Matching Items (25)
Description
With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, as part of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), it prioritized schools to include families as collaborative partners in schools’ improvement efforts. Minimal family voice existed at two elementary schools. Thus, this mixed-methods action research study investigated both schools as they applied the principles of equitable collaboration (PEC), explored how participants experienced family voice through collaboration, and whether it strengthened school-family partnerships. The Equitable Collaboration Framework, Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) Model, and Appreciative Inquiry (AI) Model were the theoretical perspectives in applying the principles of equitable collaboration (PEC). Data analysis and its triangulation were derived from family and teacher participants through surveys, interviews, observations, and field notes from a series of workshops. Results suggested there were mixed views on family voice prior to the application of PEC. Experiencing family voice during family-teacher collaboration resulted in varied outcomes: one school acknowledged families as assets and equal contributors to schools’ decision-making processes, whereas the other school, in ways, reverted to the traditional school-centric approach. Results also identified strengths as schools developed teacher-family relationships. Implications for these findings point to the concerted efforts that must occur at school sites, recognizing the importance of family voice and seeing families as shared partners in school improvement. To build strong school-family collaboration requires commitment and support in overcoming barriers, such as language and the issue of time, to ensure that all families are invited to participate and provide the power of family voice into school’s decision-making processes.
ContributorsAlvara, Raquel (Author) / Chen, Ying-Chih (Thesis advisor) / Liou, Daniel (Committee member) / Ross, Lydia (Committee member) / Hong, Soo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
A mixed methods action research study was designed to answer three research questions based on inter-rater reliability (IRR) in compliance calls for transition at a state education agency, perceived confidence levels in making and discussing compliance calls, and perceived confidence in sharing transition resources. An innovation based on andragogy and frame of reference training (FOR) was designed and implemented with twelve participants to answer these questions. To measure the effects of the innovation, participants completed a pre-and post-innovation review of five student files, analyzing the IRR for the group as compared with a gold standard (GS) both before and after the innovation. Additionally, a smaller group sample for the same five files post-innovation was collected to compare group results for IRR with the GS to the combined individual results. A retrospective survey was also utilized in which participants rated their confidence in each component pre- and post-innovation. Based upon analyses of these data, several key findings were identified. Higher inter-rater reliability was noted when participants reviewed files within small groups and in the area of annual Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals aligned with measurable post-secondary goals. Lower IRR was reported in nuanced files, files for students with low-incidence disabilities, and files with more instances of non-compliance. Results indicated that participant confidence in making and discussing transition files in the field improved post-innovation. Lastly, participants indicated higher confidence in sharing best practices in transition with the field post-innovation. Implications for this research include training suggestions, additional practice with low-incidence and nuanced files at the state agency, and group review of files in other state monitoring systems.
ContributorsRaithel, Heather (Author) / Puckett, Kathleen (Thesis advisor) / Mathur, Sarup (Committee member) / Ross, Lydia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
First-generation college students (FGCS) are considered underrepresented minorities in healthcare. While there are numerous studies on undergraduate students, little is known about FGCS in graduate programs, as this information has not been routinely collected. As such, diversity has been measured only based on race or ethnicity, which may not capture diversity from a broader definition. Furthermore, current research provides a deficit narrative, presenting these students as lacking in abilities and capital. However, these students were successful as undergraduates to enter graduate school and likely have undisclosed strengths. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to develop a comprehensive understanding of FGCS in graduate healthcare programs. All students enrolled in physical therapy, occupational therapy, or pharmacy programs at Creighton University in Phoenix were invited to complete a survey with items related to demographics, parental educational attainment, cultural capital, help-seeking and help-avoidance, and sense of belonging. Additionally, most of the FGCS in this study participated in semi-structured interviews with questions related to cultural capital and experiences in their current programs. The results show that FGCS in this study demonstrate similar cultural capital, help-seeking and help-avoidance, and sense of belonging as their peers. From the interviews, the FGCS strengths include family support, navigational capital, a desire to give back to their communities by providing care in underserved areas, and they have a desire to connect to faculty and peers. Challenges include family stressors, finances, mental health, and academic issues. These are presented with evidence-based recommendations for faculty and administrators. This study provides a more holistic view of FGCS as they navigate graduate school. By avoiding a deficit narrative, this study improves our understanding of FGCS.
ContributorsShaibi, Stefany (Author) / Koyama, Jill (Thesis advisor) / Ross, Lydia (Committee member) / Michalec, Barret (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
As schools continue to focus on outcome-based instructional practices, less emphasis is placed on the creativity and reasoning necessary for students to become effective critical thinkers. As a result, students struggle to demonstrate creative problem-solving skills in the classroom. This study examines how the facilitation of an instructional problem-solving intervention, Creative Cognitive Process Instruction (CCPI), can foster creativity, improve student metacognitive regulation, and support students in developing problem solving strategies. Participants included (n = 33) 7th grade science students in a California public middle school. Mixed methods were used to assess how and to what extent CCPI changed students' metacognitive regulation and attitudes and approaches to creative problem solving. Outcomes from this study indicate that a structured approach to problem solving along with creative and metacognitive instruction and a scaffolded support system had a positive impact on students' creative problem-solving perceptions and abilities. Notably, students demonstrated an attitudinal shift from “getting the work done” to “getting the work done well”, corresponding with a focus on understanding the problem followed by an improvement in solution synthesis. Students also demonstrated improvement in comprehension and metacognitive planning abilities, divergent thinking, their perception of science, and their self-perceived competency in science. This research may suggest how to enhance classroom practices to facilitate a more creative and engaged problem-solving mindset, foster the implementation of creative problem-solving strategies in the classroom, and support existing theories of the intersectionality of metacognition and creative problem solving.
ContributorsEl-Awar, Nadine (Author) / Markos, Amy (Thesis advisor) / Wolf, Leigh (Committee member) / Rillero, Peter (Committee member) / Ross, Lydia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Educational Data Mining: An Application of a Predictive Model of Online Student Enrollment Decisions
Description
College and university enrollment has decreased nationwide every year for more than a decade as educational consumers increasingly question the value of higher education and discover alternatives to the traditional university system. Enrollment professionals seeking growth are tasked to develop and implement innovative solutions to address increasing enrollment challenges by being responsive to consumer values, interests, and needs. This multi-phase mixed methods action research study explores educational data mining and machine learning to understand and predict the enrollment decisions of admitted applicants (n=3,843) at the online campus of a public research university (phase one). Then, this innovation is distributed to understand how university enrollment professionals (n=7) interpret and are affected by the factors that influence online student enrollment decisions (phase two). Logistic regression was used to evaluate 24 independent variables to classify each applicant into a dichotomous dependent outcome: will an applicant enroll or will they not. The model identified 10 significant predictors and accurately categorized 81% of the enrollment outcomes at its peak. The population was comprised of online adult learners and the findings were carefully compared to the findings of previous studies which differed in institutional settings (on campus) and student populations (first-year students). Additionally, the study aimed to extend the work of previous literature through a second application phase within the local context. The second phase was guided by distributed leadership theory and the four-stage theory of organizational change and introduced the model to enrollment professionals within the local context through participation in a workshop coupled with a pre-/post-workshop survey. This convergent parallel mixed methods design resulted in themes that demonstrated enrollment managers had a genuine desire to understand and apply the model to assist in solving complex enrollment challenges and were interested in using the model to inform their perspectives, decision-making, and strategy development. This study concludes that educational data mining and machine learning can be used to predict the enrollment decisions of online adult students and that enrollment managers can use the data to inform the many enrollment challenges they are tasked to overcome.
ContributorsSinger, Cody Gene (Author) / Ross, Lydia (Thesis advisor) / Dorn, Sherman (Thesis advisor) / Cillay, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
The purpose of this action research study was to improve the implementation of a large-scale redesign of teacher preparation programs at Arizona State University. This was a highly complex redesign that impacted over 150 courses across 27 programs, involving more than 200 faculty and 2,500 students annually. As a result, implementing the redesign posed significant challenges for supporting fidelity and agency across all faculty involved, including many part-time faculty and new hires with no prior knowledge of the redesigned program curricula. While this challenge was not unique, I approached it in a novel way in this action research study by creating course “fact sheets” that provided simple, visual representations of each course’s intended purpose within the program’s context to solve what was fundamentally an information transfer challenge. To study the effects of this intervention, I used a convergent mixed methods approach to address three guiding research questions aimed at exploring (1) how faculty used the course fact sheets, (2) how that use related to differences in outcomes related to implementation fidelity and sense of teaching agency, and (3) how those differences compared to an online orientation module as a more traditional form of professional development. Results showed that a majority of the 122 faculty members surveyed used the course fact sheets and, on average, found them highly usable for the purpose of gaining knowledge about their courses as part of the redesign. Furthermore, those who used course fact sheets had significant increases in their knowledge and confidence of implementation fidelity practices and significant increases in their sense of teaching agency. The results also showed more positive outcomes for those using the fact sheets than those who participated in an orientation module. However, interview results suggested that the fact sheets may not have been enough to address all the factors that influence faculty agency. Nevertheless, this study has important implications for faculty development initiatives in higher education, demonstrating the potential of course fact sheets as a scalable solution to improve the implementation of large-scale redesigns.
ContributorsThurber, Derek (Author) / Markos, Amy (Thesis advisor) / Ross, Lydia (Committee member) / Conley, Quincy (Committee member) / Wendt, Jill (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
The purpose of this mixed-methods action research study was to understand how a knowledge-building intervention changes the perception of rural high school juniors on the perception of staying local for college after high school. This study also investigates the ways in which participants used their social capital to begin to change the stigma of staying local for college. The intervention in this study was conducted at a public high school over 5 weeks with 21 high school juniors. College choice models, Social Influence Theory, and social capital theory framed the intervention. After the intervention, the scores for participants’ knowledge of the local university doubled on average, and every participant reported an increase in perception of the local rural university as a college choice for themselves or their peers. Participants reported a willingness to recommend the university to their peers. For students to make informed decisions about college choice, they must have adequate and accurate information. Research-based, targeted sessions delivered by dynamic college representatives or student ambassadors may increase knowledge and perception.
