ABSTRACT SWIMMING UPSTREAM: A STUDY OF BLACK MALES AND THE ACADEMIC PIPELINE Rhonda D. Wilkins Post secondary participation and graduation rates of Black males are declining rapidly. Black women, however, are realizing substantial growth in both of these areas and account for the majority of the increase in Black student college enrollment. This qualitative case study addresses the decline in Black male participation in higher education by focusing on six Black men who completed college programs and the academic pipeline that brought them to their degree. The purpose of the research inquiry was to determine various factors that either helped or hindered the academic progression of the six Black male participants. For the study participants the two-year college was a component of their academic pipeline and was assessed based on its function as a conduit aiding degree attainment. The common factors that emerged from the findings as influential to the academic progression of the six Black males were categorized as: (a) personal attributes and perceptions, (b) relationships and external influences, and (c) institutional factors. The personal attributes of the participants included self-efficacy, endurance and resilience, and self-regulation. These attributes were framed within the central context of personal agency. Factors external to the participants consisted of family messages about higher education, role models, mentors and advocates, early exposure to college and participation in athletic sports. The institutional factors that surfaced were insufficient college preparation in high school, contrasts between the climate and culture of the two-year college and four-year institution, the lack of promotion of the transfer function at the two-year college. Race and gender were also considered relative to the men and their experiences with the academic pipeline. The salient factors included: (a) the general social and economic conditions faced by young Black males, (b) the perpetuation of negative or one-dimensional stereotypes in the media, (c) pre-college educational inequities, (d) the lack of assistance with college transition, and (e) the unwelcoming climates and lack of Black faculty at predominately white institutions. The study concluded that Black males may face many hurdles to postsecondary attainment and will therefore require personal, family, community, and institutional forces to push them through the academic pipeline.

ABSTRACT CULTURAL IDENTITY, VOICE, AND AGENCY IN POST-SECONDARY GRAPHIC DESIGN EDUCATION: A COLLECTIVE CASE STUDY by Larry M. Stultz This study investigates areas of conflict between students’ cultural identities and the educational environment established and maintained by their faculty and school. It analyzes the usefulness and value of personal creative expression in the classroom and how treatment of cultural identity and performance influences student persistence and success. Four theoretical frameworks ground this study and comprise the majority of the relevant literature. The inquiry is framed by theories in curriculum, performance, cultural difference, and symbolic interaction. Three purposely selected students participated in individual case studies, and the data from interviews, classroom observation, and examples of student work were subjected to both unique and collective case analysis. Three identifiable areas inform the collective interpretation: socialization, self-view, and agency, with the latter seeming most dynamic. Very significant are the students’ disparate socialization goals: assimilation, acculturation, and syncretism or compromised coexistence. The problem of self-view, or naming, is also useful. The identity and voice exhibited by these three students create ways in which they are viewed and treated by their peers and their faculty. Most importantly, the students’ experiences and cultural capital are shown to have agency, and agency is a signifier in looking into student success. This study reveals that while it is up to the students to utilize experiential agency, it is up to educators and institutions to consider the role of identity, voice, and agency in developing and maintaining an educative environment.

The purpose of this study was to research the experiences of female academicians in traditional liberal arts academic disciplines at one institution. The challenges of being a female academician are revealed in statistical data about faculty rank, tenure, and salaries as well as in descriptive accounts of the environment that women encounter in the higher education institutions. However, the intersection of women and the academic disciplines rooted in the liberal arts tradition is a neglected arena of investigation. This research involved a series of qualitative in-depth interviews with three women representing biology, psychology, and English at a small public college and began as an examination of their experiences in these academic disciplines. Consistent with qualitative research, the themes that emerged from the interviews did not highlight the original research focus. Rather, the women discussed their lives as teachers as a priority over their lives in the disciplines. Through the interviews, the women revealed that their paths into their disciplines began when they were children, a finding not addressed in current literature. Their stories also reveal commonalities in their professional socializations, their quests to have satisfying personal and professional lives, and the impact of relationships on the formation of their academic and professional identities. As each woman fell in love with her discipline during graduate school, she also discovered teaching as her greater affection. In the context of agency and strength, rather than educational tracking or cultural pressure, they found conditions of possibility in academic careers primarily focused on teaching. The results of this research suggest alternatives to some assumptions prevalent in current literature, including assumptions about when the direction of a career path begins and assumptions that women accept teaching-focused careers through systemic influences. The experiences of these women highlight the vital role of personal agency and meaningful interpersonal connections in the careers of women in academia.

