economic success of the Cayman Islands is primarily driven by its large expatriate population. Expatriates make up over one-third of the total population of the Islands and half of the labor force. This has led some Caymanians to demand more opportunities for local individuals. However in April 2014, one of the two local newspapers…

Proficient reading comprehension provides an academic advantage for 21st century learners. However, students at the upper elementary level face increasingly challenging texts that require use of metacomprehension skills. Yet, there is a lack of formal instruction that assists students in practicing these metacomprehension skills in classrooms.…

This study examined the implementation of Hybrid Grouping at Angel Elementary School. The Hybrid Grouping model consisted of three elements, achievement grouping, departmentalization and self-contained classes. The data collected allowed participants (n = 20) to share their perceptions of the leadership of the school and its relationship to the…

Educators, government officials, and other stakeholders of schools have an interest in whether family involvement affects the academic achievement of students. While some research has shown that children whose parents are involved in their education from early childhood perform academically better than do children whose parents are less involved,…

After-school programs, such as a STEM Career Club, can promote student interest, engagement, and awareness of STEM majors and fields, as well as encourage teachers to become more knowledgeable and competent in STEM areas. In this dissertation study, two schools were selected from a larger NSF-funded project to participate in this study. Teacher-…

Despite improvements in college access, college completion rates remain low among students from low-income and otherwise vulnerable families. Over the past three decades, college prices rose dramatically, the real income of most families stagnated, and the purchasing power of need-based financial aid declined. To make up for substantial unmet…

Given the tormented history of development projects around the globe and the fact that global service learning and engineering-for-development often engages students in development interventions, it is critically important to explore the impact of global service learning projects and partnerships not only on student learning, which has received…

Despite years of attention, gender inequity persists in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Female STEM faculty, positive social interactions, and enrollment in advanced STEM secondary coursework are supportive factors in promoting female students' persistence in STEM fields. To address the gap in understanding these factors,…

Graduate students encounter specific career difficulties in making career decisions, and turn to various sources of assistance, help-seeking resources and guidance (Gati, Gadasi & Shemesh, 2005). Previous research into graduate student career needs have not sought to better understand the specific differences between international and domestic…

Researchers have assumed that social cognitive factors play significant roles in the career development of transition youth and young adults with disabilities and those without disabilities. However, research on the influence of the career decision-making process as a primary causal agent in one's psychosocial outcomes such as perceived level of…

This study represents a paradigm shift in an attempt to examine early adolescent self-concept while in a student leadership role. Positive Youth Development intertwined with Personal Construct Theory and Social Learning Theory framed the study. Students from a rural Wisconsin high school participated in a two-day leadership retreat. The…

The outcomes of The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) child sexual abuse scandal have left many scholars and individuals questioning the university's collective identity. The goal of this research was to uncover the dominant themes that describe a problematic institutional response to the child sexual abuse incidents in order to provide…

Political divides in our democracy are ever-widening. Deliberative democratic civics education provides a new way for civics education to prepare students for a democracy that addresses the diversity in moral perspectives that have created the divides in a more constructive way. Civics education traditionally has been tied to aggregative theories…