Senior high school students in a Human Biology course were given college level work through the Phase Achievement System (PAS), a biology course at Brigham Young University (BYU). Statistical analysis showed significant growth in high school student learning through the PAS. When ability to work with PAS was measured, significant differences between the high school and college groups were not evident. A high percentage of college and high school students dropped out of the PAS, probably becasue students could fail at the PAS without experiencing academic failure.

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<p><strong>Background: </strong>Internationally, simulation has been widely used as a teaching strategy in nursing programs. In Ontario, Canada, simulation has gained increasing acceptance and use in nursing education and has been met with a parallel investment of resources. Current literature offers insights into individual-level factors that contribute to the adoption and incorporation of simulation but there is a lack of understanding of how organizational factors shape this this educational strategy.</p> <p><strong>Objective: </strong>The purpose of this grounded theory study was to create a mid-range explanatory theory that describes how the organizational cultures of undergraduate nursing programs shape the adoption and incorporation of mid- to high-level simulation as a teaching and learning strategy.</p> <p><strong>Methods: </strong>Constructivist grounded theory was used to guide this research.</p> <p><strong>Results:</strong> A seven-phase process related to adopting and incorporating simulation into nursing curricula was uncovered. Sites that moved through the phases of the process and integrated simulation into all levels of the curriculum were classified as high-uptake. The level of uptake of simulation by nursing programs influenced the potential outcomes. From the findings, a theory was developed: the Organizational Elements that Shape Simulation in Nursing (OESSN) that includes five key organizational elements that shape the adoption and incorporation of simulation in nursing curricula.</p> <p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>This theory provides nursing programs with insight about the core organizational concepts that influence the adoption and incorporation of simulation within their curricula. The OESSN highlights the organizational elements to be cognizant of when adopting and incorporating simulation and perhaps other technological innovations within nursing curricula.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Community colleges continue to experience high levels of student attrition and low degree/certificate completion rates. Given extant literature, there appears to be a need to reexamine how interactions between students and the institution, and students and institutional agents are taking place, with the aim of identifying institutional practices that deleteriously or positively impact degree completion and thus guide colleges to develop action plans to improve conditions for student success. This study examined how factors such as institutional commitment to students, mattering, sense of belonging, interactions with diverse peers, perceptions of the campus climate, engagement/involvement, socio-academic integrative experiences, and goal commitment collectively affected community college students’ intent to persist to degree completion. The proposed model tested the tenability of seven propositions examining how the above constructs interact to influence intent to persist. The sample consisted of 2,088 multiply diverse community college students. The conceptual model was grounded on Astin’s (1991) Input-Environment-Outcome model and was tested in the context of structural equation modeling. Multiple group invariance analyses for race/ethnicity were conducted. The conceptual model explained 28% of the variance on intent to persist for Asian students, 21% for White students, and 19% for Latino/a students. Results indicated that transition support from family/friends exerted the highest effect on intent to persist across all racial/ethnic groups, followed by engagement/involvement, perceptions of mattering, interactions with diverse peers, GPA, goal commitment, and socio-academic integrative experiences, albeit varying by group. This study was the first in the literature to empirically demonstrate a causal effect between institutional commitment to students and perceptions of mattering. Mattering, in turn, exerted a moderate to strong influence on engagement/involvement, socio-academic integrative experiences, sense of belonging, and indirectly on intent to persist. Evidence in support of an omnibus “student development and success” construct, as alluded to by Wolf-Wendel, et al. (2009) is also presented. Of import to these findings is that while this construct explained a significant proportion of the variance for engagement/involvement, belonging, mattering, and interactions with diverse peers, the individual factors exerted an independent effect on intent to persist. Implications for theory, research, and practice are also discussed.

Agricultural educators encounter unique teaching challenges as they teach applications of plant production in the greenhouse classroom. The teacher self-efficacy construct has been used broadly to link student learning outcomes to teachers' beliefs in their ability to attain certain instructional goals in the classroom. Few studies have used this construct to examine teacher-efficacy in the greenhouse classroom. This study uses the teacher self-efficacy construct within the agricultural educator domain. It seeks to measure change in agricultural educator self-efficacy beliefs using established self-efficacy scales to determine if a professional development experience in greenhouse operation and management effects educator beliefs in their ability to teach in the greenhouse classroom.

The need to recruit quality professors into research-1 institutions continues to be a priority among American universities (Solem & Foote, 2004), but the ability to retain them is another story. The tenure process is quite demanding in such institutions where much emphasis is often placed on high quality research and publishing in reputable peer-reviewed journals (Boyer, 1992; DeFleur, 2007). Some scholars have identified faculty-to-faculty mentoring as one of many things institutions can promote to motivate beginning faculty to persist and complete the tenure process (Boice, 1991). On the other, others feel such activities are not necessary (Selby & Calhoun, 1998). Faculty-to-faculty mentoring could be beneficial, but institutions should have a tool to assess whether faculty members desire to receive mentoring. The literature review revealed that fields in social sciences lack well-developed quantitative data collection tool for such purposes. This study was, therefore, carried out to develop an instrument to fill that gap, especially in the era of data-driven decision making models. The new provides a foundation for other researchers to build on. The Rasch-Andrich Rating Scale model was applied in the item investigation and calibration. Response rate was 45.57% and the majority of respondents agreed that faculty-to-faculty mentoring is beneficial to faculty members who are on the tenure track.

Merit-based financial aid has long been utilized by college and university enrollment managers to attract the most academically qualified applicants for admission. Considerable research has been done to illustrate the impact of state-based merit aid programs and other scholarly pursuits have drawn attention to the consequences of merit aid on institutional investments in need-based aid. Less is known about the efficacy of merit aid to achieve college student enrollment objectives. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between merit aid values and the likelihood of undergraduate student enrollment yield on offers of admission. The primary research question to be answered was: What is the relationship between the amount of merit aid students receive from a college or university and their enrollment decisions? The sample comprised 2,770 students at three private higher education institutions in the United States. Binary logistic regression and a forward selection process were used to test a range of possible predictors (e.g., sex, race, ethnicity, in-state residency, distance from home, academic qualifications, merit aid awards, and information from the financial aid applications of those offered admission) to determine the relative strength of merit aid in the prediction of student enrollment yield on offers of admission. The amount of merit aid offered was positively related to the likelihood of a student to enroll, even when academic qualifications and other student characteristics were controlled.

Academic coaching has demonstrated positive relationships with college students' academic engagement and performance. A university campus in Puerto Rico implemented academic coaching for at-risk students, but the program has not been studied for its impact on student engagement. Guided by self-regulation theory and constructivism, this quasi-experimental study examined differences in engagement and identification of best teaching behaviors between students who experienced academic coaching (n = 115) and those who did not (n = 55). Students completed the Classroom Survey of Student Engagement (CLASSE) before and after the 4-week instructional unit and the Instructor Behavior Checklist (IBC) after the instructional unit. The data from the CLASSE and IBC were analyzed using mixed analysis of variance for engagement activities and student identification of effective teaching practices. There were no significant findings relating academic coaching to engagement; however, the experimental group identified significantly more best teaching practices used by their instructor. A Pearson correlation also yielded a significant positive relationship between students' engagement and the identification of instructor best practices. Based on these findings, a professional development program was created for instructors, which fosters student engagement and learning by encouraging instructor best practices through a classroom coaching model. The findings from this study may promote positive social change by helping to prepare faculty to integrate academic coaching and best teaching practices related to student engagement.