<p>Graduate students are a critical part of academia and the academic environment. However, literature suggests that graduate students, as a community, are also experiencing concerns with mental well-being.</p> <p>  Increasingly stressful life situations and academic rigor as well as a culture of celebrating overwork and the stress of academia, have been linked as contributors toward mental distress and a general decline in well-being for graduate students.</p> <p>  One of the biggest factors in determining the success and well-being of graduate students is their faculty adviser. </p> <p>  A supportive adviser that is well matched to a student's interests and working style can likely lead to the graduate students being more likely to graduate, to have increased scholarly output, and to find a job after graduation. It stands, then, that faculty advisers may also have an effect on the mental well-being of their students.</p> <p>  However, there is currently a lack of information about how students match with the mentoring and management styles of their advisors as well as how they may find surrogate support systems, such as social media, to persevere during their graduate program or what support gaps they might fill with online communities.</p> <p>  Therefore this study explored the needs of graduate students, how graduate students may turn to online communities as an means of support, and how faculty advisors can be better matched with graduate students to help guide them toward success in graduate school. The resulting knowledge from this study can provide insights for developing enhanced methods for 1) matching students and advisors based on management and mentoring styles, 2) understanding the evolution of graduate students needs over time, and 3) establishing more thoughtful admission metrics/processes for graduate schools. In addition, an investigation into social media platforms can help us better understand how graduate students use social media for support during their studies as well as identify some common graduate student challenges and helpful strategies to mitigate these challenges. Ultimately, establishing this knowledge can be one step toward generating a more supportive and collaborative academic community which can in turn support the well-being of graduate students</p> <p>  </p> <p>According to the results of this study, the data suggests that graduate students are experiencing stress resulting from differences in the styles of management and mentoring between them and their faculty advisors. </p> <p>This stress can be linked to the pressures placed upon them related to scholarly output without clearly defined objectives for them. </p> <p>Student participants also indicated that they doubted the quality of their graduate work and had the feeling they were not moving forward.</p> <p>Some common challenges described by students via social media posts were linked to the limited guidance and/or mentorship received.</p> <p>In regard to turning to social media for support, it seems as though graduate students tend to use social media platforms to either share negative experiences that they faced or milestones achieved within their graduate programs.</p> <p>The findings suggest that the graduate students may use social media without expecting or receiving feedback on how to handle any challenges posted.</p> <p>In addition, graduate student survey participants also indicated that their advisors used primarily a ``coaching" style, indicating a low level of advisor involvement, with a high level of student involvement. </p> <p>While a majority of participants indicated that their advising style on the Student-Advisor Involvement Matrix was a “coaching” model, the managerial style responses were more varied. </p> <p>This may indicate that students do not clearly know how to define their advisors management style, or that their rankings reflect emotional response to their advisor rather than the style itself. </p> <p>That being said, the findings also suggests that there may be an opportunity to better investigate, align, and/or prepare for the management and advising styles between advisors and students.</p> <p> </p> <p>While this study has limitations, the results can provide insight toward to creation of tools for matching prospective graduate students with faculty advisors based on interests as well as management and mentoring styles.</p> <p>In addition the common challenges experienced by graduate student identified via the social media analysis as well as as the shared strategies for addressing these challenges can be used for developing potential interventions for supporting faculty advisor and graduate student relationships. </p> <p>For example, the interventions can include additional management training for faculty advisors, increased mental health services for graduate students, support for understanding how graduate student needs change over time, graduate student planning tools, empathetic mentorship training, or improved graduate student handbooks.</p>

