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The need for improved student achievement in writing is well-documented across all grades and scores continue to show slow gains. The evidence is clear that one way to improve student achievement is to increase engagement. Engaged students not only do better in school, but think of themselves as better students and are perceived by others, including their teachers, to be more successful. This study looks at a writing program based on the use of metaphor, and measures changes in student engagement before and after the writing lesson. It also looks at the writing produced by the students to determine how well they learned to write with metaphor and whether their writing evidenced use of well-developed metaphor, such as container and orientation metaphors. Conducted with two fifth-grade classes, the study uses quantitative and qualitative methods. The results indicated that the students overall did not show significant increases in engagement after the lesson. However, between the two classes, some differences did emerge. The study further examines whether students learned to use metaphoric concepts in their writing, and if the ability to write metaphorically differed by gender or class achievement. / CITE/Language Arts

Students in any educational setting need to learn how to integrate and successfully use technology to be successful in a future career. While no one educational system can teach every skill, faculty can help integrate technology and model skills that students will need later in life. Using Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations as a model, the researcher examined technology integration and how it affected engagement, motivation, and learning in the classroom setting. The purpose of this study was to investigate the phenomenon of technology integration in an agriculture associate's degree program and evaluate the program from the faculty and student perspective. Ninety-six students enrolled in an agriculture associate's degree program served as the case study group. A qualitative approach guided the inquiry of the study and was represented through observations, participant interviews, and video collection using Noldus Observer. Findings indicated that technology integration was being implemented in a purposeful way and the faculty work together to make decisions regarding what to integrate for the students' use in their courses. Technology integration decisions were supported by the faculty and program leader. Students viewed the technology as beneficial to their learning while enrolled in the program and as an asset when they graduated. Students reported that they felt as though technology was helping them remain engaged and motivated in the program. Students who participated in the recommend that the faculty use the course management system more efficiently to streamline content to students and the faculty use more features that the system offers such as chat and discussion boards. Students expressed a belief that these practices would help keep students more engaged during class time and help them locate resources more efficiently. It is recommended that faculty work to offer a blended learning experience in the classroom, with group work or guided practice. Finally, as an alternative to traditional assessment, it is recommended that faculty members in the program encourage students to work with technology outside of class to create videos or podcasts to illustrate what they are learning. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study is to define and apply an engagement framework built upon Inclusive Management theory to examine the practice of participation as understood by administrators, elected officials, NGO leaders and public participation practitioners across multiple countries and to illustrate the framework through three case studies. Specifically, it asks how does Inclusive Management guide us in understanding participation as practiced by managers/leaders with responsibility for this work? It also considers the potential connections between management and participation as demonstrated in the data, and further, it seeks to identify how IM as a theory may be enriched or empirically elaborated as a result of this examination. This research examines the observation of phenomena identified by study participants ordinarily not considered a consequence of efforts that engage the public. Using inclusive management theory, the resulting engagement framework includes clusters of outcomes, continuous events and capacity-building as its core elements. The framework shows inclusive management in action and offers a different way of knowing (Feldman, Khademian, Ingram, & Schneider, 2006; Gomez, Bouty, & Drucker-Godard, 2003; Nicolini, Gherardi, & Yanow, 2003) participation in government decision making than generally is depicted in the public participation literature or characterized anecdotally. The engagement framework also corresponds in several ways to the techniques of dialogue, deliberation and appreciative inquiry. As the data will demonstrate in this dissertation, the engagement framework may draw upon these techniques, and moreover, that the relational, informational and stewardship dimensions of engagement reinforce one another. This dissertation also addresses a longstanding gap in the participation literature, in that it provides strategies that connect management theory and practice with participatory principles. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this research study was to examine the graphical redesign of an online Psychology course and determine the impact of that redesign on student engagement in the course, and students’ perceptions of the course, and the impact of the redesign elements on their learning. It also examined whether this redesign impacted students’ performance in the course. The results from this study could provide insights for instructors, instructional designers, and graphic designers on how the inclusion of such graphics affects student engagement and learning. In addition, how the students view their own engagement and learning with the addition of purposeful graphics can impact their interaction with and attitudes toward the course and instructor. Research has shown that there is a significant relationship between course structure and perceived student learning (Gray & DiLoreto, 2016). There is also a positive correlation between student perceptions of learning achievement and their achievement (Kuhn & Rundle-Thiele, 2009). This positive correlation exists even when studies indicate that students often overestimate their own perception of their achievement compared to their performance (Clayson, 2005). While the results showed very few significant differences in the engagement measures used in this study or the students’ overall grades, the students’ perception of the impact of the graphics used in the redesign was overwhelmingly positive with the majority of students stating that they felt that the graphics and multimedia made the course more engaging, that action icons helped organize the course information and made directions more clear, and that UCF branded graphics made them feel more connected to the university.

