Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 1995. / Title from title page screen, viewed May 10, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Larry Kennedy (chair), John Godbold, John Goeldi, William Tolone. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-123) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on October 8, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

MATOS FILHO, Jo?o. A descentraliza??o das Pol?ticas de desenvolvimento rural - uma an?lise da experi?ncia do Rio Grande do Norte. 2002. 259f. Tese (Doutorado em Ci?ncias Econ?micas)? Instituto de Economia da Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, 2002. / Submitted by Rildeci Medeiros (rildeci@hotmail.com) on 2010-10-18T23:41:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE.pdf: 949823 bytes, checksum: 71591e86cd6f90e9f5efce1ef220774c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by clediane guedes(clediane@bczm.ufrn.br) on 2010-12-06T19:37:07Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE.pdf: 949823 bytes, checksum: 71591e86cd6f90e9f5efce1ef220774c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2010-12-06T19:37:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE.pdf: 949823 bytes, checksum: 71591e86cd6f90e9f5efce1ef220774c (MD5) / Analisa as principais experi?ncias de gest?o descentralizada de programas de desenvolvimento rural no estado do Rio Grande do Norte e procura avaliar em que medida o Projeto de Combate ? Pobreza Rural (PCPR) e o Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar (PRONAF) est?o contribuindo para o fortalecimento econ?mico e social das organiza??es comunit?rias e dos seus quadros de associados. Examina os distintos significados e a multiplicidade de usos do processo de descentraliza??o nas organiza??es p?blicas e na gest?o dos programas de desenvolvimento rural. Reconstitui as caracter?sticas das experi?ncias de descentraliza??o na trajet?ria dos principais programas de desenvolvimento rural no Rio Grande do Norte. Examina as especificidades do atual padr?o de gest?o descentralizada de pol?ticas de desenvolvimento rural segundo o discurso de lideran?as pol?ticas, sindicais, religiosas e comunit?rias e realiza uma an?lise comparada da gest?o descentralizada do PCPR e do PRONAF no Rio Grande do Norte. Registra que a experi?ncia com a implementa??o descentralizada de programas de desenvolvimento rural n?o ? um fen?meno novo no Rio Grande do Norte; ao contr?rio, ? um fen?meno antigo e recorrente que mais uma vez se apresenta justificado pelo discurso da descentraliza??o e da participa??o social. O que h? de novo ? o aprofundamento do processo de descentraliza??o, materializado na transfer?ncia de recursos financeiros e de poder decis?rio para as prefeituras municipais, conselhos municipais e organiza??es comunit?rias,configurando distintos desenhos institucionais que ora descentralizam, ora re-centralizam a gest?o p?blica no ?mbito local. A an?lise explorat?ria dos dados evidenciou a exist?ncia de desempenho diferenciado entre esses dois programas ou dentro de um mesmo programa, denotando a import?ncia relativa de fatores como capacidade de planejamento, capacidade de assessoramento t?cnico e n?mero de organiza??es comunit?rias executoras de projetos como fatores explicativos desse desempenho. programas de desenvolvimento rural, pol?tica, gest?o descentralizada. ABSTRACT: This thesis analyzes the most important experiences in decentralized management of rural development programs in state of Rio Grande do Norte and looks forward to evaluate in which manner specific programs directed to rural poverty and familiar agriculture are contributing to strength community organizations and to increase the income levels of their memberships. It examines different meanings and multiple uses of decentralization process inside public organizations and on the management of rural development programs. It reconstitutes the characteristics of decentralization experiences on the rural development programs implementation in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. It examines specificities of the actual standard rural decentralized management of rural development policies, according to speeches of politic, syndicate, religious and communitarian leaders. It makes a comparative analyses between two of the most important rural development programs in Rio Grande do Norte, that is, the ?Projeto de Combate ? Pobreza Rural? (PCPR), financed by the World Bank, and the ?Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar (PRONAF)?, financed by the Brazilian Federal Government. These programs have been implemented by the federal, state and local governments with the participation of the civil society, organized on several institutions, like municipal councils, non-government organizations and civil associations. It concludes that the establishment of rural development decentralized program is not a new phenomenon; to the contrary, it is an ancient and recurrent one, which once more presents justified by decentralization and social participation speech. What is a new fact on that is to deepen the decentralization process, making it real through the transfer of financial resources and administration to local governments, municipal councils, non-government organizations and civil associations, demonstrating different institutional designs which may contributes to decentralize but also to centralize the traditional forms of local government. The exploratory analysis suggests the existence of different performances between the two programs or inside only one program, denoting the relative importance of some factors as: capable of planning, capable of giving technical assistance and the number of community organizations that execute projects as those ones that can explain this performance