<p dir="ltr">American society’s increase in ethnic textures, interracial tension, immigrants, religion, gender, disability, ability, and students who speak languages other than English as their first language prolongs the pedagogical challenges teachers encounter in the classroom due to diversity. This study explored the experiences of secondary social studies teachers as curricular-instructional gatekeepers implementing culturally responsive pedagogy in times of socio-political tensions in the United States. The teacher as curricular-instructional gatekeeper framework guided this research. By adopting a qualitative multiple-case study, I utilized interviews with four teachers, two hundred hours of classroom observation, and document analysis as data sources. The findings revealed that the social studies gatekeepers’ culturally responsive practices amidst the present socio-political tensions included exposing diverse perspectives to diverse students, leveraging culturally diverse learners’ lived experiences, diversifying instructional methodologies for diverse learners, and confronting stereotypes in a culturally diverse classroom. Moreover, I discovered that present happenings influence culturally responsive practices by presenting difficulty in exposing specific topics to diverse learners, limiting classroom participation for responsive teaching, increasing workload in planning responsive lessons, and becoming a better teacher in a culturally diverse classroom. I recommend that further research should be conducted to explore the role of teacher education programs in preparing pre-service or in-service teachers to implement culturally responsive practices, how the multiple identities of in-service social studies teachers interplay to influence their implementation of culturally responsive practices, and how professional development training offered to in-service social studies teachers prepare them to implement culturally responsive practices amidst the growing legislation in the United States.</p>

<p dir="ltr">In contemporary engineering education landscapes, integrating the arts and engineering often adopts a utilitarian lens, emphasizing the enhancement of engineers' creativity or the aesthetic embellishment of final solutions. However, this narrow perspective overlooks the profound potential of the arts in co-creating meaningful solutions, perpetuating epistemic injustices by relegating the arts and other ways of knowing to mere complements of technical knowledge. In this seminar, I present the findings of an autoethnographic inquiry aimed at disrupting traditional disciplinary boundaries within engineering design education. I explore novel educational paradigms by integrating arts and engineering to challenge the notion of engineering as the exclusive owner of problem-solving knowledge.</p><p dir="ltr">Through the lens of autoethnography, I engage in reflective analysis of my role as a curriculum and instructional designer endeavoring to integrate the arts and engineering in pursuit of epistemic justice for the arts. Four distinct curricular initiatives are studied: the Compassionate Engineering course for undergraduate engineering students, the Shadow Puppetry Box activity for middle-school students within a summer camp setting, the Elegance in Engineering module for graduate-level engineering education, and the Social Justice and Civil Engineering module designed for undergraduate civil engineering students. By crafting autoethnographic artifacts such as video reflections and video art, I embrace reflexivity and introspection, elucidating the critical considerations and obstacles encountered in designing for epistemic justice through arts-engineering integration. Additionally, I explore how the learning design process facilitated the development of comprehensive and impactful curricula. I also examine the outcomes and implications of implementing these emergent curricula on pedagogical approaches and student learning experiences.</p><p dir="ltr">This study provides a space for reflection, inquiry, and inspiration, inviting participants to challenge conventional disciplinary boundaries, interrogate prevailing engineering paradigms, and envision transformative approaches to interdisciplinary education. By embracing the complexities of arts-engineering integration, I endeavor to forge new pathways toward inclusive and equitable educational practices, reshaping the education landscape for the better.</p>

International education is big business and international students are a large minority on many of the U.S.’s most reputable institutions. However, a persistent issue has been the tendency for international and U.S. domestic students to socialize largely within their own groups of co-nationals. Utilizing a paradigmatic case study approach on a large public university, this dissertation consists of three separate, but connected, studies that feature, respectively, (1) staff and faculty intercultural learning and contact, (2) undergraduate student experiences of intercultural contact and friendship, and (3) undergraduate student assessments of campus spaces and programs for interacting across culture. These studies integrated frameworks from intercultural competence, intergroup contact theory, and conviviality. Findings throughout the case study confirmed that friendship and contact between international and domestic U.S. individuals was limited, even when the participants were motivated, experienced, and demonstrated many aspects of intercultural competence. Further, the case was characterized by administrative efforts to address the issue through formal classes, workshops, and festivals, while generally overlooking the informal spaces that students found most integral to their own experiences. These findings underscore a disconnect between trying to “prepare” individuals for contact rather than attempting to “create” the spaces and programs for such contact to occur, i.e., a focus on the individual’s knowledge and skills rather than the interpersonal and environmental conditions in contact. The findings culminated in the proposed Programmatic Conviviality Model, qualities which are theorized to support convivial intercultural contact. I argue that this model and the realignment to a focus on intercultural contact as a goal, is necessary for college campuses beyond the immediate case study and that this work is timely as campuses move back to in-person engagement after almost two years of COVID isolation.

There is an on-going debate among health professionals, policy-makers and politicians, as to the optimal way of delivering sexual health services to young people. There is as yet, no consensus on their best patterns of organisation or configuration. This study uses qualitative and quantitative research methods, to explore both the views of young people accessing sexual health services, expressed through in-depth interview, and variations in client satisfaction with different characteristics of service delivery, expressed through completion of a questionnaire. The key research questions are:  How does young people’s satisfaction with sexual health services vary with the age-dedication of the service; that is, whether it serves young people only, or all ages?  How does young people’s satisfaction with sexual health services vary with the integration of the service; that is, whether family planning and genito-urinary services are offered separately, or together?  How does young people’s satisfaction with sexual health services vary with the location of the service; that is, in community or hospital based services? In the qualitative component, in-depth interviews were conducted with 25 young people recruited from a purposively selected sample of young people’s services. In the survey, a total sample of 1166 was achieved. Of these, 36% were attending an integrated contraceptive and STI service and 64% were attending a more traditional ‘separate’ service. 48% attended a service dedicated to young people and 52% an all-age service. 50% attended a hospital-based service and 50% a service located in the community. Of the total sample, 22% were male and 78% female. The analysis has been done not on a comparison of services in their entirety, but on a comparison of key features of their organisation, that is, whether they are provided separately as contraceptive and STI sessions or services, or whether these aspects of sexual health provision are integrated in sessions or services (integration); on whether they are run exclusively for young people or for all ages (dedication); and on whether they are located in the community or in a hospital setting (location). Recommendations are made for future service development and delivery and implications for policy are discussed.

The thesis examines the concept of normalisation of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), i.e. complete, effective integration of technology, in the context of primary Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) in England. While normalisation research is conducted predominantly in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context, understanding normalisation in the primary mainstream education in England is important due to the contrast between teachers’ lack of readiness to deliver languages as part of the National Curriculum, and technology penetration in the classrooms. This thesis therefore, taking a sociocultural perspective of Activity Theory, attempts to redefine normalisation to include context specific characteristics, identify what factors contribute to and impede normalisation, and assess where primary CALL is on route to normalisation. An ethnographic approach was deemed to be most suitable to gain deep understanding of normalisation. Prolonged immersion in a primary school and the thematic analysis of observations, interviews, field notes and audio recordings revealed that factors impeding normalisation of primary CALL revolve around the following areas: attitudes, logistics, training and support and pedagogy. The issues related to the subject itself, e.g. negative attitudes toward the subject, lack of skills, impact on the achievement of normalisation to larger extent than issues related to technology. Hence in the primary context, normalisation needs to be considered from the point of view of normalisation of MFL and then the technology that is embedded into MFL. The analysis of the data allowed the researcher to create a model which serves as a form of audit of factors that need to be considered when thinking of successful technology integration into languages. Such guidance is needed for the primary MFL context having reoccurring issues, but is also relevant to primary EFL contexts in Europe where similar problems related to teaching of the subject are reported.

<p>Teacher talk is a powerful pedagogical tool in the science classroom. Educators use their talk to provide information, guide discussions, check for understanding, and develop students' scientific identities. However, few researchers have investigated how teachers use their talk during an integrated science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) unit. This three-study dissertation investigates how teachers use their talk to introduce a new discipline to students and how their talk affects student learning and engagement during an integrated STEM unit. I designed these research studies to answer the overall question: What talk moves do teachers use during an integrated STEM unit, and how does the teacher talk affect student engagement and learning? Study 1 is a multiple case study investigating how teachers guide classroom discussions and how that teacher talk affects student learning during the integrated STEM unit. Results demonstrate the importance of teachers carefully balancing dialogic discussions and providing information during these instructional units. Study 2 is an interpretative qualitative study that investigates how a teacher's autonomy-supportive and/or suppressive talk affects student engagement during the integrated unit. Results show that each student responded differently to the teacher talk that occurred in the classroom. While some became more engaged when the teacher used autonomy-supportive talk, others became disengaged during the same type of talk. Study 3 is a multiple case study investigating the talk moves teachers use when integrating engineering concepts in the curriculum. Results show that the two teachers requested student participation in the conversation about engineering more during the first lesson of the unit than the last. In addition, only one of the two teachers in this study incorporated talk about engineering into the science lessons. The last chapter of this dissertation synthesizes the data from all three studies. This chapter identifies some common themes across the studies, including the complex nature of teacher talk, the influence of non-talk factors, and the importance of dialogic discussion. This chapter also identifies some implications for teaching, including the need to restructure the curriculum units and to coach teachers during their first implementation of an integrated STEM unit.</p>

