<p> </p> <p>This dissertation researched the scope of mathematics achievement disparities in the United States and how these disparities can be minimized through a self-efficacy lens. To answer pertinent research questions with data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2019 mathematics assessment in Grades 4, 8, and 12, gap analyses, two-level cross-sectional multilevel modeling, and two-level structural equation modeling were conducted. The discoveries demonstrated that the excellence gaps in U.S. in mathematics achievement by race/ethnicity, gender, NSLP, ELL, and IEP persisted and widened from Grade 4 to Grade 8 yet decreased at Grade 12. Self-efficacy was a noteworthy predictor of students’ mathematics achievement, displaying large effect sizes across grades. The disparities in mathematics achievement by student subgroups lessened when students' self-efficacy was equal. Moreover, self-efficacy mediated the relationships between mastery-approach goals, performance-approach goals, interest, persistence in learning and achievement. Additional results demonstrated that the status of being racially/ethnically underrepresented students partially moderated the connections between motivational variables and mathematics achievement. School locale and the percentage of underrepresented students significantly impacted students’ achievement. This dissertation underscores the importance of self-efficacy in closing mathematics achievement gaps and improving students’ mathematics achievement. </p>

No / This study investigates an inclusive curriculum design based on student-centred approach. This proposed design approach has been applied to Open Channel Hydraulics module (CSE6008-A) at School of Engineering, University of Bradford, United Kingdom. This paper will introduce in step-by-step manner the full curriculum design and how the student-centred approach is being adapted in each step of the design. The required criteria will be designed based on learning outcomes design, curriculum organization, assessment strategies and student achievement evaluation. Besides, a key discussion will also be allocated for the inclusive practice that allows the vastly diverse student group to benefit from this approach, and a separate section will also be utilized to fully discuss this inclusive approach in the proposed curriculum design. This paper proposes a useful student-centred curriculum design concept, which is adaptable for different engineering modules.

<p>Although ABET has outlined educational outcomes to help prepare students with the necessary competencies to succeed in professional engineering practice, it is unclear how confident students are in their professional engineering skills. <i>Competency</i> refers to the<i>“generic, integrated and internalized capability to deliver sustainable effective performance in a certain professional domain, job, role, organizational context, and task situation.” </i>Understanding their competency provides students with a bridge to connect their academic experiences with their ability to perform their workplace duties. To help students assess their competency, I developed the Self-efficacy Inventory for Professional Engineering Competency (SEIPEC), an inventory that aims to measure engineering students’ self-efficacy for professional engineering competencies. Unlike other inventories in engineering that measure the academic experience or other self-efficacy inventories that do not focus on the engineering population, this career assessment is designed for college-level engineering students to evaluate their subjective readiness for successful performance in the workplace. </p> <p>SEIPEC is a tool for students to self-assess their professional competencies, aiming to empower students to become reflective about their learning and increase awareness of workplace competencies. SEIPEC was developed based on the American Association of Engineering Societies’ Engineering Competency Model (ECM). The ECM identifies factors that contribute to self-efficacy for professional engineering competency. ECM was developed using the Delphi method and encompasses a comprehensive list of competency statements that were approved by industry leaders and engineering educators to encapsulate the competencies needed for a professional engineer.</p> <p>The data include 434 complete responses from bachelor’s and master’s students at a Midwest research-intensive university. The sample represents 13 engineering disciplines, such as electrical and computer engineering and mechanical engineering, and includes 282 male and 146 female students, 48 first-generation students, and 63 international students. After the exploratory factor analysis and the confirmatory factor analysis, a four-factor model with 20 competency statements was validated as the measurement for self-efficacy for professional engineering competency. The four factors that contribute to the self-efficacy of professional engineering competency include (a) sustainability and societal impact, (b) health and safety, (c) application of tools and technologies, and (d) engineering economics. </p> <p>The SEIPEC tool has the potential to empower engineering students to reflect upon and connect their academic experience with professional competencies. SEIPEC would provide students with a method to self-evaluate their skills in addition to other assessment methods such as course grades and traditional engineering exams. <a>The results of self-assessment for professional engineering competencies could increase students’ awareness of professional competencies, thus helping students to become more intentional in connecting learning with their professional preparation. </a>Career advisors and counselors can also use this tool to guide career advising conversations revolving around students’ choice to pursue and prepare for engineering as a career path. </p>

