Utilizing a modified Delphi Technique research study, consensus was sought from 298 practitioners in the public assembly facility management (PAFM) industry regarding their perceptions on varied matters connected to the academic preparation of managers/executives serving the industry. A comprehensive literature review and a prior pilot study were conducted for the purpose of creating the initial survey (Questionnaire 1). The pilot study consisted of an open-ended interview session with a panel (N=16) of PAFM managers. Sixty-four (64) of 66 consensus-seeking items attained consensus from the respondents (N=298) after Questionnaire 1 results were tabulated. Respondents were given the opportunity to re-assess their Questionnaire 1 choices in Questionnaire 2 and if compelled, change them. Items related to Kinesiology and Physical Education did not attain consensus status in Questionnaire 1 or Questionnaire 2. This study concluded: a) academic program in PAFM is beneficial to the industry (96%) and 63.5% viewed the degree as very important or essential; b) the preferred academic delivery level was Bachelors/undergraduate (52.7%); c) the degree program should be housed in Business (42%); d) the preferred competencies and skill sets were identified; e) the preferred course components were identified. / Statistical analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between the type of public assembly facility where a respondent worked and the preferred academic unit of the program, as well as preferred general course components. Recommendations for future research include: (a) conducting a similar study employing solely qualitative methodology; (b) seeking potential significant relationships with gender, ethnicity, geographic location, ownership and governance of facilities, years of experience; and (c) comparing and contrasting results of this study among faculty who currently teach public assembly facility management courses and the students that are in said courses . The rising cost of providing safe and cost-efficient public assembly facilities require that the people operate these facilities possess the best set of managerial, administrative and technical skills related to the management of these facilities; this study aids in that quest by suggesting competencies and course components, and potentially a PAFM general academic curriculum, based on practitioner viewpoint. / by James J. Riordan. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Succession planning is a relatively new construct within higher education institutions (HEIs). The researcher explored the extent to which selected HEIs employ succession planning strategies in reference to the Higher Education Community Engagement Practitioner (HECEP) role and in support of HEIs earning the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification (CCEC). Four HEIs served as study sites for this research, along with a nationally recognized professional development program. Study results revealed that HEIs are not currently using succession planning strategies for the HECEP role. Further, although the study revealed that professional development opportunities for HECEPs exist, only 50% of institutional study participants were aware of, and participated. Finally, based on the credentials of individuals currently in HECEP roles and data obtained from this study (including data from an expert judge linked to the professional development program analyzed as part of this study), the researcher provides a job specification template for determining if institutions have a pipeline of individuals who could be prepared to assume the HECEP role in the future. This study, although limited in scope as it relates to succession planning, provides insight into the attitudes and perceptions of specific higher education professionals toward the professional development of employees, and more specifically, the HECEP role. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Typescript (photocopy).rev / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries / Department: English.

Human capital investment is of prime interest for many countries at varying stages of development. Knowing both the determinants and the impact of schooling is central for well- designed policy. This dissertation addresses both respects by examining the determinants of secondary school enrollment in Indonesia, and the impact of higher education in South Korea. In Chapter 1, I begin from the observation that many countries spend substantial resources inducing individuals to attend school. Despite this, high dropout rates are common, particularly when students transition between education levels. To explain this pattern, previous research has focused on supply side factors, such as decreased number of school slots or longer commute times. In contrast, this paper explores a demand side reason for high dropout rates between schooling levels: a nonlinear increase in wage returns from completing the final grade of an education level - a sheepskin effect. I investigate whether schooling decisions in Indonesia are consistent with perceived sheepskin effects. Using four types of income shocks that range from idiosyncratic to systemic (unemployment, crop loss, drought, and financial crises), I test if negative shocks affect enrollment differentially across different grade levels. As in the previous literature, negative shocks reduce children's enrollment probabilities on average. However, consistent with perceived sheepskin effects, this impact is strongly mitigated for students who enter the final grades of junior or senior high school. Moreover, even poor households exhibit this behavior indicating that even the poor are able to continue investments in education when they perceive returns to be sufficiently high. The remainder of the dissertation begins from the observation that in low income countries, most gains in education attainment have come from expansions at the primary or secondary level. In contrast, middle and higher income countries have seen rapid increases in higher education enrollments. The pace of growth varies considerably, with historically low attainment countries such as South Korea, Belgium and France experienced more than a 40% point increase in the percentage of population with some tertiary education. Despite the salience of these trends, there is limited credible empirical evidence on their impact due to the difficulty in finding a credible exogenous variation. To address this question, chapters 2 and 3 utilize an unusual policy change in South Korea; the 1980 education reform, which mandated an increase in the freshman enrollment quota by 30 percent nationwide. Chapter 2 (joint work with Wooram Park) estimates the impact of higher education on labor market outcomes and saving behavior of the household. We use the discrete change in the opportunity to obtain higher education across adjacent cohorts to implement a regression discontinuity design. We find that college education has a substantial positive effect on labor income, employment probability as well as on household savings. We also find that college education reduces the probability of job loss during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Chapter 3 (joint work with Jisun Baek and Wooram Park) estimates the causal effect of higher education on health related outcomes. Also using a regression discontinuity design, we confirm that the cohorts that are more likely to be affected by the policy have a higher fraction of individuals with college education. However, we do not find evidence of positive health returns to higher education. In particular, we find that the cohorts with higher proportion of college graduates are not less likely to experience disease or report poor health status. Moreover, we find that higher education has limited effects on health behaviors such as smoking and drinking.

