This research examined the relationship of student academic performance exhibited by American elementary-school students through the types of school leadership. The goal was to define a functional model of leadership that might support the academic achievement of students attending school in low- to middle-socioeconomic areas. Teachers on the staffs of 58 California elementary schools located in such areas completed the Task Relationship Change Questionnaire (Yukl, n.d.) to facilitate data collection. This survey instrument measured teacher perception of the leadership characteristics of principals. Three broad areas of leadership characteristics, as well as 14 leadership-behavior factors were measured and correlated. The study results supported the notion that the same type of leadership is generally effective in schools located in both middle- and low-socioeconomic areas. The findings also indicated that elementary-school principals serving these schools generally possess leadership characteristics that are blended between factors of change, relationship, and task. The academic performance of students attending low-socioeconomic schools is enhanced by principals that incorporate specific task and change behavior factors into their leadership styles. The findings also suggest that a more directive leadership style enhances the academic achievement of students attending such schools. Task-leadership behavior factors that facilitated this goal were found to be related to task monitoring. Leadership change behaviors producing the same enhancement included a strong visionary leadership and the ability to infuse dimensions of improvement into schools through new ideas and opportunities. This study also found that the academic performance of students attending elementary schools of low-socioeconomic status may be negatively impacted when principals incorporate certain relationship and change behavior factors into their leadership style. Potentially negative change factors included overly aggressive emphasis on efficiency and product by principals. Potentially negative related relationship factors were found to be equivocation by principals during the decision-making process, resulting in the engagement of teaching staff in extended debate over pivotal school issues. Overall, the results of this study were significant and represent a new approach to research in the area of leadership. The study illuminates the pivotal fact that certain leadership characteristics can indeed enhance student academic performance in elementary schools serving populations located in low-socioeconomic areas.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of a freshman orientation course on the academic performance and retention of new community college students. This study was designed to obtain quantitative as well as qualitative data. In part one, a survey was distributed to students, who attended Coral College from the fall of 1996 through the fall of 1999, completed Guidance 10 and scored no higher than a level one or a level two on 2 out of 3 of the assessment tests. Survey data was used to frame interview questions for the qualitative part of the study. In part two, 12 students, who completed Guidance 10 and returned a survey, were interviewed to investigate in greater depth how the course did or did not influence them to stay enrolled in college. Interviews were used to give students the opportunity to share their stories and how their experiences in Guidance 10 influenced them to stay enrolled in college. Data from the interviews suggested that a relationship between the course objectives and the respondents' grade point averages does not exist. However, the data from the interviews indicated that there is a relationship between the course objectives and retention. Respondents identified particular aspects of the orientation course that influenced them to stay enrolled in college. Meeting with a counselor, going on a campus tour, learning time management, learning to speak in front of others, and learning about the potential earnings of a college graduate were aspects of the course that influenced students to persist in college. Counselors and faculty are encouraged to continue to recommend this course to new students, and administrators are advised to ensure that there are a sufficient number of sections available for new students trying to enroll in the course. Finally, the institution must make a commitment to retention and investigate various methods to retain students through some type of orientation. Recommendations are made for educators, who can make a difference in their educational institutions and influence change, which will affect the retention of new community college students.

