While program-level assessment has become common in higher education, questions remain about the impacts of assessment on teaching and learning in academic programs. Despite the considerable assessment activity happening in higher education, assessment scholars still have difficulty finding evidence of programs "closing the loop," that…

This study was designed to build on the existing research on teaching and learning in community college contexts and the literature of college writing in two-year schools. The work of Pierre Bourdieu formed the primary theoretical framework and composition theory was used to position this study in the literature of the college writing discipline.…

This two-essay dissertation aims to study institutional logics in the context of Apple's independent third-party software developers. In essay 1, I investigate the embedded agency aspect of the institutional logics theory. It builds on the premise that logics constrain preferences, interests and behaviors of individuals and organizations, thereby…

In this naturalistic inquiry, I explore a professional development program which provided Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) graduate coursework from a university in Northeast Kansas to in-service teachers in Southwest Kansas through distance learning. Data sources included interviews, participant observation, and document and…

Rural and Indigenous populations have the lowest educational achievement indicators and teachers with the least years of training. Global education movements have led to an increase in access to schooling by rural and Indigenous populations but high drop-out rates persist and education policies, curricular contents, and teacher trainings have…

This case study examined how participating in a short-term education abroad program fostered transformative learning for a small group of community college students. As a participant-observer, I utilized ethnographic methods, including interviews, observations, and document analysis, to understand students' perceptions of their experiences…

This project focuses on the dynamics of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as a non-binding multistakeholder debate about information policymaking. Using the theory of structuration and critical discourse analysis, I explore how the nation-state-centric and the internet-community-centric perceptions of authority and approaches to decision-making…

The growing ubiquity of the Internet has changed the way we conduct many of our meaningful activities, occupations, today. Despite the changes in technology, human needs haven't changed as radically, we still need connection, involvement, information and avenues of expression, but what has changed are the myriad ways in which we do those things.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the ethical beliefs and preparation practices of high school principals when making decisions on the evaluation of teacher performance for retention and/or tenure. The participants consisted of a total of 10 high school principals, associate principals, and assistant principals who evaluate the performance…

School and learning have historically been a community endeavor and the recent focus on community schools and neighborhood focused schooling illuminate the possibilities of these endeavors. Distributed leadership, while a relatively newer educational concept, has also gained popularity in recent years focusing on shifting focus from the lone…

In the United States the lack of mathematic knowledge of citizens has remained a significant problem. Both national and international assessments of mathematical knowledge of students have consistently reported poor results. Given the importance of mathematics education in college attendance and career options, finding ways to improve the…

There are many indications that social mobilization and political participation have been transformed by Information Communication Technologies (ICT), and, more recently, by Social Media. In spite of many studies which have attempted to grapple with their interrelationship, we still know little about the degree and complexity of those…

The researcher utilized a qualitative approach to conduct a program evaluation of the organization where he is employed. The study intended to serve as a program evaluation for the structured in-house mentoring program at a large aerospace corporation (A-Corp). This program evaluation clarified areas in which the current mentoring program is…

Student perceptions of e-learning are potential causes of student dropout in online education. The social cognitive theoretical view was used to investigate the relationship between perceived e-learning environments, self-regulated learning (SRL), and academic performance in online education. This mixed methods study used a quantitative…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the impact of differentiated instructional techniques on non-traditional, adult student engagement in an RN-BSN completion program course. Differentiated instructional techniques have been a staple method of teaching in K-12 education for a number of years. Differentiated instruction (DI) is a…