Teachers often use instructional goals to guide students’ learning and to track their performance. Typically, teachers develop these instructional goals before they meet students and then hand over their list of goals to students during their first class session. Prior research shows that students do not necessarily understand the underlying principles of those broader terms and how they are to be assessed—they don’t truly understand what is expected of them, nor how a teacher sets out to help them learn. The inadequacy in students’ understanding about instructional goals has been shown to be related to student underachievement, disengagement in classes, and poor student-teacher relationships. The effectiveness of goal-driven learning is dependent on the learner’s ability to make informed decisions about what to learn and what strategies to use to achieve the desired objectives. Given that, I hypothesize that helping students understand their teacher’s rationale behind the goal creation process will help students make better decisions with their study, demonstrate stronger motivation, develop better student-teacher relationships, and eventually improve their academic performance. To test these hypotheses, I created an intervention that required students to have a discussion with their teacher about how the instructional goals were prioritized. Eighty-nine students from an introductory Microbiology class were randomly assigned into three conditions: (1) Goal Listing (GL) condition, in which students read a list of instructional goals as they were in the syllabus; (2) Goal Ranking (GR) condition, in which students read a list of instructional goals that had been ranked according to their importance by their teacher; and (3) Goal Ranking + Discussing (GRD) condition, in which students read the ranked goals and discussed them with their teacher in a one-on-one meeting. The measures I used to test the effects of the intervention include study-time allocation, accuracy of self-assessment for an upcoming exam, help-seeking tendency toward the teacher, attitude toward the class and the teacher, and class performance. Results showed that the GRD group performed significantly better than the other two groups on every behavioral measure, but no significant difference was found between the GR and GL group. Specifically, students in the GRD condition scored significantly higher, planned their study more strategically, predicted their final grade more accurately, and demonstrated stronger tendency to seek help from their teacher. Mediation analyses were conducted to test whether students’ metacognitive strategies causally contributed to their better performance. Results show that both study-time planning and self-assessment mediated exam performance for the GRD group, but not for the GR group. This suggests that a discussion on the ranked goals is more powerful in affecting students’ learning process than simply showing them the goals without an explanation. In addition to the behavioral measures, we also examined students’ attitudes toward their teacher and the course. The results show that the GRD group gave a more positive evaluation of their teacher and perceived the course as more interesting and valuable than the other two groups. This suggests that a discussion of goals can bring about motivational benefits such as improving student-teacher relationships. This study made unique theoretical and practical contributions to our understanding of how teachers can best communicate goals to their students. First, most previous research on students’ goals focused on what goals might be beneficial to learning, but did not address how to enable students to strategically arrive at those goals. Our study suggests that having teachers explain how their instructional goals were set can be a promising step toward that end. Second, our findings add to past research on metacognitive training, which largely focused on teaching strategies to students. Our study suggests that we can improve students’ use of metacognitive strategies by helping them gain a clear understanding of the instructional goals. Moreover, the study points to the important role of social interaction in enhancing students’ self-regulating abilities such as planning and self-assessment. Metacognition is not just about understanding one’s own thinking. Understanding the goals of those who are important to one’s learning can be helpful to improving one’s metacognition. Finally, the study offers clear guidance in how to make teachers’ office hours more productive. Goal discussion provides an implementable tool that can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their communication and their relationship.

The purposes of this study were (1) to identify the major goals of independent senior colleges and universities in Texas, (2) to survey the opinions of persons in positions of leadership in independent senior colleges and universities in Texas with respect to existing and preferred goals, (2) to determine if there are significant differences of opinion among these persons, and (4) to develop projections of the probably priorities for goals of independent senior colleges and universities in Texas, based upon the expressed opinions of these persons in positions of leadership. According to the opinions of institutional leaders, the major goals pertain to quality faculty and academic freedom, to areas which are directly related to the personal, social, and intellectual development of students, and to the continuance of quality academic programs. Based on the opinions of these groups, plans and decisions in independent higher education in Texas over the next decade will be influenced more by financial matters than by any other factor. Other goals which will be important include continued development of strong academic programs, spiritual and moral growth of students, stabilization of enrollment, and development and retention of quality faculty.

This investigation sought to examine the congruence or the lack of congruence of educational goals in Level Four Adult-Continuing Education Programs in Bangkok, Thailand. The purposes of the study were to identify the actual and ideal goals of Level Four Adult-Continuing Education Programs and to determine whether any significant differences existed in the perceptions of educational goals of the programs among students, teachers, and administrators.

This study sought to determine the importance community college instructional stakeholders--teachers, administrators, and support staff--ascribe to 23 student outcome goals and to examine the relationships between biographical variables and stakeholders' perceptions. The study addressed the following research questions: (a) Which of the 23 student outcomes do instructional stakeholders as a whole perceive to be most important?; (b) Can these outcomes be factored into a set underlying constructs?; (c) Does the perceived importance of student outcomes vary in relationship to the type of student the stakeholder serves?; (d) Which outcomes do stakeholders serving different types of students value most highly?; (e) Does the perceived importance of student outcomes vary in relationship to: professional role, number of years worked in a community college, number of years worked at the community college surveyed, campus assignment, and gender? Data were collected from 241 subjects employed by a large, urban community college. Subjects rated the importance of 23 student outcomes on a Likert-like scale. The Student Outcome Goals Inventory, a survey instrument developed by the researcher, was used to collect data. Data were analyzed using one or more of the following statistical tests where appropriate: ANOVA, t Test, Factor Analysis, and Discriminant Function Analysis. The major conclusions drawn from this study were: (a) Instructional stakeholders as a group perceived outcomes related to affective constructs, basic skills development, and goal setting to be most important; (b) six constructs represent the outcomes (Personal/Social, Transfer, Credentialing, Employment, Traditional College, and Developmental); (c) Type of student served has a significant relationship to the perceived importance of 12 of the 23 outcomes with most differences occurring between stakeholders serving lower division transfer students and those serving professional/technical students; (d) Few significant relationships exist between the remaining biographical variables and the 23 outcome variables; (e) The type of students stakeholders served can be predicted with 69% accuracy. The outcomes rated most highly by stakeholders are those that represent a foundation of skills that students are typically expected to gain in their secondary education.

The Community College of the Air Force (CCAF) was created in 1972 by the Air Force to serve Air Force enlisted personnel with educational opportunity. No study exists identifying and assessing the mission of this college. Various mission sources iterate the different goals of CCAF. These sources and other indicators are used to identify and assess fulfillment of the CCAF mission. The purpose of this study is to clearly identify the CCAF mission and determine to what extent the mission has been fulfilled. The literature review presents background on education in America and the U.S. military and the American community college movement plus a summary of the works on CCAF to set the stage for the mission identification and assessment process. The research questions were what is the mission of the Community College of the Air Force and to what extent has the mission been fulfilled? Case study methodology was used to both identify and assess the mission. Study findings indicate the mission needs further clarification, but by the measures used the various missions identified have been fulfilled. The study concluded that enlisted members of the United States Air Force are improving their competence through the associate degree opportunity, that CCAF is recognized by peer institutions, and that this innovative approach to postsecondary education offers thousands of American service members educational opportunity. Questions still unanswered include how can this approach be expanded to other branches of the military services and is another accreditation process appropriate for this special type of institution? / Graduation date: 1992

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, school districts face a myriad of challenges including a steady stream of calls for reform, major shifts in demographics and increasing accountability standards. Despite the calls for reform and the threat of sanctions, school districts have found it difficult to affect significant changes in the gaps between the academic success rates for those who are identified as Economically Disadvantaged or minority and their more affluent, white students. The literature on change, on motivation, and on successful organizations quite often suggests having a “shared vision” as a prerequisite for success. The research specifically examining vision as a critical variable in school district-level success is limited. This study sought to examine vision as a “shared” or aligned component of success as perceived from the perspectives of the superintendent and principals in a successful urban school district. While there are questions about various aspects of vision that could be examined, this study drew its focus from three. The research questions the study considered were: What does the superintendent perceive the essential components of the district’s vision to be? What do the principals perceive the essential components of the district’s vision to be? Are the principal’s perceptions of the vision aligned with the perceptions of the superintendent? This study used qualitative research methods to study the strategies and practices employed by the superintendent of Compass ISD to generate a shared vision of success. Data for this study was from information from the Texas Education Agency, district publications and one-on-one interviews with the superintendent and several principals. Findings revealed a strong alignment of the superintendent’s perception of the vision for the district with those perceptions held by campus principals. The vision became a shared vision through the use of communication strategies, the establishment of desired results, setting guidelines for achieving those results, the appropriation of resources, through sharing accountability methods and measures, and by making the consequences for success or failure in achieving those standards known. The superintendent used data as a frame for his communications and for his decisions in all areas. / text