Accumulating evidence of the beneficial effects of contact with nature on children’s mental and physical health suggests that exposure to green spaces can support learning and enhance academic performance in children. A limited number of studies exploring the relationship between vegetation in the school environment and academic outcomes has found positive associations. However, most studies use students’ contextual data and outcomes aggregated at the school level, and therefore are unable to adequately control for individual characteristics of students known to influence academic performance. Furthermore, these studies have been carried out in developed countries of North America and Europe, and therefore the extent to which their findings are generalizable to different socio-economic, cultural, and ecological contexts is not well understood. In this dissertation, we advance our understanding on the use of remote sensing data to assess greenness exposure, in order to evaluate the association between greenness in the school environment and student-level academic outcomes in a country of the Global South. We first estimated the influence of spatial resolution of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) on greenness exposure misclassification. We assessed residential greenness for a large cohort of children in Boston, Massachusetts using NDVI at different spatial resolutions and multiple buffer sizes, following methods commonly used in the environmental health literature. Using a reliability assessment framework, we compared continuous and categorical exposure estimates and found that exposure misclassification was higher with coarser spatial resolution, smaller buffers, and greater number of exposure quantiles. We conclude that greenness exposure assessment is sensitive to spatial resolution of NDVI, aggregation area, and number of exposure quantiles. Then, we linked satellite-derived greenness estimates for 2,931 schools in urban areas in Chile to administrative records of standardized test scores and contextual information at the individual and school level for 541,171 elementary-aged students. We evaluated the association between greenness in the school environment and individual-level academic performance in elementary-aged students in Santiago, Chile. Higher school greenness levels were associated with improved individual-level academic performance, with greater magnitude and strength of associations for students in public schools. Finally, we evaluated the individual-level association between greenness in the school environment and academic performance of students in schools in 16 cities across different climate zones in Chile. School greenness was positively associated with test scores and odds of attaining learning standards in mathematics and reading, although associations held only in public schools. The magnitude of associations varied widely across climate regions, decreasing from the desert region in the north to the more vegetated regions in the south. In light of the growing interest on health effects from urban green spaces, this dissertation provides insights on methodological decisions regarding greenness exposure assessment in environmental health research. Furthermore, it expands the evidence on a beneficial association between school-greenness and academic performance to different cultural, demographic, and climate settings. Our results highlight the nuanced nature of this association and the importance of considering students’ social and ecological contexts in urban greenspace management around schools to provide green spaces that effectively support learning. / 2024-12-05T00:00:00Z

University evaluations often reflect an individual’s ability to memorize and recall lecture material during exams. Consequently, the ability to effectively encode, store, and later retrieve information is an integral part of learning and academic success. Notably, students who are more physically active tend to have better academic performance. The neurobiology of stress is a strong candidate for the mechanism underlying this exercise-cognition interaction. Given that exercise is a physical stressor, it is hypothesized that exercise-induced adrenocortical activations increase cortisol levels. Critically, cortisol increases memory consolidation for newly learned information. One hundred twenty-eight young adults (36 males; age: M±SD =19.47±1.55 years) viewed a video lecture before exercise (n = 41), after exercise (n = 42), or after rest (n = 45). The exercise was high intensity interval training on a cycle ergometer and memory for the lecture material was assessed using a multiple-choice quiz conducted 14 minutes and 48 hours after the lecture. There was a significant positive correlation between aerobic fitness and grade point average [r(95) = 0.22, p < .05], immediate recall [r(100) = 0.39, p < .001], and delayed recall [r(98) = 0.28, p < .01]. A mixed model ANOVA found a significant main effect of group on comprehension of the lecture material, F(2, 96) = 3.34, p < .05, revealing greater memory benefits at both 14 minutes and 48 hour delays for those who exercised compared to those who did not exercise; however, pairwise comparisons found this effect specific to the exercise post group. There was also a main effect of group on cortisol levels, F(2, 107) = 3.97, p < .05; however, only the exercise prior group exhibited significantly greater levels than the control group. Thus cortisol levels collected during the experimental session did not clearly differentiate the exercise conditions or reflect the observed memory benefits for the exercise post group. This may have resulted from the gradual increase in cortisol following exercise that had time to increase when exercise was completed at the beginning of the exercise session (exercise prior) rather than at the end (exercise post). Overall, this study suggests that both physical fitness and an acute bout of aerobic exercise are associated with academic and memory performance. More research is needed to understand the mechanism. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

The research purpose was to investigate the relationship between motivation (i.e., Physiological needs, safety and security, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization) determined through the Need Satisfactory Inventory (NSI), gender (i.e., Male, Female) determined through the demographic survey, and the test score on the Illinois Nurse Aide Competency Examination (INACE), i.e., overall INACE performance and overall INACE performance based on six duty areas (i.e., communicating information, performing basic nursing skills, performing personal care, performing basic restorative skills, providing mental health-services, and providing for resident’s rights) of nurse aide students. The study explored the relationship between variables using a non-experimental, associational, and descriptive approach. All the research questions and hypotheses explored the relationship between variables (i.e., motivation and multiple-choice INACE performance) concerning the mean of overall INACE performance and means of INACE performance based on six duty areas using associational inferential statistics (Pearson correlation coefficient r). Keywords: Motivation, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Academic Achievement, Nurse Aide Students, Standardized Multiple-Choice Academic Test, Multiple Choice Questions, Academic Success, and Academic Performance

Higher education institutions are facing a major challenge in retaining 1st-year college students and engaging them in meaningful activities and programs to promote their sense of belonging (Strayhorn, 2012; Astin, 1993). Though a few belonging intervention practices have been studied (Perrell, 2018; Peck, 2011), there is a lack of understanding on the dynamic mechanisms of developing belongingness through a combination of belonging enhancement practices (Yob, 2014). Moreover, there is an urgent need to examine which belonging enhancement practice has the most impact on students' academic performance (Slaten, Elison, Hughes, Youg, & Shemwell, 2015). This study used convergent, parallel mixed-methods design to make meanings from both qualitative and quantitative data on the effect of the service-learning leadership program (SLLP) for 1st-year students at a large, public university on perceived sense of belonging and related academic performance, and the mechanism of the dynamic process. Quantitative data contained 2 parts: the 1st part is university student record data from 2007 to 2018 with total of 2,762 students, and the 2nd part of the data were collected through pre-and post-surveys from total of 262 students in treatment and control groups. Qualitative data were collected from 9 participants through individual interviews, focus group and weekly journals. Quantitative datasets were analyzed through mixed-design MANOVA, mixed-design ANOVA and hierarchical (logistic) multiple regressions, and qualitative data was analyzed through spiral approach. The findings demonstrated that the studied program protected against the decline of sense of belonging in the 1st semester of college year, and it brought more benefits to male and racial minority students as compared to female and racial majority students. Moreover, the findings indicated mentorship and living-learning community practices had the most impact on students' sense of belonging and academic performance, and suggested further improvement for performance feedback, social media and service-learning practice. The results of the study have implications for future institutional interventions and provide comprehensive practical guidelines for belonging enhancement programs for 1st-year students. The conclusions provide recommendations for designing and implementing belonging intervention programs that bring maximum outcomes on students' sense of belonging, retention and academic performance.

Student academic success is a primary concern for schools across the nation. Administrators, school counselors, teachers, and community leaders work together to increase success levels among students K-12. Various studies throughout history have sought to determine the many variables that contribute to academic success. The purpose of this study was to continue adding to the literature base in an effort to identify areas that could impact student academic success. In particular, this study examined whether academic self-efficacy, ethnic identity, sex, and socioeconomic status reliably predicted academic performance among students in Grades 6, 7, and 8. Using a non-experimental, quantitative design, this correlational research study explored the relationships of several variables (academic self-efficacy, ethnic identity, sex, and socioeconomic status) with academic performance of 6th, 7th, and 8th grade adolescents. Grade point averages and scores from the Mississippi Curriculum Test, Second Edition (MCT-2) were obtained from each student’s cumulative record. Students completed the Morgan-Jinks Student Efficacy Scale (Jinks & Morgan, 1999) and the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (Phinney, 1999). Scores from these two assessments, grade point averages, and scores from the MCT-2 were entered into SPSS. After analyzing results with a multiple linear regression analysis, the researcher concluded that a final model, with the two variables of academic self-efficacy and sex, was statistically significant. The researcher concluded that academic self-efficacy and sex might act as buffers for the impact of ethnic identity and socioeconomic status on student academic performance. Results indicated that those students who had higher academic self-efficacy levels had higher grade point averages and MCT-2 levels. Furthermore, differences in sex also play a pertinent part in student academic performance, with girls demonstrating both higher grade point averages and MCT2 scores than boys. Using information gained from this study, school counselors may want to specifically address academic self-efficacy when working with students who are performing poorly academically. Classroom guidance, individual counseling, and small group counseling are the perfect avenues to specifically target this area with students. School counselors may also wish to host developmental workshops geared towards faculty, staff, and parents so that additional revisions can be made in other environments.

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