This research study attempts to analyze variables that influence the extent of faculty involvement in learning communities. A theoretical framework identifies three primary variable sets—faculty background, structural, and organizational/environmental.

The purpose of this study was to produce a taxonomy of institutional effectiveness literature for public colleges and universities. The study was a theoretical and comprehensive analysis of the extant literature on institutional effectiveness from 1970 to the present. Conceptually, the study was an exploratory examination of the literature. It provides a framework for refining future institutional effectiveness research investigations, educational evaluation studies, or other assessment activities for colleges and universities. The study contained no a priori hypothesis or research questions in the traditional sense. The following objectives guided the study: 1. To determine characteristics of institutional effectiveness studies. 2. To determine institutional effectiveness measures applied as criteria for evaluation. 3. To determine if the measures reported as similar in the literature are the same upon assignment to the taxonomy. 4. To determine what independent variables are identified in the literature on institutional effectiveness. 5. To identify the various definitions of institutional effectiveness terms presented in the literature. 6. To determine the extent various literature addresses similar issues. 7. To determine if elements of effectiveness characteristics have been omitted or overlooked in the literature. 8. To detect and report trends, similarities, and conflicts existing in the literature. The literature items for the study were identified through queries into printed or computerized indexes. Published literature not indexed was also identified to the extent possible and was included in the study. Books, articles, monographs, or essays written on institutional effectiveness issues make up the study population. Five-hundred-thirty-one separate literature items were identified for the period. Journal articles, ERIC documents, and books were reviewed, separated into distinct classes and a taxonomy developed. Each literature item was assigned to a specific taxonomy classification by major subject content and by dimension. The literature items were also identified as to literature form, i.e., study, narrative, or opinion items. Further, a computerized database was created containing the literature items. The database was separated into three distinct files, one file for higher education, literature, one file for four-year college/university literature, and one file for community, junior, and technical college literature. Within the data files each item was numbered and coded by its taxonomy classification number and dimension. The items in each data file also contain a document identification number, author, title, publication date, abstract, and other relevant data. / Ed. D.

A case study approach was adopted for this study. Four Taiwanese students enrolled in the writing program for international students at The University of Arizona were interviewed individually about (1) how they acquired the code of written English and what their L2 writing assumptions were upon entering The University of Arizona; and (2) what writing difficulties they experienced in a university writing program for international students and what their L2 writing assumptions were after completing a university writing program for international students. Findings from this research indicated that the four Taiwanese students did not have sufficient comprehensible input from pleasure reading or other voluntary, extracurricular sources. They acquired the code of written language from reading, participating in varied classroom activities such as small-group and whole-class discussions, peer review, teacher-student conferences, writing texts to different audiences for various purposes, analyzing model essays, practicing sentence combinations, and formal instruction in the composing process. Their writing difficulties could be summarized as follows: (1) not making good use of classroom activities to reshape ideas in terms of readers' expectations and their own writing intentions; (2) lack of experience to develop necessary reading and writing skills; (3) inadequate knowledge of the composing process; (4) inadequate syntax, vocabulary, or mechanics to express themselves in L2; (5) being influenced by their L1 rhetorical convention; (6) no intrinsic motivation to integrate with the target language, culture, or society; and (7) low expectations of success related to negative or weak teacher-student relationships. This research both reinforces and expands Krashen's (1984) model of second language acquisition and writing, showing the critical role of comprehensible input, the significance of natural acquisition over direct teaching of grammar rules and error correction, and the presence of an "affective" filter which is socially and culturally mediated, as well as cognitively and linguistically based.

This study identified and examined individual, group, institutional, and other factors and conditions associated with the founding and development of private higher education institutions designed to serve religious groups, women, black Americans, native Americans, and Hispanic Americans. A number of distinct influencing social conditions were identified. Distinctness was due to different group needs and circumstances during certain American historical periods. Common social conditions found included need for culturally sensitive institutions, pervasiveness of religious interests in founding attempts, social exclusion and discrimination, population growth and urbanization, democratic opportunity, federal government pervasiveness, and social consciousness change. Fifty-four specific factors associated with the founding and development of institutions were identified. Analysis revealed many complex interrelationships among social, individual, group, institutional and other miscellaneous factors and conditions existing in collegiate institution founding and development efforts. These factors created many variables that could affect the success of the institutions. Forty-two of the fifty-four factors were judged to be important elements for those contemporarily considering founding collegiate institutions. General conclusions: (1) Institutions best able to deal with the many complex factors were most likely to succeed. (2) The more support and (3) confidence institutions could generate, the better their chances for survival. (4) Institutional and community cohesion were important in achieving permanency. (5) Many institutions were created because of perceived socio-economic, political, cultural, and educational inequities. (6) Social groups addressed higher educational needs after increased awareness of their social conditions. (7) Sociocultural differences existed in group approaches to provision of higher education. (8) Regarding effectiveness in founding, groups ranked as follows; religious groups, women, black Americans, native Americans, and Hispanic Americans. (9) Religious denominations were very involved in founding efforts for three of the groups studied, minimally involved with native Americans, least involved with Hispanic Americans. (10) Religious affiliated institutions generally served socio-economic and religious needs of constituents; this was not evident with the Roman Catholic Church and Hispanic Americans. (11) Educated leadership was essential in founding efforts. (12) High dissatisfaction with existing institutions prompted private founding attempts.

The purpose of this study was to describe the passage of the Higher Education Act of 1965, and to evaluate faculty development programs at selected black institutions in light of the objectives and guidelines established for the use of Title III funds.