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Curriculum Studies / Unrestricted

<p>The purpose of this study is to <a>understand</a> achieving and underachieving honors students’ perceptions and experiences of their talent development process. Students currently enrolled in the Honors College <a>at</a> research-intensive public university in the Midwest participated in this study. Gagné’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT, Gagné, 2009) was used as a conceptual framework with a sequential explanatory mixed methods research design. In the quantitative phase, the Academic Talent Development Factor Survey was redeveloped to measure honors students’ perceptions and experiences of their academic talent development in terms of four components of DMGT: gifts, intrapersonal catalysts, environmental catalysts, and developmental process. A total of 174 honors students were assigned to two groups: achieving (<i>n</i> = 143) and underachieving (<i>n</i> = 31) groups. The redeveloped survey showed an acceptable model fit but should be improved to accomplish reasonable reliability and validity. The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE, 2011) was used to determine whether honors students with underachievement are less exposed to good practices for undergraduate education (Chickering & Gamson, 1999) than their peers who maintain high academic performance. </p> <p>In the quantitative phase, discriminant analysis and chi-square test results did not yield appreciable differences in pre-college characteristics including gender, ethnicity, and SAT/ACT scores between two groups. In terms of four components of DMGT, discriminant analysis results revealed that developmental process, environmental catalysts, intrapersonal catalysts were statistically significant factors to determine differences between achieving and underachieving honors students in this study. Additionally, discriminant analysis results indicated that achieving and underachieving honors students showed high level of exposure to good practices. The differences between two groups were significant with good practices including (a) faculty interest in teaching and student development, (b) quality of non-classroom interaction with faculty, (c) academic challenge and effort, and (d) challenging classes and high faculty expectations. </p> <p> In the qualitative phase, in-depth interviews were conducted to investigate similar and different patterns between achieving and underachieving honors students. Interview data from eleven achieving students, four underachieving students, and three honors advisors/staff were analyzed. From the student interviews, four composite textural themes and four composite structural themes were identified. From the interviews with staff/advisors, four composite textural themes and four composite structural themes were identified. Qualitative analysis results supported the findings from the quantitative phase and provided detailed picture of participants’ perceptions and experiences. Both achieving and underachieving students confirmed their natural ability but understood the importance of effort, task commitment. Honors students in the achieving group showed clear purpose of being honors students, focused on benefits, and anticipated opportunities in their academic talent development in the honors college Underachieving honors students did not share the same expectations. Honors students in the underachieving group viewed benefits as either unimportant or as additional work. Since few studies exist related specifically to the talent development process of honors students, this study adds to the literature and understanding of underachievement in honors college.</p>

The purpose of this study is to describe the perceptions of faculty development programs by two groups of full-time community college faculty members—arts and sciences instructors and vocational-technical instructors. To guide the development of this study, the following research questions were formulated. 1. Do organized faculty development programs have the same impression on the arts and sciences faculty members as on the vocational-technical members? 2. What specific effects do these faculty members believe that faculty development programs have had on instructional strategies, related faculty activities and professional attitudes? 3. To what extent do these faculty members perceive that the faculty development program is related to the reward system? 4. To what degree do faculty members perceive that institutional or departmental innovations have resulted from faculty development programs. What types of innovations have occurred, and what types should occur?