Colleges and universities have been linked to society since their inception. In recent times this linkage has come under scrutiny as society's expectations of higher education have become more expansive and diverse. Over the past decade, there have been various shifts in pedagogy and scholarship in higher education, including the shift towards increased civic responsibility. One such shift is the role of universities and the communities they serve. This shift toward partnership and reciprocity is termed engagement. Community engagement has emerged as an important academic strategy used to enhance and complement traditional learning methods in higher education. According to the Campus Compact, the number of faculty members who include community engagement as part of their teaching, research, and service has increased (Campus Compact, 2012). While faculty are encouraged to incorporate community engagement into their work (Colby, Ehrlich, and Stephens, 2003), nominal research focuses on the perceptions of faculty members in landscape architecture on community engagement. This research explores the current state of community engagement within landscape architecture and identifies the benefits and barriers that foster or inhibit faculty from using community engagement as part of their teaching, research, and service. This study employed a mixed methods research design. Two sequential phases were utilized. The first phase consisted of faculty responses to the Community Engagement in Landscape Architecture Education (CELAE), which consisted of 70 questions. The second phase consisted of in-depth interviews with faculty who self selected to participate in the qualitative phase of the study. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the quantitative data, and content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. Findings indicate faculty members in landscape architecture believe that community engagement has a positive impact on student's educational experiences, provides opportunities for research and scholarship. Faculty also reveal how faculty in landscape architecture define community engagement in regards to other terminology that is currently used in higher education to describe working with communities to solve problems. Findings from this study may be used to help landscape architecture faculty members design and develop efforts to help promote community engagement as part of their teaching research and service. / Ph. D.

Yes / Plagiarism and referencing are areas in which the transition into Higher Education can be a particularly severe leap. University expectations regarding referencing are often wildly different from those previously encountered, not just for international students but for UK school leavers and mature students (Hardy and Clughen 2012). These expectations are often implicit rather than clearly expressed, hidden in little-read departmental handbooks or pre-enrolment information at a time when the student is more concerned with immediate issues of where they will live and whether they will make any friends. Lillis (2001 p14) calls referencing ¿an ideologically inscribed institutional practice of mystery¿. This paper reports on an initiative from the University of Bradford library which attempts to smooth the transition into HE by introducing students to ideas of referencing and plagiarism in a timely and non-threatening manner.

This study was conducted to see if the engagement variables from the TummySafe 2022 online course as well as the participants’ demographic variables were positively correlated with the TummySafe certification exam score. The study examined factors that explained participants’ exam performance. The results indicated that there was little to no correlation between demographics or engagement variables and the certification exam score. Findings indicated that 22.8% of the overall variance in certification exam performance was explained by number of prior certifications (10%), race (6.5%), gender (3.5%), ethnicity (.2%), days between last course activity and exam (1.7%), in-course assessment (1%), total activity (2.3%), and page views (.2%). Participants’ in-course assessments and number of prior certifications were good indicators to predict if a student would pass or fail the certification exam.

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The purpose of this study was to determine which principal leadership behaviors are associated with higher levels of teacher engagement. The conceptual framework guiding this study was based on the behaviors associated with four specific leadership styles: transformational, shared, instructional, and transactional. This study used descriptive and inferential statistics to identify teacher perceptions of prominent leadership behaviors of each campus principal. Data related to teacher perceptions of their principal's leadership behaviors was gathered through use of a Qualtrics online survey. The distributed survey was adapted from three published surveys: MultiFactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS) and Shared Leadership Questionnaire (SLQ). Engagement scores were identified through use of the district's annual Gallup Q12 Engagement Survey. The sample for this study was identified from 2,000 teachers working at one of 38 campuses in the district. The number of teachers who participated in the survey regarding their campus was 540, and 20 of the 38 campuses had a minimum of 10 participants. Upon identification of leadership behaviors, a campus profile was developed to compare their campus engagement scores to answer the research questions. Based upon each campus profile, trends were identified to determine high yield leadership behaviors for raising teacher engagement. Participants reported the most prominent leadership behavior as their leader's sharing leadership by establishing at least one informal leader on each team with the highest mean (M = 4.54). Transformational leadership behaviors accounted for three of the highest mean scores regarding principal behaviors, with one of the top five behaviors representing instructional leadership style. Four of the five principal behaviors with the lowest overall mean were associated with transactional leadership, with one of the lowest means representing instructional leadership.