The purpose of this study was to examine teacher screening and selection tools currently being utilized by public school districts in Pennsylvania and to compare these tools to the research on qualities of effective teachers. The researcher developed four research questions that guided her study. The Pennsylvania Association of School Personnel Administrators (PASPA) granted the researcher permission to survey their members. PASPAs Executive Director sent an e-mail describing the study and invited his members to participate in the electronic survey. The e-mail asked members to click on a link that took them to a 10-15 minute survey about teacher selection tools. Fifty-five members completed the survey, with a total response rate of 32 percent. Quantitative data were analyzed using, percentages, means and standard deviations. Qualitative analysis was used to interpret data obtained from open-ended questions. The results of the study indicated that approximately 71% of reporting Pennsylvania public schools were utilizing some type of electronic on-line warehousing database for which to search and screen potential teacher candidates. However, a low number of reporting school districts were not using any type of commercial product for screening or interviewing candidates. Further, 93% of reporting school districts were using locally created interview questions. Finally, participants indicated that the top three factors considered when hiring a teacher were the candidates: knowledge of teaching and learning, content knowledge, and knowledge of good classroom practices. There were insufficient data to determine if the commercial or locally created teacher selection tools were linked to the qualities of effective teachers.

The purpose of this study was to examine the implementation of professional learning communities which are a reform effort currently in middle level education. The researcher used an electronic survey to gather data to examine the extent to which a transformation from the traditional interdisciplinary team to a professional learning community was occurring. The Western Region of the Pennsylvania Middle School Association provided assistance in identifying a sample and accessing participants. The researcher developed five research questions that guided the study. Research questions were designed to assist in determining what role the principal assumed in guiding and supporting the team within the building and how the principal functioned as a member of the team. Also, the research questions were designed to aid in determining what activities teams were presently engaged in and how those activities related to professional learning and an atmosphere of collegiality. The results of the study demonstrated that a transformation was occurring as traditional interdisciplinary teams were operating within the context of professional learning communities. Furthermore, the results indicated the principal plays a vital role in supporting and nurturing this transformation and the principals actions correlate with the success or failure of a professional learning community. Principal support is needed in providing time for the community to meet, assisting the community in maintaining a focus on student achievement, remaining dedicated to the professional learning community therefore working to support their needs as the community develops. These results support the need to further examine the role of professional learning communities in middle level education. Middle schools which currently contain interdisciplinary teams provide a natural setting in which to begin a professional learning community because the staff structure and teaming mentality already exist. However, further research would aid in determining the essential steps required to make the transformation from interdisciplinary team to professional learning community. This study suggests the transformation is possible given the proper support.

According to the National Center on Educational Outcomes (1998), Americans demand more from schools and expect more from students than ever before. Upon entering this century, our nation pledged to increase access to education for all children. As we continue to push forward, American education should rise toward a new challenge helping all children in every school increase their expectations and achievement in the academic arena (No Child Left Behind, 2001). States and school districts across the nation are carrying out reforms to recognize and overcome this challenge. Strategies to increase student achievement include setting high content and student performance standards; aligning teacher development with curriculum and instruction; and creating state and local assessments (Datnow, Hubbard, & Mehan, 2002). A key and constant piece in the ever changing puzzle of public education is the school counselor (Bemak, 2000). Throughout the history of American public education, the school counselor was an important stakeholder that provided a service of support for whoever was in need (Burnham & Jackson 2000). Today, the educational landscape has added another dimension to the puzzle and counselors are trying to find where they fit into the picture. The problem that this research will investigate is to what extent policies, indigenous to the age of accountability, have informed professional perceptions about secondary school counseling.

The Two Cultures phenomenon, first given its name by C. P. Snow in 1956, consists of a conflict between participants in the academic communities of the natural sciences and the humanities; it also mirrors the methodological debate in the social sciences. This phenomenon also occurs in undergraduates in an interdisciplinary research fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh called the Brackenridge Fellowship. The phenomenon is not an issue of jargonit is about people with different interpretive structures coming into conflict. The Two Cultures phenomenon should not be regarded as an anomaly of normally peacefully-interacting academic disciplines. There are issues about the tradition, culture, and epistemology of different academic disciplines that are perceived as deeply and fundamentally different, and it is only through Two Culture conflicts that these differences are thrown into sharp relief. The problem of interdisciplinary misunderstanding is illuminated by viewing understanding as being able to imagine a question that a statement answers, as developed in the epistemological theory of hermeneuticist Hans-Georg Gadamer. This study examines the Two Cultures phenomenon in the Brackenridge Fellowship using the methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology. It finds that students usually consider the natural sciences objective and the humanities subjective. These perceptions are overgeneralized at best and harmfully false at worst. Students in all disciplines demonstrate a lack of awareness of the traditional and communal basis of interpretation in academic fields. However, these perceptions do help to hold academic disciplines together, as students define their academic identities by using other fields as counter-examples. There are practical implications from this study for liberal education. Colleges and universities should consider general education programming beyond the traditional requisite of requiring several courses in different subject areas. Without an examination of how the structure of general education implies value judgments of academic disciplines and how these fields have ideas that are perceived as conflicting with each other, an important teachable moment is missed. Gadamerian hermeneutics helpfully provides guidance as to how a truly educational conversation can be realized with these issues, through examining the way that traditions are enacted in academic disciplines.

