abstract: In this convergent mixed methods research project, I address the question of why large numbers of college students take women’s studies courses yet are reluctant to major in the field.  Using availability bias and intersectionality as my theoretical framework I hypothesized that the reluctance to declare women and gender studies as a major stems from 1) the failure to see the applicability of the major to career goals and aspirations, 2) social stigma associated with feminism, 3) social location. As a part of my intervention I designed and tested two 10-minute video modules; one on job applicability featuring women studies alumni discussing their career paths and their decision to major in the field, and a second on deconstructing stereotypes about feminism.  The control group was shown a generic video on cinematic representations.  Students were randomly assigned to one of the three groups and administered a pretest and posttest survey designed to measure job applicability, social attitudes about feminism and social location. Interviews were conducted with 6 students. My goal was to better understand perceived practicality of the women’s studies degree, social attitudes about feminism and the impact of these perceptions as they relate to a student's selection of the major. My research questions include:   RQ 1) Among students taking a course in women’s studies, how and to what extent does participation in a module on job applicability influence a student's perceptions of the potential career applicability of the women’s studies degree?  RQ 2) Among students taking a course in women’s studies, how and to what extent does participation in the module regarding feminism impact a student's perceptions of the value of the women’s studies degree?   RQ 3) How does one’s social location interact with the findings of RQ’s 1 & 2?  My sample (n=115) was drawn from students enrolled in online and hybrid courses I taught in the WST program at Arizona State University, the largest such program in the country, drawing over 6,000 students annually. However, the number of majors at 84 students is not commensurate with the growth we are experiencing in terms of enrollment or the popularity of the courses. These research addresses these My findings showed that the job applicability module increased student knowledge about the applicability of the women and gender studies major and that students had a better overall understanding of the degree in relation to career applicability, while the module about feminism did not have an effect on the choice of major.  My findings suggest that students lack of previous career knowledge in terms of job paths available to WST graduates proved to be an obstacle for our program and intervening may allow for the increase of majors. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2018

This work conducts an evaluation of a non-majors science curriculum named Molecules of Life (MOL) that aims to provide effective science education to undergraduate students who are not majoring in scientific disciplines. As part of the process of developing an assessment plan for MOL, three related studies were undertaken in order to help us choose assessment instruments for MOL. The first study examined the validity of student evaluations of teaching. The second study investigated the Test of Logical Thinking (TOLT) and Group Assessment of Logical Thinking (GALT), two widely-used instruments for measuring formal reasoning ability. GALT is very similar to TOLT, but contains two additional concrete items. Focusing on the functioning of these two items, we added them into TOLT and created a new test called "TOLT+2". We then compared TOLT with TOLT+2 in terms of reliability, discriminatory power, potential item bias, and predicting students at-risk in a general chemistry course. The two concrete items were found to provide no advantage in these aspects. In the third study, we performed a direct comparison between TOLT and GALT as intact instruments in general chemistry and in preparatory chemistry. GALT showed no advantage over TOLT for both general and preparatory chemistry in terms of reliability, discriminatory power, potential item bias, and predicting at-risk students. GALT has more frequently occurring, potentially biased items, while TOLT is tenably a less biased test. Based on the results from the three studies and input from faculty, an assessment plan was developed and refined for the MOL project at two summer workshops that faculty from all eight institutions participated in. Subsequently, a systematic evaluation for MOL was carried out as a fourth study. We found evidence that students learned the enzyme content from the MOL courses at all participating institutions. We also found the MOL curriculum can meaningfully improve students' spatial ability. MOL was able to reduce the gap between high-spatial-ability and low-spatial-ability students at most institutions. Because of the critical link of spatial ability to science learning, this result is very promising for our efforts to move towards "science for all".

El objetivo de esta tesis es conocer las prácticas sociales de los mayores de 44 años en el ciberespacio. El cometido del presente trabajo es entender el grado de penetración de las TIC y las formas de uso del ciberespacio por parte de las generaciones objeto de estudio que han sido extendidas de forma masiva en la última década.De forma general, este texto responde a si este proceso de transformación social y tecnológica está contribuyendo a alejar a los mayores del acceso y uso de un conjunto de servicios dispensados en el ciberespacio que, por su magnitud y extensión en la sociedad, forman parte del tipo de ciudadanìa que se está fraguando. Esta forma de ciudadaní¬a condiciona, de forma creciente, unos modos de producir, relacionarse o divertirse a través del acceso y uso del ciberespacio. Con este fin se analizan entonces los usos y prácticas sociales en el ciberespacio por parte de las generaciones nacidas con anterioridad a la década de los sesenta del siglo pasado y, en consecuencia, la tesis trata de verificar en qué medida el desarrollo de las TIC acelera el proceso de exclusión social de las personas mayores.

