The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between scores of the new teachers' classroom effectiveness with numerical indexes of mentor support, mentor infrastructure, and workplace ecology. In addition, this study sought to determine the effect of various demographics (i.e., gender, age, race, degree, teaching level, and certification route) on the Classroom Effectiveness Index (CEI) scores of first-year teachers, and to determine the differences, if any, between the Classroom Effectiveness Index scores of first-year teachers who remained on campus, switched campuses, or left the district. This study is primarily correlational in nature - looking for relationships between quantifiable variables. The subjects are 68 first-year teachers. The mandatory mentoring program the subjects were involved in consisted of a paid, veteran teacher who worked on the same campus as the first-year teacher and assisted in instructional or behavioral needs. This study measured the impact of the first-year teachers' mentoring experiences to the Classroom Effectiveness Index scores and teacher retention. The findings suggest that the Classroom Effectiveness Index scores might not be an appropriate tool for uncovering which aspects of mentoring contribute to student achievement and retention. Adding the value-added measurement tool to the categories of mentor support (MS), mentor infrastructure (MI), and workplace ecology (WE), rendered no statistically significant results. Therefore, further research is necessary to continue to define the effective characteristics of mentoring and its impact on classroom effectiveness and retention.

Bakgrund: För den nyutexaminerade sjuksköterskan kan den första tiden i yrket upplevas som utmanande och påfrestande då förväntningarna inte alltid möter verkligheten. Stress är ett ofta förekommande fenomen inom sjuksköterskeyrket och kan manifestera sig på en rad olika sätt. Stressen påverkar både människan och utförandet av den holistiska patientvården.Syfte: Syftet var att belysa upplevelsen av stress för nyutexaminerade sjuksköterskor under sitt första verksamma år.Metod: Litteraturstudien genomfördes genom att systematiskt söka i två olika databaser vilket genererade tio vetenskapliga artiklar. Databearbetningen utfördes genom en klart framträdande innehållsanalys.Resultat: I resultatet belyses det hur stress påverkar den första tiden för nyutexaminerade sjuksköterskor och vad stressen kan leda till hos en nyutexaminerad sjuksköterska. Resultatet presenteras i tre teman som svarar på studiens syfte. De teman som belyses är: bristande självkänsla, rädsla för bristande vårdresultat och utmattning. Stress kunde leda till att nyutexaminerade sjuksköterskor upplevde brister i arbetets utförande, kände sig otillräckliga och behövde ta ansvar för dåliga vårdresultat. Stressen kunde även leda till utmattning och risk för att nyutexaminerade sjuksköterskor lämnade professionen.Slutsats: Hos den nyutexaminerade sjuksköterskan kan stress inverka på olika sätt. Stress kan påverka hur nyutexaminerade sjuksköterskor utför sitt arbete, samt i vilka situationer stressen uppkommer och vad den kan leda till. / Background: For the newly graduated nurse the first year can be perceived as challenging and strenuous because the expectations do not always measure up with reality. Stress is a widely discussed phenomenon within the nursing profession and can manifest in a variety of ways. Stress can also affect both the person and the holistic patientcare.Aim: The aim of the study was to illustrate the experience of stress for newly graduated nurses during their first professional year.Method: The literature study was conducted by systematically searching two databases which generated ten scientific articles. The data processing was carried out by a clearly prominent content analysis.Findings: The result illustrates how stress affects newly graduated nurses and what the stress could lead to for a newly graduated nurse. The results are presented in three themes that answer the study ́s purpose. The themes are: lack of self-esteem, fear of poor care results and exhaustion. Stress could lead to deficiencies in the performance of the work, feelings of being insufficient and having to take responsibility for poor care results. Stress could also lead to fatigue and a risk of newly graduated nurses leaving the profession.Conclusion: Stress can affect newly graduated nurses in different ways. Stress can affect how newly graduated nurses perform their work, as well as in what situations the stress arises and what it can lead to.