The percentage of women who receive doctorates has increased by over 300 percent during the past three decades. The consequences of pursuing the Ph.D. degree have always been far reaching and profound, serving as an impetus and springboard for the reconfiguration of one's beliefs, values, and professional life. The purposes of this national study were to ascertain and describe marital and social changes that occurred in the lives of women who were awarded the Ph.D. degree at midlife. A questionnaire was distributed to a sample of three-hundred women who hold the Ph.D. degree and were employed in institutions of higher education in the United States. The study sought to identify the effects of the Ph.D. experience upon the marital relationships, friendships, and social activities of women who completed the degree between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five. Demographic data were collected which were related to their marital status before, during, and after the Ph.D. experience. Both closed and open-ended questions were posed which solicited information pertaining to their post Ph.D. experience. This research reports both quantitative and qualitative findings. The majority of women who complete the Ph.D. experience at midlife undergo and initiate changes in their lives which impact their relationships and activities. Many of these changes are the result of employment which follows the award rather than the degree itself. While some women experience negative effects in some areas of their lives, overall, the findings of this study suggest that changes are perceived positively by the majority of women who receive the Ph.D. at midlife.

Within the last decade, continuous quality improvement (CQI) has been embraced by higher education management. An important component of the quality philosophy is to institute training for everyone: faculty, administrators, staff and students—in order to achieve a cultural transformation. The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the implementation characteristics of CQI training programs and to determine whether or not and to what degree relationships exist between these characteristics and training program effectiveness, as perceived by selected individuals at two- and four-year colleges in the United States. A survey instrument was designed to elicit the perceptions of both the chief administrators and those quality professionals who are charged with the training process as they relate to specific implementation characteristics such as training content needed to convey the appropriate philosophy, program implementation processes, and the perceived effectiveness of the respondents' quality training program. A 21-item questionnaire was used to gather the data from a sample of 524 individuals at two- and four-year colleges in the United States. The dependent variables in the study related to items addressing program effectiveness based on four types of program evaluation, and the independent variables related to specific implementation characteristics. Spearman correlation matrices were executed to test the relationships between and among implementation characteristics and between the four levels of evaluation. Multiple regression analyses were computed to determine which and to what extent implementation characteristics accounted for variation in each of the four measures of effectiveness. Analyses revealed that using a variety of philosophies, tools and content segments, providing training in quality awareness, team leadership, management and leadership, and assessment, using internal trainers, and the extent of staff and faculty support accounted for the largest proportions of variance. The statistical results for the two hypotheses which were derived from the research questions were also reported.

This study attempted to locate some possible sources of oral Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) among Japanese students in the United States. This study proposed that the following three factors were possible sources of FLA: 1) the subjects' traitlike anxiety, which is carried by individuals across all communication-bound contexts; 2) the subjects' self-perceived oral proficiency levels in English and 3) the subjects' gapsize (i.e., the distance between their self-perceived and their self-expected oral proficiency levels in English) . This research examined whether the above three independent variables and the dependent FLA variable were significantly correlated, and if so, which one had the strongest correlation with the FLA variable. Also, whether the subjects' biographical variables had a significant effect on their FLA levels was investigated. All the variables were quantified through a questionnaire. The subjects' FLA levels and traitlike anxiety levels were measured by a 10-item, Personal Report of Communication Apprehension inventory (PRCA, Mccroskey, 1978). The subjects' self-perceived oral proficiency levels were measured by asking the subjects to rate their self-perceived oral proficiency level from 1 (poor) to 5 (fluent). The gapsize was quantified by asking the subjects to rate it on a scale from 1 (minimal) to 5 (maximal). The statistical methodology used in obtaining the PRCA scores in this study differed from McCroskey's in its interpretation of Likert type scales. The scales were treated as interval data in McCroskey's study, while, in this study, they were interpreted as ordinal data. After hierarchically ordering the subjects' answers, non-parametric tests were performed on them. Overall, each of the three variables and the FLA variable were found to be significantly correlated at p < .01. The traitlike anxiety variable, the proficiency variable and the gapsize variable correlated at .46, -.45 and -.33, respectively. The participants' demographic variables (age, gender, status at school or year(s) of residence in English speaking places) did not have a significant effect on their FLA levels. A discussion of the results was provided, with references to previous studies.

Chinese students learning English as a foreign language seem to get good marks in tests, but are poor or limited in their ability to write in English. This dilemma of China's EFL writing instruction seems to be related to the decontextualized EFL writing practices. This study aims to examine how Chinese EFL college students respond to changes in their writing instruction that pays attention to the context of EFL teaching and learning. In this study, context refers to three levels: linguistic context, situational context and cultural context. Using the mixed methods approach, I conducted the study by engaging 60 second-year undergraduate students from a university in China and five Chinese students studying in a joint program in a university in the United States. The Write-to-learn Model based on my context-oriented framework was used in the study. The findings of the study show that following a 5-month training with the Write-to-learn Model, the experimental group improved significantly more than the control group with respect to English writing, indicating that adding context to EFL teaching and learning created positive writing outcomes for EFL students. In addition, the results of this study also demonstrate that the Chinglish phenomenon was related to decontextualized EFL writing practices and thought patterns resulting from culture. Adequate comprehensible input of authentic materials was found to be a good remedy to minimize EFL students' Chinglish expressions. This study found that the Write-to-learn Model was an effective approach in China's EFL writing classes.

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