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Master of Arts (MA)

<p> One of the most pressing concerns that universities and colleges face today is the drug and alcohol abuse of students. In order to address this, there is a need to strengthen university policies in order to mitigate the increasing rate and cases of drug and alcohol abuse among students. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between college students&rsquo; level of awareness of policy, procedure, and interventions on drug and alcohol abuse and their reported drug alcohol use in a selected university. Specifically, this study examined how aware 160 first- to fourth-year college students are regarding the drug and alcohol policies, procedures, and interventions implemented on their college campus. The researcher asked 14 research questions to determine the relationships between students&rsquo; reported alcohol and drug use and factors including: awareness of alcohol drug policies and procedures, year level in college, age, ethnic group, marital status, gender, current residence, working status, living arrangement, cumulative GPA, the availability of drugs and alcohol at college parties, student enrollment status, family history of alcohol, and time spent volunteering per month. The researcher administered the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey (CADS) to measure these variables. The results indicated that the factors that had a significant relationship with alcohol and drug use were the awareness of campus policies, marital status, availability of drugs and alcohol at parties, student status, and hours spent volunteering. The rest of the variables did not have a significant relationship to the students&rsquo; alcohol and drug use. These results will contribute to more effective alcohol and drug prevention and treatment programs for students that address these significant factors. </p>

<p> This dissertation addresses 12 questions related to an overall investigation designed to determine if there is a relationship between teacher perceptions of professional development and student achievement in rural Maryland. During an era of federal, state, and local education reform, lessons learned could help dramatically redesign professional development for the future. &ldquo;Pedagogical Content Knowledge&rdquo; (PCK) coined in 1986 by Lee Shulman, a past president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and the 1995 book written by Stephen Brookfield <i>Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher </i> helped to form the conceptual framework of this study. </p><p> Twelve elements relating to professional development were part of the questions on the Teaching, Empowering, Leading, and Learning (TELL) Maryland Survey of 2011 and 2013. The change in these TELL Maryland Survey teacher perceptions was correlated with the change in student High School Assessment (HSA) senior exit exam results for the same time period. Data were included from 79% (11,365 of 14,368) of teachers in 80% (63 of 79) of all rural high schools in Maryland that reported HSA senior exit exam data and responded at a 50% or higher rate on both studied years of the TELL Maryland Survey. </p><p> After analyzing statewide data, disaggregated by five regions, it was determined that three professional development elements had positive correlations and nine had negative correlations, although none of these were statistically significant. Those elements that correlated most positively with student achievement (with shortened titles used in the study) were collaboration, reflect(ion), and time. The literature review provided insight into some possible reasons for these results.</p>

Class of 2007 Abstract / Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine the need for an integrative medicine continuing education (CE) program for pharmacists and what pharmacists are looking for in such a CE program. Methods: A focus group was conducted with four pharmacists. They were led on a discussion about their experiences with alternative/herbal medicines and desire to learn more, opinions on CE for pharmacists, and compensation for CE credits. The members of the focus group were also given a demographics questionnaire about their gender, age, years in practice, and practice setting. Results: The focus group thought that most pharmacists would want to learn more about integrative medicine, including alternative and herbal products. They would like to have a CE program that is structured around disease states and presents evidence based medicine. It was agreed that inclusion of law CE credits would make the program more desirable. The length of the program could be between 2 hours (if presented on-line) to an entire day (if conducted with presentations). The major limitation in this study was the generalizability of the results due to the small size of the focus group and its members being form the same practice site. Conclusions: It was determined that there is a need for an integrative medicine CE program for pharmacists. If remuneration is sought for the program, then pharmacists will expect certification upon completion. More studies should be conducted to determine the ideal content in herbal/alternative medicine CE programs.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine if urban universities truly support faculty in carrying out the universities' self-stated commitment to professional service. Professional service refers to significant professional activities outside the categories of teaching and scholarship that draw upon one's professional expertise in his or her academic discipline. A secondary purpose was to identify the incentives universities employ to encourage professional service.;Two public, urban universities in Virginia were studied for this project. The population for this study consisted of two groups at each of the two institutions: full-time faculty currently involved (within the past five years) in professional service activity and the continuing education administrator.;The case study approach was used and included content analysis of institutional documents related to professional service and survey analysis.;The main research question addressed was: at institutions which claim professional service as central to their mission, are there incentives or rewards for faculty participation? Five subsidiary research questions were also addressed: (1) Do institutions clearly define professional service? (2) Do institutions have clear cut incentives and rewards for professional service? (3) Are there negative consequences for faculty who engage in professional service? (4) Do institutional policies exist for evaluating professional service? (5) Do institutional leaders actively support professional service?;It was concluded that few incentives exist for faculty who choose to participate in professional service activity. From the perspective of the faculty respondents, this mission of continuing education and professional service as well as other non-research roles are not attractive areas to devote much professional time to, as the time spent on such activities competes with research time and instructional activity which represent greater potential for personal reward. Also, it was concluded that the definition and policy for professional service are often fragmented and vague.;The generalizability of the findings are limited because the faculty participants in this study hold appointments at public, urban universities. Similar studies including a larger number of faculty participants employed at different kinds of institutions would be helpful. Also, further study is needed on specific criteria for evaluating faculty professional service and the leadership role for professional service within the institution.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of an early contact program on the achievement, persistence, and satisfaction of new underprepared community college students. While open door admissions policies assure access to higher education, nearly three-fourths of all community college students leave before completing an associate degree. The traditional sink or swim approach to community college student success is at odds with the goal of improved student outcomes. It was hypothesized that first-time underprepared community college students who participate in a program providing personal contact and support exhibit greater achievement, persistence, and satisfaction than their cohorts who are left to seek their own assistance from the institution. Using a posttest-only control group design, 240 college entrants at an urban community college in eastern Virginia, were randomly selected and assigned to two groups. The treatment consisted of college-initiated telephone counseling, academic advising, and peer tutoring with students during their first semester. Using the one-tailed t-test for independent samples and chi square test of association, it was found that at the end of 15 weeks, students (n = 108) who participated an the early contact program achieved significantly higher average GPA (t = 3.7, p {dollar}<{dollar}.05), number of productive grades (t = 3.24), and number of college credits (t = 4.46). Program participants were retained in college at an average rate of 17 percent higher than those who did not participate. However, administration of the ACT Student Opinion Survey to both groups near the end of the first semester, found no significant difference in their satisfaction with the college. It was concluded that the early contact program was more effective in promoting achievement and persistence than the usual passive treatment given entering students at Thomas Nelson Community College.