Magister Curationis - MCur / The nursing profession is the backbone of the healthcare system glob-ally. However, due to the ongoing shortage of nurses there is a growing demand for nurses across the world. This demand puts pressure on the continued recruitment of new nursing students. The factors that influence students’ reasons for entering nursing vary and require investigation to improve recruitment practices.

Thesis (Ph.D. (English Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2019 / The aims of the study were to compare connector use and verb phrase use between two achievement groups. The achievement groups comprised the Highs, students whose essays were highly rated (124 essays; word length 59702), and the Lows, students whose essays were rated poorly (126 essays; word length 60524). The analytical frameworks for the analysis of appropriate use were taken from Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan (1999).The analytical frameworks for inappropriate use were designed by the researcher. Connectors comprised circumstance adverbials, linking adverbials, co-ordinators and relativisers. Verb phrase uses comprised all the categories described in Biber, et al. (1999). The analysis entailed counting number of occurrences per use for each achievement group and determining whether difference in use was significant or not by undertaking Log Likelihood calculations using Paul Rayson’s Log Likelihood calculator available online. These also indicate the relative frequency of each use. The results for appropriate connector use revealed that although no significant differences occurred with respect to connector categories, highly/significant differences did occur with regard to specific forms. Regarding inappropriate connector use, results showed that differences between the two achievement groups were overall highly significant, with a substantially higher occurrence of inappropriate uses in the Lows compared to the Highs. The results for appropriate verb phrase use revealed highly/significant differences between the Highs and Lows for several verb phrase categories, such as modal auxiliary use and Perfect Aspect. The results for inappropriate verb phrase use, as was the case for inappropriate connector use, showed highly significant differences between the two achievement groups, with the Lows having a much higher incidence of inappropriate uses than the Highs. The study finally considers the pedagogical implications arising from the results and makes suggestions for course design relating to writing instruction.

abstract: Peer coaching is an emerging approach higher education institutions are using to increase student success outcomes for first-year students. This study examined how peer coaches use their community cultural wealth with the students they coach and how coaching encouraged first-generation students to access the community cultural wealth they bring with them to college. The theoretical framework guiding this study was Yosso’s theory of community cultural wealth. I used a qualitative approach and interviewed five peer coaches and conducted focus groups with 15 first-generation, first-year students who had received coaching. Findings indicate peer coaches used the six dimensions of community cultural wealth with students they coach, including aspirational, familial, linguistic, navigational, resistant, and social capital. Students also reported peer coaching helped them access their community cultural wealth, especially as compared to advising and faculty interactions. Three key differentiators emerged when comparing coaching to other forms of support: relatability, sense of belonging, and self-confidence. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Policy and Evaluation 2020

A healthy civil society depends on citizens who have mature critical thinking skills and a willingness to entertain opposing points of view. The development of critical thinking in young adults has long been studied, but there has been little agreement on what the attributes of critical thinking are and how to reliably assess them. While many studies have attempted to assess the critical thinking abilities of college students, none have yet measured critical thinking through using the Critical Thinking Analytic Rubric (CTAR) to assess first-year college students' writing. This study used a modified version of the CTAR rubric to investigate students' critical thinking in writing completed for an American Heritage course. Four hypotheses were tested: (1) that raters would use the rubric with high inter-rater reliability estimates; (2) that there would be a significant relationship between the scores from the earlier holistic rubric used in the 2015 Hansen et al. study and the scores from the analytic rubric used in this study; (3) that there would be a significant relationship between analytic scores and ACT and GPA scores; (4) that there would be a significant relationship between essay score and gender. Findings included the following: (1) The inter-rater reliability for the overall scores of the papers was 0.898, which exceeds the 0.70 acceptable level. However, the inter-rater reliability for sub-scores was negative and required further investigation. (2) There was no significant relationship between the scores of the Hansen et al. study and this study. (3) There was no significant relationship between essay scores and ACT and GPA scores. (4) There was a significant relationship between essay scores and gender, with female students scoring higher than male students.