<p dir="ltr">The study investigated the epistemological gaps of Nigerian auto-repair technicians in Mowe, Ogun State Nigeria. The way their knowledge levels correlate with factors such as age, experience, education, and professional development pathways were analyzed. The study explored the conditions for bridging auto-repair epistemology. The study used a questionnaire based on the National Institute Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) 2021 study guide test questions. Fifty-four auto repair technicians were selected using purposive sampling. Correlational research design was used to explore the relationship between the knowledge of participants and age, education, experience, and professional development pathway. Logistic regression was used to analyze the data collected to determine the odds of how many ASE questions a participant answered correctly. The final logistic regression model excluded experience and professional pathways due to multicollinearity concerns. The results revealed negative correlations between age, elementary/high school education, and epistemology, while positive correlations were with higher education and epistemology. The discussion delved into nuances, challenging common beliefs, and proposed a composite apprenticeship model to bridge auto-repair epistemological gaps. Recommendations include revisiting the Nigerian education system and promoting a bidirectional, delocalized apprenticeship approach.</p>

<p>    </p> <p>Wordless picture book reading is one of the common literacy practices for young children that happen at schools and homes. This dissertation of three studies explores the reader-text transactions between young children and wordless picture books in three ways: a content analysis of wordless books potentially featuring characters of color, a multimodal analysis exploring children’s multimodal meaning making, and a mixed-method content analysis analyzing children’s performing social imagination and narrative imagination and change over time. Through analyzing a set of 39 wordless picturebooks with protagonists that can be potentially identified as people of color, the first article analyzed the books’ book themes, story events, and illustrations to explore how such books can function what Bishop suggested as windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors and support young children to learn about themselves and others. The second article explores the potential of preschoolers’ multimodal meaning making during reading wordless picturebooks. Multimodal meaning making can be valued as literacy practices that are closely related to reading comprehension, teaching instructions, and assessments. The third article focuses on kindergarteners’ use of social imagination and narrative imagination during reading wordless picturebooks that reveal young children’s active engagement and meaning making in reading. This series of articles hold implication for teachers and researchers to understand the potential of using wordless picture books for young children’s access to diverse topics of readings, literacy practices, and assessment, specifically children’s imaginative and multimodal ways of responding to reading of wordless picture books. </p>

<p dir="ltr">The study was conducted to understand teacher’s experience of burnout and its course, in addition to how burnout is related to classroom factors and student experiences. I used a person-centered approach, which accounted for all three burnout dimensions (i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and low perceived accomplishment), to characterize different patterns of burnout and investigate the various changes of burnout patterns from fall to spring over a school year. I conducted secondary analysis of survey data collected from 52 5th grade teachers and 693 of their students as part of a larger efficacy trial. The study’s results provide evidence that teachers experience burnout in various ways, as characterized by distinct profiles. Additionally, the results extend the existing evidence of teacher burnout stability at the sample level and indicate some degree of within-subject variability from fall to spring. Furthermore, the results add to the existing variable-centered literature on teacher burnout and provide evidence about the relations of teacher burnout patterns to teacher perceived conflict with students, student-reported teacher discipline, and student cognitive engagement. Moreover, the study’s results highlight four limitations in the research on teacher burnout, regarding the application of the three-dimensional model to teachers, appropriateness of burnout subscales and items, reliance on one-time point data, and reliance on survey methods, respectively. For all future interventions designed to address teacher burnout, the study’s person-centered approach to characterizing teacher burnout patterns can provide a useful tool that helps interventions tailor their supports to be responsive to the needs of teachers in specific profiles.</p>