Continued improvement of the training and preparation of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agents is critical to the organization's ability to protect the national security of the United States. Too little attention has been paid to the factors that improve new agent trainees' (NATs) ability to learn and succeed in their training programs. Based on the theories of reflective thinking and emotional intelligence, this nonexperimental, correlational study explored predictors of NATs' (N = 183) performance in problem-based exercises as part of the 20-week training program. Self-report instruments measured levels of critical reflection (CR), emotional intelligence (EQ), and perceived ability (PA). An established performance measure collected instructor-observed performance (OP) scores. Regression analysis tested the relationships of CR and EQ with OP but yielded no statistical significance. Due to concerns about the measure of OP, a second analysis revealed significance with PA scores for EQ (b = .193, p = <.001) only. Preparing effective special agents to respond to the challenges of a volatile global environment is a priority of the FBI and contributes to positive social change, as its mission is to ensure the safety and security of the United States. The main conclusion from the study was that a better measure of performance is needed to study the impact of CR and EQ on trainees. When measured more effectively, characteristics of trainees may be relevant to improving performance.

According to Knowles's theory of andragogy, the principles of adult learning are the need to know, self-directedness, the role of experience, intrinsic motivation, and readiness to learn. Whereas references in the andragogical literature have assumed that the principles uniformly apply to adults of all ages, differences between adult age groups may influence the effectiveness of the principles on adult learning. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate which adult age group was most accepting of the principles so that more effective teaching may occur. Three adult age groups, emerging adults (18-25), young adults (26-39), and mature adults (40-59) were studied, guided by three research questions. The first two questions addressed the degree of acceptance of andragogical principles and student satisfaction by the three age groups, and the third addressed the degree to which age and acceptance of andragogical principles predicted student course satisfaction. Using a cross-sectional, quantitative design, a convenience sample of 59 college students completed an electronic, web-based, Likert-scale survey. Multivariate analysis of variance, analysis of variance, and multiple regression analyses examined the relationships between the three age groups, andragogical principles, and student course satisfaction. Although there was no difference between the age groups and the acceptance of the andragogical principles or student course satisfaction, age combined with acceptance of andragogical principles was predictive of student course satisfaction. The social change implications are that educators should continue to implement the current principles across all adult age groups when designing learning environments and opportunities to improve the quality of educational instruction for one of the fastest growing student populations, the adult learner.

In 1961, Cyril O. Houle, Professor of Education at The University of Chicago, conducted a qualitative study on why adults return to adult education classes. This study was the first of many studies to be conducted in the last twenty-six years. Most of the motivational research flows from Houle's three factor typology. This typology describes the motivations for adults returning to education as either "goal" oriented, "activity" oriented or "learning" oriented. Studies conducted since Houle's, by Sheffield, Burgess, Boshier and others have identified more orientations than did Houle. Boshier (1971) developed the Education Participation Scale (EPS) to identify the orientations of adults returning to adult education classes. This study used the EPS to determine if the orientation of ninety-nine adults enrolled in an adult education program in Northeast Indiana, compared to the orientations of adults who have taken the EPS worldwide. Five of the participants of the adult education program were interviewed over a five month time period to obtain their judgments on why adults return to formal educational settings. These interviews were analyzed for trends, themes and similarities and differences in the content.Findings1. The ninety-nine participants taking the EPS did differ from those participants who had taken the EPS worldwide.2. There were no topics raised in interviews that differed from the topics present in the EPS or existing factors in the EPS.3. Four of the five participants interviewed generally fit Houle's (1961) definitions of "goal" oriented adults. One participant fit Houle's definition of a "learning" oriented adult.Conclusions1. Although the interview data brought about no specific conclusions there were recommendations for further study in the area of motivational orientations of adult students.