abstract: In a contemporary socioeconomic context that pushes universities toward a more neoliberal agenda, some are answering a call to reinvest in the public purpose of higher education. Their strategies increasingly integrate teaching, research, and service through university-community partnerships. Within this movement, several initiatives aim to support a qualitative transformational shift toward a more egalitarian paradigm of collaboration. However, the literature and knowledge-building around these aims is largely insular to higher education and may be insufficient for the task. Thus, this study situates these aspirations in the community development literature and theories of power to better conceptualize and operationalize what is meant by reciprocal, mutually-beneficial approaches to university-community partnerships. First, a theoretically grounded analytical framework was developed using both higher education and community development literatures to build two ideal-typical approaches to community practice characterized by power-over versus power-with. Within power-over, the institution exclusively holds authority, control, and legitimacy. Power-with is built through partnerships that share these elements with communities. Second, the resulting theoretical framework was developed further through a multi-stage deductive-inductive content analysis of written data readily available from university websites about their community partnerships. This process operationalized the framework by identifying and clarifying specific indicators within the power-over and power-with ideal-types. The analytical framework was then compared to the aspirational community empowerment goals found in materials about the Carnegie elective classification for Community Engagement and materials from both the Anchor Initiatives Task Force and Anchor Initiatives Dashboard Learning Cohort. This comparative analysis found that while these initiatives aspire to transform power dynamics between universities and communities, they are vague on the meaning of these practices and their antitheses. This gap in clarity hinders these initiatives from distinguishing transformative work from the status quo, potentially inadvertently allowing the perpetuation of power-over dynamics in university-community partnerships. The more robust analytical framework developed herein will enable these initiatives to better assess the quality of university-community partnerships against the aspirations of equity, social justice, democratic practice, mutual respect, shared authority, and co-creation. Such assessment will enable more effective knowledge-building toward transformational practice. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Community Resources and Development 2018

At a theoretical level the research identifies a conceptual framework for the design of fruitful case discussions in an online environment and at a practical level, the conceptual framework has been used to implement and evaluate several versions of a case-based online course.

Submitted by Maria Suzana Diniz (msuzanad@hotmail.com) on 2015-04-27T12:32:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 5570317 bytes, checksum: 4e81b5c3c090e85d86445e19694d1bc2 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-27T12:32:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 5570317 bytes, checksum: 4e81b5c3c090e85d86445e19694d1bc2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-11-04 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The present study aims at confirming the possibility of quantitative and impersonal accessibility of the buildings for persons with disabilities. The importance of this issue can be highlighted mainly by the global movement for social inclusion of the disabled and the growing elderly population, who are prone to physical disabilities. After proceeding literature review, we analyzed various methods of evaluating accessibility at use in Brazil and other countries, in order to learn about their methodologies and results. We have come to the conclusion that the approach was largely qualitative and grounded in the moral judgment of the evaluators, not allowing the comparison between the compliance of the physical means of accessibility and technical standards or between the buildings analyzed. After this conclusion, we examined the pros and cons of the methods under analysis, proposing a new method, based on the Brazilian technical norms of accessibility and a quantitative structure. The method herein proposed was applied to measure the accessibility of the hotels on the coastline of the city of João Pessoa, who host a considerable number of aged guests. The choice of hotels as a target for evaluation is linked to the emblematic character they have in terms of life quality and cultural development of the elderly and disabled guests in general. The result found shows that, through a numerical indicator, it is possible to evaluate quantitatively and impersonally the degree of accessibility of buildings, allowing comparison and indication of improvement measures. / O presente trabalho buscou comprovar a possibilidade de avaliar, quantitativa e impessoalmente, a acessibilidade ao ambiente construído por parte de pessoas portadoras de necessidades especiais. A importância do tema pode ser ressaltada, principalmente, pelo movimento mundial para a inclusão social do deficiente e pelo crescimento relativo da população de idosos, que se constitui em faixa etária predisposta a deficiências físicas. Através de levantamento bibliográfico, foram analisados vários métodos de avaliação da acessibilidade utilizados no Brasil e em outros países, com o intuito de conhecer suas metodologias e os resultados. Constatou-se que a abordagem, predominantemente qualitativa e calcada no juízo de valor dos avaliadores, não possibilita a comparação da conformidade dos meios físicos de acessibilidade com as normas técnicas ou entre as edificações avaliadas. A partir dessa constatação, foram considerados os aspectos positivos e negativos dos métodos analisados e se propôs um novo método, calcado na normativa técnica de acessibilidade brasileira e numa estrutura quantitativa. O método proposto para mensurar a acessibilidade foi aplicado em hotéis da orla marítima da cidade de João Pessoa, que apresentam uma frequência importante de pessoas idosas. A escolha de hotéis como alvo da avaliação se deve ao seu caráter emblemático, em termos de qualidade de vida e de desenvolvimento cultural dos idosos e dos deficientes em geral. O resultado encontrado demonstrou que, através de um indicador numérico, é possível avaliar, quantitativa e impessoalmente, o grau de acessibilidade das edificações, permitindo a comparação e a indicação das medidas de melhoria.