February 2003 was the inauguration of the Foundations of Excellence project with an open invitation to chief academic officers at approximately 900 of both the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the Council for Independent Colleges (CIC) member institutions. The Policy Center on the First Year of College, under the direction of the Executive Director, John N. Gardner, invited the various campuses to develop standards and guidelines for the first year, which were termed as Foundational Dimensions or simply Dimensions. As a result, over 200 member institutions agreed to participate in the project by establishing campus-wide task forces to look at the initial list of six Dimensions developed by the Policy Center and Penn State research partners. These Dimensions were designed to be essential characteristics of institutional effectiveness in promoting the learning and success of every first-year student. This is a case study of one of the founding institutions of the Foundations of Excellence endeavor, Public State University (PSU). In particular, this study utilizes the Foundations of Excellence Dimensions Statements as a basis to assess Public State University’s first-year experience collaboration efforts. Furthermore, this research is specifically grounded in the 2nd Dimensions Statement of the Foundations of Excellence, looking at what the Public State University first-year experience program looks like through academic affairs and student affairs collaborative partnerships. This study specifically examines PSU’s established partnerships within the First Year Orientation and Advising Committee (FYOAC) and the University College Advisory Council (UCAC) and determines what participants mean by collaboration. Through the use of a rubric, the analysis of the data resulted in a significant finding in reference to collaboration literature. The findings indicated that the literature on academic and student affairs collaboration should include information on institutional culture and investigate whether the underpinnings of institutional culture are actually social systems that are inextricably tied to their external environments, which in turn have a direct impact on foundational benchmarks on collaboration for First-Year Experience programs. Implications of this study’s results are addressed, limitations of this study are discussed, and recommendations for future research are given.

In response to public concern over fairness in testing, conducting a differential item functioning (DIF) analysis is now standard practice for many large-scale testing programs (e.g., Scholastic Aptitude Test, intelligence tests, licensing exams). As highlighted by the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing manual, the legal and ethical need to avoid bias when measuring examinee abilities is essential to fair testing practices (AERA-APA-NCME, 1999). Likewise, the development of statistical and substantive methods of investigating DIF is crucial to the goal of designing fair and valid educational and psychological tests. Douglas, Roussos and Stout (1996) introduced the concept of item bundle DIF and the implications of differential bundle functioning (DBF) for identifying the underlying causes of DIF. Since then, several studies have demonstrated DIF/DBF analyses within the framework of “unintended” multidimensionality (Oshima & Miller, 1992; Russell, 2005). Russell (2005), in particular, examined the effect of secondary traits on DBF/DTF detection. Like Russell, this study created item bundles by including multidimensional items on a simulated test designed in theory to be unidimensional. Simulating reference group members to have a higher mean ability than the focal group on the nuisance secondary dimension, resulted in DIF for each of the multidimensional items, that when examined together produced differential bundle functioning. The purpose of this Monte Carlo simulation study was to assess the Type I error and power performance of SIBTEST (Simultaneous Item Bias Test; Shealy & Stout, 1993a) for DBF analysis under various conditions with simulated data. The variables of interest included sample size and ratios of reference to focal group sample sizes, correlation between primary and secondary dimensions, magnitude of DIF/DBF, and angular item direction. Results showed SIBTEST to be quite powerful in detecting DBF and controlling Type I error for almost all of the simulated conditions. Specifically, power rates were .80 or above for 84% of all conditions and the average Type I error rate was approximately .05. Furthermore, the combined effect of the studied variables on SIBTEST power and Type I error rates provided much needed information to guide further use of SIBTEST for identifying potential sources of differential item/bundle functioning.

Community college enrollment doubled during the 1940s and 1950s, but during the 1940s and 1950s, it was not common to compare male and female enrollment patterns. For this study, I disaggregated male and female enrollment information from four editions of American Junior Colleges (1940, 1948, 1952, and 1956) in order to explore the gendered meaning of access in regard to two-year colleges during the 1940s and 1950s. The analysis compared male and female enrollment and graduation in pacesetter states within the community college movement. By using descriptive statistics, I gave voice to a story that previously had been untold – the story of women’s access into one segment of higher education – two-year colleges. In order to provide context for the numbers I compiled, I investigated the literature on women in higher education in the post-World War II period – a literature almost completely focused on four-year institutions – to examine the degree to which that literature captured, or failed to capture, meanings of access for women. With the overcrowding in higher education due to the preponderance of veterans returning to colleges and universities immediately following World War II, women were often crowded out of four-year institutions. The two-year college provided a means for many women to enter higher education but did not provide them the same level of access as males. For the most part women had access to programs preparing them for the dual labor market and/or reinforced their status as wife and mother.