Student persistence and achievement are areas of significant concern for institutions of higher education. With national college graduation rates hovering in the 50% range, it is important for colleges and universities to understand which student characteristics and campus environments lead to greater success, as well as the expectations students have of the college experience. Research on undeclared students is vast and dates back more than 70 years, and many of the seminal studies and respected research data have led to the perception that they are at higher risk of attrition and have lower levels of academic achievement than their declared peers. Research also shows that the two most important ways to help students connect to institutions is through faculty interactions and involvement in clubs and organizations. A new and growing body of research on student expectations posits that students who have unmet expectations of the college experience are also at higher risk of attrition. This study sought to integrate those three research concepts and analyze the expectations of undeclared students to determine if undeclared students had lower expectations of the college experience than their declared peers, specifically as those expectations relate to interactions with faculty and involvement in clubs and organizations. This study also sought to determine if undeclared students had lower levels of academic achievement or persistence than their declared peers. Using the College Student Expectations Questionnaire (CSXQ), this research analyzed the expectations of 3,219 first time in college (FTIC) students at a large, metropolitan, public university in the South who responded to the CSXQ during summer 2008 orientation. Results indicated that although differences were discovered between undeclared and declared students for expectations of student-faculty interaction and for expectations of involvement in clubs and organizations, the low effect sizes indicated that the differences could not be attributed directly to declaration of major. Results also indicated that undeclared students did not persist at rates statistically significantly different than their declared peers, nor did they achieve lower GPAs or fewer credit hours. While this study did not reveal statistically significant differences for any of the dependent variables, this research is beneficial in that these results contribute to the research findings that undeclared students are not attrition prone or less likely to achieve. More current research is needed on the population of undeclared students to determine if the perceptions are outdated and no longer generalizable to today's generation of students. Additionally, more research is needed on the expectations of students, in general, to determine what impact, if any, those expectations have on student interactions with the college environment and on the outcomes of persistence, achievement, and graduation.

We live in a scientific society. Science is all around us. We take scientific principles for granted every time we use technology, such as a car, a computer, or a cell phone. Paradoxically, the scientific literacy of the population is minimal at best. Having a basic knowledge of scientific principles is no longer a luxury but, in today's complex world, a necessity. To increase the scientific literacy of non-science majors, an astrobiology course was developed at the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at The University of Texas at Austin. The course subscribes to an educational philosophy that promotes the significance of teaching science to non-science majors, endorses the importance of multidisciplinary content knowledge, supports the teaching of the nature of science in an implicitly mode, advances the discussion of socio-scientific issues, and includes competent thinking-based teaching strategies using the dynamic discipline of astrobiology. The thesis reviews the problems in scientific literacy, outlines the characteristics of this innovative course, proposes a novel standard - competent thinking - to evaluate scientific literacy and analyzes the results of this course in terms of competent thinking. Data collected provided evidence of an increase of competent thinking skills among the students, especially in terms of self-reflection. Both the first and the second pilot study showed strong evidence that students transitioned from naive to competent thinking arguments. The main study demonstrated that students greatly improve their self-reflecting skills. The final study confirmed improvement in terms of self-reflecting skills, and showed that students gradually improve their arguments based on logic, reason, sophistication, and evidences. Therefore, the results show that this innovative astrobiology course is an effective tool for enhancing competent thinking skills among non-science major students. / text

New programming, such as the Specialist High Skills Major has been implemented in Ontario as part of the Student Success Learning to 18 Strategy to increase secondary graduation rates. Yet it has been unclear if this type of programming is actually improving student outcomes. As a result, this study asks: How does the implementation of the Specialist High Skills Majors (SHSM) contribute to student outcomes? Sub-research questions inquire about the consistency of the SHSM across Ontario, which students the SHSM has the greatest impact on academic success and if participation in the SHSM increases students’ academic success as defined by credit accumulation, marks, and graduation. The conceptual framework in this study is an amended version of Fullan’s (2007) critical factors that affect policy implementation. The study’s methods first included reviewing Ontario School Information System data on student achievement in the SHSM program. Interviews with thirty-four people also took place in eight schools from a mix of four geographically diverse Catholic and public school districts in Ontario that had high student enrollment in the SHSM program. While there were many findings within this study, four were key. The first finding was that there was great consistency to some aspects of implementing the SHSM program province-wide when there was top-down direction, while there was also great variability in other areas where there was increased flexibility. The second key finding centers around the role of leadership, including effective styles of leadership, consistency in leadership, and the importance of delegating leadership responsibility. The third finding highlights the importance of resources in implementing change. The last finding discusses the type of SHSM student that is most successful in the SHSM program and how program implementation directly affects student success.

New programming, such as the Specialist High Skills Major has been implemented in Ontario as part of the Student Success Learning to 18 Strategy to increase secondary graduation rates. Yet it has been unclear if this type of programming is actually improving student outcomes. As a result, this study asks: How does the implementation of the Specialist High Skills Majors (SHSM) contribute to student outcomes? Sub-research questions inquire about the consistency of the SHSM across Ontario, which students the SHSM has the greatest impact on academic success and if participation in the SHSM increases students’ academic success as defined by credit accumulation, marks, and graduation. The conceptual framework in this study is an amended version of Fullan’s (2007) critical factors that affect policy implementation. The study’s methods first included reviewing Ontario School Information System data on student achievement in the SHSM program. Interviews with thirty-four people also took place in eight schools from a mix of four geographically diverse Catholic and public school districts in Ontario that had high student enrollment in the SHSM program. While there were many findings within this study, four were key. The first finding was that there was great consistency to some aspects of implementing the SHSM program province-wide when there was top-down direction, while there was also great variability in other areas where there was increased flexibility. The second key finding centers around the role of leadership, including effective styles of leadership, consistency in leadership, and the importance of delegating leadership responsibility. The third finding highlights the importance of resources in implementing change. The last finding discusses the type of SHSM student that is most successful in the SHSM program and how program implementation directly affects student success.

Thesis (Ed. Spec.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2009. / Field study. Includes bibliographical references.

The present study is an endeavor to supply additional information which may assist in the evaluation of music students of Jordan Conservatory.

This work derived attitudinal input from 397 female college business majors concerning their preference for various job factors drawn from previously validated studies and their expected levels of satisfaction with those job factors in new job situations following graduation. Data were collected through the distribution of a questionnaire consisting of three sections: (1) demographic categories, (2) a list of twenty job factors with a Likert-like scale for respondents to record the strength of desire for each, and (3) an identical list of job factors with a Likert-like scale for respondents to record the expected level of satisfaction with those job factors on their new job.