<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>

abstract: Many college campuses institute residency requirements intended to provide intentional support, engagement, and assistance in the transition into life as a first-year college student. However, first-year students opting to continue living at home with family and commuting to campus each day has become a growing trend. This group of students can often be more sizable than some may assume and their developmental needs can be consistent with those of their on-campus peers. The objective of this mixed-methods action research study was to better understand how peer-to-peer experiences and opportunities are perceived and to describe and explore the concept of social capital and sense of belonging within the first-year commuter student population. This feeling of isolation can often expand to a lack of campus involvement and engagement in social opportunities. As a result of the perceived needs of this growing first-year commuter student population, a peer mentoring program was launched as a pilot to localize, personalize, and support students by providing a peer student leader in the form of a commuter peer mentor (CPM). Results from the qualitative and quantitative data collected as a part of this study demonstrated that first-year students value specific and easily-identified resources made available to their unique need cases and while many first-year commuter students may feel well supported and connected academically, they articulated challenges with social connections within the university setting. The understandings gained from this action research can inform higher education and student affairs practitioners as they seek to establish or improve programs, resources, and practices that intentionally and thoughtfully support first-year commuter students. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2020

Dieser Beitrag beschreibt ein offenes Peer-Tutoring-Konzept, in dem studentische Tutoren die Betreuung von Studienanfängern im Kontext einer onlinebasierten Einführungsveranstaltung selbstorganisiert gestalten. Nach einem Überblick über Betreuungsbedarfe und alternative Betreuungsmodelle im Hochschulbereich werden konzeptionelle Grundlagen, Kontext, Ziele und Ausgestaltung des tutoriellen Betreuungsmodells vorgestellt. Auf Basis einer explorativen Analyse der Tutorentätigkeiten mit Hilfe eines Tagebuch-Verfahrens werden Implikationen für die Gestaltung offener Tutorenkonzepte diskutiert.

The aim of the thesis is to investigate the readiness characteristics that determine risk for either failure or withdrawal before students enter university. These relationships are investigated and explained with a literature discussion that includes readiness for university education, student transition, retention and withdrawal theory. The motivation for this research emanates against the challenges that the South African Higher Education in general faces as well as the demands placed on the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences to supply for the high demand for well equipped financial service professionals. The research project was completed in three phases. In the first phase a structured questionnaire was developed to measure the non-cognitive factors relating to readiness for university education. The purpose of the ‘Academic Readiness Questionnaire’ is to function as a screening test for first-year students that enter university. The Academic Readiness Questionnaire went through a scientific process of test development and standardisation. The overall Cronbach’s alpha for the questionnaire is 0.87, which indicates good internal consistency reliability for the scale with this sample. In the second phase the Academic Readiness Questionnaire was administered to the 2008 cohort of first-time entering students from the faculty of Economic and Management Sciences during the first-year orientation week. The total number of students in the sample is 829 students. In the third phase the students who withdrew from their studies were interviewed telephonically. A total of 42 students were interviewed to determine the salient reasons for withdrawal. Quantitative data were analysed using various descriptive and inferential statistical methods. These include factor analysis, regression analysis and multiway frequency analysis. The telephonic interviews were analysed with content analysis. The main findings reveal that the readiness characteristics show a direct relationship with academic success and intention to withdraw. The number of variables able to predict risk for either failure or withdrawal differ. More variables show a significant relationship with risk for failure than for withdrawal. Furthermore, the research results show that African students have higher academic achievement and are less likely to withdraw, when compared to white students. African students also tend to have higher academic success, compared to white students. The differences in academic success and withdrawal rates among African and white students are due to high school achievement and the number of credits the students register for. White students are also more likely to withdraw voluntarily, mostly within the first couple of weeks or months mainly due to choosing an incorrect study choice. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted