Most people meet insects with fear and disgust, even though few insects pose health risks; in fact, many are beneficial and their absence would adversely affect human life. Such misunderstandings lead to insect conservation being important but unpopular. We addressed these concerns as part of a broader effort to establish an ongoing outreach…

Education is a $600 billion-a-year enterprise, but the investments states make in education will not benefit students unless they are physically and mentally present in the classroom. Too many students are not. In this report, the National Association of State Boards of Education asks policymakers to promote student engagement through a suite of…

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate whether students who completed the accelerated learning program (ALP) in English at Butler Community College in fall 2016 perceived a three-part, structured approach to the course as having been a significant factor to their persistence and successful completion of the course. These perceptions…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine pre-service teachers and their use of online community. This study explored four focal participants enrolled at Benedictine College and their perceptions about online community. The participants were completing their student teaching block during the spring 2016 semester. The data sources…

This study looked to situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991) in order to explore students' participation in the social practices of first-year learning communities. Wenger's (1998) elaboration on "communities of practice" provides insight into how such participation transforms learners. These perspectives frame learning as a…

The use of high-impact practices is well documented in higher education literature. This brief describes the integrative practice of undergraduate peer-led leadership learning communities as a model of delivery within a large introductory leadership education course for first-year students. Utilizing open-ended questions embedded within…

As part of a longitudinal study into identity development in upper-level physics students, we used a phenomenographic research method to examine students' perceptions of what it means to be a physicist. Analysis revealed six different categories of perception of what it means to be a physicist. We found the following themes: research and its…

Contemporary trends in leadership education emphasize paradigms of learning and educational practices associated with developing responsible citizens, furthering higher education's civic mission. Yet, few introductory leadership courses include an explicit civic component (Johnson & Woodard, 2014). Service-learning is a high-impact practice…

This report presents findings from a survey of students enrolled in Accelerating Opportunity (AO) career pathways in spring 2014. AO provides grants to help community colleges create career pathway programs to enroll students with low basic skills into for-credit career and technical education courses to improve educational and employment…

This research sought to investigate student success using psychological sense of community as a guiding theory with the intention of providing information that could be applied in a university setting. Policy makers, researchers, and practitioners involved with higher education need programs for student success that are both efficient and…

The second annual implementation report for the Accelerating Opportunity (AO) initiative in four states finds that: (1) colleges aligned pathways and supports with local needs; (2) students were satisfied with AO; (3) AO instructors grew more adept at team teaching; (4) colleges struggled to recruit adult education students; (5) states and…

We use the theory of communities of practice and the concept of accountable disciplinary knowledge to describe how a learning community develops in the context of an upper-division physics laboratory course. The change in accountable disciplinary knowledge motivates students' enculturation into a community of practice. The enculturation process is…

This report presents a summary of a number of outcomes-oriented studies dealing with dual enrollment (acceleration). (Contains 1 graph.)

One cause of the underrepresentation of students with disabilities in postsecondary education may be a lack of appropriate and effective accommodations (e.g., West et al., 1993). This study hypothesized that ineffective and inappropriate accommodations result from an accommodation selection process that focuses on disability type rather than…

Identified characteristics perceived by students, educators, school board members, and the community to be the most important indicators of school quality in small school districts in Kansas. Determined the degree to which characteristics are present in selected small and rural schools. Respondents perceived their schools positively on the…