ABSTRACT PREPARATION OF THE ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL FOR THE ROLE OF THE PRINCIPAL: AN EXAMINATION OF REAL TASKS AS COMPARED TO THE PERCEIVED IDEAL TASKS by April Chastang Madden Principals most commonly ascend from the pool of those who are assistant principals, but it is unclear whether assistant principals are prepared to assume such a pivotal leadership role. This study seeks to compare the extent of on the job training provided to the assistant principals by examining ideal as compared to actual task performance in six competency areas associated with the job of principal. The research questions were as follows: 1. What are the perceived ideal professional tasks assistant principals should perform prior to becoming a principal? 2. Which tasks are performed by assistant principals? 3. Do these performed tasks prepare assistant principals for principalships? Utilizing Survey Monkey, a survey was e-mailed to principals with 1-3 years of experience in the State of Georgia. Descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlations, and t-tests were used for data analysis. As for research question 1, this study revealed that the tasks that ranked the highest among the study participants regarding perceived ideal tasks that assistant principals should perform prior to becoming principal were the competencies falling under the categories of Instructional Leader, Leadership in Staff Personnel, and Management of Schools. For question 2, Pearson Correlation showed that there were no significant correlations for ideal and actual tasks, except in the area of Instructional Leader. Regarding research question 3, The Pearson Correlation along with t-tests of subscales showed that there are significant differences between the ideal and actual tasks performed by assistant principal. The Pearson Correlation highlighted that the only significant correlation between ideal and actual competency tasks was found in the area of Instructional Leader. In conclusion, this study indicated that assistant principals are not adequately prepared to transition to the role of principal.

ABSTRACT THE REVOLUTION BEGINS AT 3PM: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF A STATEWIDE 21ST CENTURY COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTERS PROGRAM by Corrie L. Davis The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how teachers and staff members demonstrated caring toward their students within a statewide 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) afterschool program. The participants in the study included 17 program directors, 22 site coordinators, 16 teachers, 3 paraprofessionals, 11 parents, 11 principals, and 18 other stakeholders associated with the program. This multi-site case study utilized the naturalistic paradigm of qualitative research. The data collection process included 98 semi-structured interviews, 22 participant observations, 112 photographs, and document analyses with materials from the 20 grantees selected in the sample. The qualitative software program, Atlas.ti: The Knowledge Workbench (2003) assisted with the management and analysis of data during the coding, categorizing, and interpretation process. Findings from the study revealed 3 central themes: (a) staff members that care about the whole child educate the whole child, (b) using culture as an asset increases students’ desire to learn and (c) building character promotes positive change. By incorporating these attributes, the program’s staff demonstrated their commitment to the academic and democratic advancement of the students in their care. This study will help inform policy makers, afterschool advocates, and 21st CCLC stakeholders about the importance of incorporating caring, culturally relevant pedagogy, and character education within local and national afterschool programs.

Diversity in the population along with the diversity of testing usage has resulted in smaller identified groups of test takers. In addition, computer adaptive testing sometimes results in a relatively small number of items being used for a particular assessment. The need and use for statistical techniques that are able to effectively detect differential item functioning (DIF) when the population is small and or the assessment is short is necessary. Identification of empirically biased items is a crucial step in creating equitable and construct-valid assessments. Parshall and Miller (1995) compared the conventional asymptotic Mantel-Haenszel (MH) with the exact test (ET) for the detection of DIF with small sample sizes. Several studies have since compared the performance of MH to logistic regression (LR) under a variety of conditions. Both Swaminathan and Rogers (1990), and Hildalgo and López-Pina (2004) demonstrated that MH and LR were comparable in their detection of items with DIF. This study followed by comparing the performance of the MH, the ET, and LR performance when both the sample size is small and test length is short. The purpose of this Monte Carlo simulation study was to expand on the research done by Parshall and Miller (1995) by examining power and power with effect size measures for each of the three DIF detection procedures. The following variables were manipulated in this study: focal group sample size, percent of items with DIF, and magnitude of DIF. For each condition, a small reference group size of 200 was utilized as well as a short, 10-item test. The results demonstrated that in general, LR was slightly more powerful in detecting items with DIF. In most conditions, however, power was well below the acceptable rate of 80%. As the size of the focal group and the magnitude of DIF increased, the three procedures were more likely to reach acceptable power. Also, all three procedures demonstrated the highest power for the most discriminating item. Collectively, the results from this research provide information in the area of small sample size and DIF detection.

ABSTRACT THE EFFECT OF PRE-TRANSFER GRADE POINT AVERAGE ON POST-TRANSFER GRADE POINT AVERAGE AS AN INDICATOR OF PERSISTENCE FROM TWO-YEAR COLLEGES TO STATE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES WITHIN THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF GEORGIA by Marci M. Middleton Community colleges provide an important access point for students who want to continue their educational studies and obtain a baccalaureate or advanced degree. Students have the opportunity to complete core curricula or the general education component of their education at a two-year college and then transfer to a four-year college or university in many higher education systems around the country including the University System of Georgia. Using linear regression initially and later multiple regression, this quantitative research study tested grade point average to project student academic performance at a state or research university upon transfer to such institutions. Data obtained for state systems institutions from fall 2001 through fall 2005 was used for the administration of this study. Research questions concerning the relationship between grade point averages before and after transfer were examined at various matriculation points with specific attention paid to pre-transfer grade point average and post-transfer grade assessment at three points across a student’s academic career. In addition, the strength of the relationship was tested for the aggregate student cohort of matriculants from fall 2001 through fall 2005 as well as sub-groups within the cohort.