In our modern society we are exposed to many natural and synthetic chemicals. The assessment of chemicals with regard to human safety is difficult but nevertheless of high importance. Beside clinical studies, which are restricted to potential pharmaceuticals only, most toxicity data relevant for regulatory decision-making are based on in vivo data. Due to the ban on animal testing of cosmetic ingredients in the European Union, alternative approaches, such as in vitro and in silico tests, have become more prevalent. In this thesis existing non-testing approaches (i.e. studies without additional experiments) have been extended, e.g. QSAR models, and new non-testing approaches, e.g. in vitro data supported structural alert systems, have been created. The main aspect of the thesis depends on the determination of data quality, improving modelling performance and supporting Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) with definitions of structural alerts and physico-chemical properties. Furthermore, there was a clear focus on the transparency of models, i.e. approaches using algorithmic feature selection, machine learning etc. have been avoided. Furthermore structural alert systems have been written in an understandable and transparent manner. Beside the methodological aspects of this work, cosmetically relevant examples of models have been chosen, e.g. skin penetration and hepatic steatosis. Interpretations of models, as well as the possibility of adjustments and extensions, have been discussed thoroughly. As models usually do not depict reality flawlessly, consensus approaches of various non-testing approaches and in vitro tests should be used to support decision-making in the regulatory context. For example within read-across, it is feasible to use supporting information from QSAR models, docking, in vitro tests etc. By applying a variety of models, results should lead to conclusions being more usable/acceptable within toxicology. Within this thesis (and associated publications) novel methodologies on how to assess and employ statistical data quality and how to screen for potential liver toxicants have been described. Furthermore computational tools, such as models for skin permeability and dermal absorption, have been created.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-03-17T12:56:13Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Tese revisão final [Versão depósito final][BC-UFPE].pdf: 2528363 bytes, checksum: 99d4fa704cc64483de84dde6af9ff39d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-17T12:56:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Tese revisão final [Versão depósito final][BC-UFPE].pdf: 2528363 bytes, checksum: 99d4fa704cc64483de84dde6af9ff39d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-07 / O trabalho busca descrever a articulação entre avaliação interna e externa a partir da perspectiva tecnológica, política e cultural e como essa articulação condiciona ou provoca mudanças na concepção de avaliação institucional no AVALIES. O referencial teórico-metodológico do estudo foi realizado à luz do modelo teórico das “perspectivas de inovação educativa” de House (1994), que propõe a tridimensionalidade da avaliação. A análise foi complementada pela teoria de avaliação democrática de MacDonald (1995). O direcionamento do estudo voltou-se para a análise de um dos três instrumentos de avaliação do SINAES, a Avaliação das Instituições de Educação Superior (AVALIES), centro de referência e articulação do sistema formado pela avaliação interna, coordenada pela Comissão Própria de Avaliação (CPA) na IES, e a avaliação externa, realizada por comissões designadas pelo Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Educacionais (INEP). Ambas as avaliações seguem as diretrizes estabelecidas pela Comissão Nacional de Avaliação da Educação Superior (CONAES). Os dados que constituíram o corpus da pesquisa foram obtidos por meio da coleta de documentos, observação de campo e a realização de entrevistas semiestruturadas em três Instituições Federais de Educação Superior (IFES), no INEP e na CONAES. Quanto ao tratamento dos dados coletados procurou-se caracterizar e agrupá-los consoante uma perspectiva de categorização – técnica de análise temática ou categorial, para desvelar os diferentes núcleos de sentido que constituem a comunicação, e posteriormente, realizar o seu reagrupamento em classes ou categorias. Problematizar o AVALIES significa buscar compreender como a perspectiva da melhoria da qualidade da educação influencia a necessidade de ampliar as fronteiras da avaliação, para que possa ser aplicada de modo efetivo ao campo da educação superior. Os resultados mostraram que o formato gerencial que o AVALIES assume em seu arcabouço normativo e em seu processo de implementação altera a concepção de avaliação institucional, pois nesse âmbito o desenho da avaliação inibe a ampliação das formas de participação e o envolvimento democrático dos agentes/segmentos da comunidade universitária nas IES e da sociedade civil, bem como restringe a adoção de procedimentos metodológicos que viabilizem o diálogo e a articulação entre as IES, a sociedade e o Estado, revelando a cultura do silenciamento, da neutralidade, da burocratização e do formalismo em torno dos processos de avaliação interna e externa. Constatou-se que, no SINAES, o Estado tende a estabelecer os parâmetros do AVALIES em detrimento da comunidade universitária e da sociedade civil, para legitimar a adoção e gestão de políticas públicas de avaliação voltadas aos novos moldes da regulação e modernização das Instituições de Educação Superior. Também assume a responsabilidade de ordenar e controlar a adoção do modelo e dos processos de avaliação, desvirtuando a concepção de avaliação institucional democrática e comprometendo a coerência avaliativa entre a dimensão nacional e a especificidade de cada instituição avaliada. / It aims to understand the articulation between internal and external evaluation from the technological, political and cultural perspectives, as well as how it conditions or transforms the conception of institutional evaluation. House’s theoretical model of “educative innovation perspectives" and the MacDonald’s “democratic evaluation theory” compound the theoretical framework of the study. Empirically, it focus on the AVALIES (Evaluation of Higher Education Institutions), formed, on the one hand, by the internal evaluation, coordinated by the Institutional Assessment Commission (CPA) and, on the other hand, the external evaluation, carried out by commissions appointed by the National Institute for Educational Research (INEP). Documents, field observation and semi-structured interviews carried out in three Federal Universities, INEP and CONAES formed the research data. The data analysis sought to characterize and group them according to a classification perspective e thematic categorical analysis technique, to unveil the different units of meaning that make up the communication, and subsequently realize its reunification in classes or categories. The results have showed the management design that AVALIES assumes in its regulatory framework and implementation process, changes the design of institutional evaluation. This happens because evaluation design inhibited wide participation and democratic involvement of academic community and civil society, and limited the adoption of methodological procedures that can enable dialogue and articulation between HEIs, society and the state, showing the culture of silencing, of neutrality, bureaucratization and formalism in around the internal and external evaluation processes. In the SINAES, the state tends to establish the AVALIES parameters at the expense of the academic community and civil society, to legitimize the adoption and management of public policy evaluation geared to new patterns of regulation and modernization of the HEI. The state also responsibility for ordering and controlling the assessment processes, distorting the concept of democratic institutional evaluation and compromising the evaluative coherence between the national and institutional dimension of evaluation.