ContributorsLowder, Jenna L (Author) / Marsh, Josephine P (Thesis advisor) / Ross, Lydia (Committee member) / Mann, Cristen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
All high school students deserve access to experiences that will help shape their perspectives of post-secondary options. They also deserve adequate preparation for said experiences. Minimal consideration is given to how to prepare low-income Latinx high school students for success in internships. Thus, this mixed-methods action research study utilized a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) framework to investigate a semester-long internship preparation course. It explored how students recognize and develop navigational capital from the Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) framework as well as Career Decision Self-Efficacy (CDSE) while preparing for a subsequent internship. Data analysis and its triangulation were derived from participants’ interviews and a focus group, as well as surveys from the treatment group and control group. Results suggest that the intervention was successful in preparing participants for an internship and increasing their CDSE, but results were inconclusive on whether navigational capital was affected.
ContributorsMason, Nicole (Author) / Chen, Ying-Chih (Thesis advisor) / Ross, Lydia (Committee member) / Carrillo, Juan (Committee member) / Martinez, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
The problem of practice addressed in this mixed-methods research study is assessing whether participating in professional development workshops helped community college instructors improve their pedagogical practices, leading to improved student success and achievement rates. In this study, I explore the effects of an intervention I designed to help English 101 instructors teach a new, direct-placement composition class, which was created to comply with the mandates of AB-705, an educational reform bill in California. I used three guiding theories to undergird and evaluate the intervention: Darling-Hammond et al.'s Accountability Approach (2014), Freire's Critical Pedagogy (1970), and Kirkpatrick and Kayser-Kirkpatrick’s Model of Training Effectiveness (2009). To address the research questions of this study, I analyzed pre- and post-surveys, faculty interviews, and student success and retention data. The results from the data were mixed. While the quantitative survey data did not support the claim that the College of the Canyons (COC) SkillShare Workshops affected instructors’ attitudes about teaching and their teaching behaviors, the qualitative interview data showed that the workshops did improve instructors’ professional capacities and were a valuable professional development resource. Additionally, the quantitative institutional data demonstrated that workshop participation significantly increased instructors’ student success and retention rates.
ContributorsTerzian-Zeitounian, Alene (Author) / Judson, Eugene (Thesis advisor) / Ross, Lydia (Committee member) / Meuschke, Daylene (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Inclusive educational spaces are necessary for all post-secondary students to thrive and enjoy their college experience. Faculty and staff may unintentionally create non-inclusive educational spaces, however, with behaviors relative to race/racism and microaggressions driven by racial implicit bias. Via this mixed-methods action research study I examined ASU faculty and staff attitudes relative to (1) race/racism, (2) implicit bias, and (3) microaggressions, all of which influence perceptions of and intentions toward (4) creating inclusive educational spaces. Specifically, five ASU faculty and staff completed a Canvas based online training that I developed (i.e., BIAS training) during which they were provided information in separate modules about systemic and color-blind racism, implicit bias, microaggressions, and two components of inclusive educational spaces, culturally sustaining pedagogical and race-conscious educational practices. Prior to and at the completion of the training, participants completed a survey instrument that I designed to measure participant attitudes relative to these four concepts. At the completion of each BIAS module with which they engaged, they responded to reflective questions which essentially prompted participants to think about what they learned per module and how it applied to their educational practices. After completion of the BIAS training and an identical post-survey that I used to measure participant’s changes in attitudes and perceptions over time, I invited participants to also share their thoughts in an interview. Both quantitative and qualitative data suggested that participant’s attitudes positively shifted relative to each of the abovementioned four concepts; knowledge acquisition occurred as intended. In addition, faculty and staff identified specific practices they could, or intended to incorporate to facilitate more inclusive educational spaces within their spheres of influence. Overall, my BIAS training seemed to have had a positive impact on the ASU faculty and staff who participated in this study. A few participants even discussed practices they were able to implement immediately, as well as positive student reactions, while anecdotal, that they received in response. Future iterations of my BIAS training will include additional information that will help to further clarify the four concepts of primary interest herein, particularly in support of creating more inclusive practices inspired by culturally sustaining pedagogy and race-conscious educational practices. Additionally, I will add a mindfulness component as another opportunity to increase awareness of faculty and staff attitudes and behaviors that may also impact their ability to create more inclusive educational spaces.
ContributorsCorte, Corinne (Author) / Beardsley, Audrey (Thesis advisor) / McGuire, Keon (Committee member) / Ross, Lydia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022