Institutions of higher education have increased their efforts to improve retention and graduation rates by developing support services and programs targeted at specific student populations. The purpose of this descriptive case study was to describe and further understand the perspectives of students and academic coaches/administrators associated with the Academic Coaching and Career Enhancement for Student Success (ACCESS) Program at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton, Florida. The program targets students who earned below a 2.0 grade point average (GPA) and were placed on academic probation. Data was collected through one-on-one interviews with previous ACCESS Program students and current ACCESS academic coaches/administrators. A document analysis was also conducted. The guiding research question for this study was: How useful, if at all, did participating students perceive the interventions of the ACCESS Program (e.g., meetings with an academic coach, tutoring, life skills workshops, meeting with a career advisor) in improving their academic performance (e.g., GPA) and why? The study also compared the perceptions of students to those of the ACCESS academic coaches/administrators about the interventions of the program and their usefulness. This study found that students and ACCESS academic coaches/administrators were most likely to find the academic coaching sessions to be the most useful intervention in helping students improve their academic performance and the academic workshops were found to be the least useful. Additionally, while there are elements of the program that can be improved, findings also suggest that those who had a positive overall experience in the program were more likely to perceive the program as useful because of the partnerships formed with their assigned academic coach/administrator/tutor/career counselor; the self-management skills they developed, such as accountability; and the academic and non-academic skills developed, such as improved writing and time management skills. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

It has been established that prior academic achievement influences persistence in college and that poorly prepared students are less likely to persist. The effect of counseling on underprepared students was investigated because this form of active involvement was considered a key element in the retention of developmental studies students in open-access community colleges. Since standard instructional efforts to remedy basic skill deficiencies have yielded inconsistent results, an integrated teaching model was introduced. It was believed that the academic challenges experienced by basic writing students could be moderated by structured counseling support available in the classroom throughout the transition to college composition. This research investigated the relationship between successful completion of a developmental writing course and student GPA in college composition. Since students in both treatments were considered to be lacking prerequisite skills for college composition, a median computed from placement test scores was used to categorize levels of underpreparedness. The subjects were 118 students enrolled in developmental English courses. The typical student was a young, white, male, enrolled for the first time at his local community college. After placement testing he was considered moderately underprepared for college composition. The relationship between basic writing treatment sections and grades, and between levels of underpreparedness and grades were analyzed using three Chi-Square tests of independence. These data revealed no significant relationship between grades in English 001 and teaching models, or levels of underpreparedness. It was noteworthy that 75% of the basic writing students from either treatment were successful in English 001 reflecting the overall quality of developmental instruction. Of the students categorized extremely underprepared, 69% succeeded, compared to 79% of the moderately underprepared students. This non-significant finding might suggest a need to reconsider placement test categories. Of 118 students, 89 were prepared to enter English 111 but only 71 registered for the course. A Chi-Square test of independence comparing English 001 teaching models and future enrollment in English 111 showed that there was not enough evidence to suggest that students were more likely to register because of the counselor’s influence in the classroom. A t-test comparing teaching models and future grades in English 111 revealed that the integrated teaching model did not significantly influence student GPA. In summary, 66% of the with counselor (WC) students versus 46% of the teacher-only (TO) students succeeded in developmental studies and persisted through registration for college composition. Despite the absence of a statistically significant finding, community college counselors might consider more classroom-based roles if these activities can help strengthen the visibility and image of student development services. / Ed. D.

This study is an assessment of the New Extension Agent Training (NEAT) program in Virginia. Although new Extension agents have exceptional subject matter training, they often lack skills needed to be effective Extension professionals (Bennett, 1979). The NEAT program provides a way for new agents to receive hands-on experiences that will facilitate a smooth transition into their respective roles. There is currently no specific data that has the NEAT program. Therefore, an evaluation of the program by its participants to determine its importance and effectiveness may be utilized to enhance the effectiveness of the NEAT program. The survey utilized to collect data in the study was developed by the researcher. The instrument was put on a website where participants could access it during a given time frame. The population consisted of new Extension agents, training agents, and administrators who participated in the NEAT program and are currently employed by Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE). Participants were asked to rate the importance and effectiveness of the NEAT program in facilitating new Extension agents' growth in a series of goals needed for a new agent to be proficient. These goals were then divided into eight competencies as outlined by National Policy Statement on Staff Training and Development (1968). Participants were asked to provide demographic information and suggestions that would be useful in designing future programs. Data were analyzed using SPSS. The data showed that communication was rated the most important competency while human development was considered the least important. The data related to the ratings of effectiveness of the NEAT program in relation to the eight competencies also demonstrated that respondents rated communication as the most effectively taught competency covered in the NEAT program, and human development as the least effectively taught competency. Significant differences among ratings by position in the NEAT program were measured at the 0.05 alpha level. Significant differences were observed both between new Extension agents and Extension administrators and between Extension training agents and Extension administrators were in the importance of a selected competency and the effectiveness of the NEAT program in teaching the some of the competencies. / Ph. D.