<p>Critique is an essential skill of professional designers to communicate success and failure of a design with others. For graphic design educators, including critique in their pedagogical approaches enables students to improve both their design capability and critique skills. Adaptive Comparative Judgment (ACJ) is an innovative approach of assessment where students and instructors make comparisons between two designs and choose the better of the two. The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences between instructors’ and students’ critiquing practices. The data was collected through think-aloud protocol methods while both groups critiqued the same design projects. </p> <p>The results indicate that it took students longer to finish the same amount of critiques as those completed by instructors. Students spent more time describing their personal feelings, evaluating each individual design, and looking for the right phrases to precisely express their thoughts on a design. Instructors, with more teaching experience, were able to complete the critique more quickly and justify their critique decisions more succinctly with efficient use of terminology and a reliance on their instincts. </p>

<p>The Elon Research Seminar, <i>Critical Transitions: Writing and the Question of Transfer</i>, was a coalition of rhetoric and composition scholars’ attempt at codifying writing transfer knowledge for teaching and research purposes. Although the seminar was an important leap in transfer research, many ‘behind the scenes’ decisions of writing transfer, often those not involving the writing program, go unnoticed, yet play a pivotal role in how writing programs encourage and reproduce writing transfer in the classroom. This dissertation study, inspired by a pilot study conducted in Fall 2018 on writing across the curriculum programs and their role in writing transfer, illustrates how an institution’s context systems (e.g., macrosystem, mesosystem, microsystem, etc.) affect writing programs’ processes—i.e., curriculum components, assessment, and administrative structure and budget—and vice versa. Using Bronfenbrenner and Morris’ (2006) bioecological model, I show how writing programs and their context systems interact to reproduce writing transfer practices. Through ten interviews with writing program administrators at state comprehensive universities, I delineate specific actions that each writing program could take to encourage writing transfer. I develop a list of roles and responsibilities a university’s context systems play in advocating writing transfer practices. The results of the study show that research beyond the writing classroom and students is necessary to understand how writing transfer opportunities arise in university cultures of writing.</p>