The significance of media literacy pedagogy in American public schools is crucial in helping teenagers comprehend the visual media world in which they live. The world is currently a place where our youth are inundated with visual messages that must be received, interpreted and critically analyzed. The dilemma is not so much in the reception of the visual media because media is so prevalent in our American society; rather the dilemma lies within the interpretation and critical analysis of said messages. The context, purpose and meaning(s) of visual media has within its realm a social, capitalist and consumerism component that is both expansive and influential. The site for this study was a high school in a suburban school district located in the northeastern section of the United States. This dissertation consists of three theoretical essays. I first explored how power, agency and lack of critical media education each play a significant role in the exploitation of today's youth. I then reviewed current research to draw on a variety of perspectives and constructs in relation to more specific areas of media literacy, such as, effects of visual media on sexuality, alcohol and drug abuse, on body image, on violence and how adolescents form meaning of media and images. I then explored the ways in which teenagers make sense of visual media and how they view their own metacognition in relation to their exchanges with visual artifacts that confronts them on a daily basis. I also observed the ways in which teenagers view and interpret visual images and how these images influence their belief systems. Exploring these areas and questions helped me to appreciate the complexities of how the media is utilized by corporate America in regard to advertising; the interplay of visual imagery and how, subconsciously, the wants and desires of teenagers are exposed; and the need for public educational institutions to provide a more relevant curricula and policy that reflects our postmodern culture.

This retrospective study was conducted to examine the relationship between selected variables and performance on the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN). Data were collected from one hundred twenty graduates of a baccalaureate program; graduates completed either the traditional four-year track or an accelerated second-degree track. Variables included scores earned on seven standardized HESI tests, grades earned in fourteen nursing courses, and grade point averages calculated at six points throughout the curriculum. Relationships between NCLEX-RN performance and student age, gender, and ethnicity were also examined. A between-subjects comparative analysis based on pass/fail performance revealed students who passed the NCLEX-RN earned significantly higher HESI test scores, course grades, and grade point averages than those who were unsuccessful on the licensure examination. The relationship between ethnicity and NCLEX-RN performance revealed a lower passing rate for minority students. A comparison analysis based on program track revealed a significantly higher NCLEX-RN pass rate for second-degree students compared to their traditional counterparts; second-degree students also earned significantly higher mean HESI test scores, course grades, and grade point averages. The HESI Exit Exam demonstrated the strongest correlation with NCLEX-RN success for both traditional and second-degree students; however, differences in NCLEX-RN correlates were revealed based on the program track. For the traditional students, NURS 3050 Nursing Care of Mothers and Newborns and the cumulative nursing grade point average (NGPA) demonstrated the strongest correlation with NCLEX-RN performance. For the second-degree students, NURS 4035 NCLEX Licensure Preparation course and the NGPA calculated after the first semester of nursing courses were the strongest correlates. In conclusion, there were significant differences between those who passed the NCLEX-RN and those who failed. Additionally, the study revealed second-degree students to be more successful in the nursing program and on the NCLEX-RN than their traditional counterparts. The results of this study support: the continued recruitment and admission of the second-degree students into the nursing program, the establishment of guidelines to more accurately identify students at-risk for failing the licensure examination based on progression criteria (i.e. course grades) and the implementation of support measures for minority and other at-risk students.

The intent of this study was to identify and examine the policies and practices of Pennsylvania School Boards, and identify what relationship these might have to patterns of district-level student performance. This study utilized a sequential mixed-methods approach in collecting data. First, quantitative data were secured using surveys sent to a large group of superintendents from similar-sized school districts across Pennsylvania. Then, for the qualitative aspect, a select few superintendents were interviewed in order to more closely analyze the policies and practices of school boards that were identified from the survey. The two research questions developed to guide the study were 1) What policies and practices does a school board engage in that influences student achievement? 2) How do those policies and practices of school boards compare in lower- and higher-achieving school districts? Even though school boards do not directly instruct students, their actions can have a profound effect on the quality of education they receive. Indicative of the study, school boards want their students to be academically successful; however, not all of the policies and practices they partake are beneficial in reaching that goal. The survey and interview data from the study indicates there are both similarities and significant differences between boards from lower- and higher-achieving districts in regards to the policies and practices they participate in, which ultimately influences student achievement. The findings from this study can help both school boards and superintendents utilize the most successful policies and practices to enhance board governance as well as provide the best opportunity to allow their students to be academically successful.

CHRONICLES OF RESISTANCE: A BORDERLANDS TESTIMONIO Jeanne Pearlman, PhD. University of Pittsburgh, 2010 This inquiry is an arts-based, narrative study that examines multiple manifestations of resistance as expressed by ordinary individuals who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. These expressions of resistance are offered as testimonios, defined as first-person narratives that bear witness to individual responses to systems of oppression. The testimonios are created within the context of the relationship between resistance and freedom, which can be seen as a mutual dependency, grounded in the reality that if some small amount of freedom did not exist, resistance could not manifest within the structures of domination. The key to enacting this freedom is the development of critical consciousness, a heightened awareness of the emancipatory power that lies in the recognition of the paradox of the few controlling the lives of the many. Often critical consciousness arises within an environment where imagination is reawakened by artists whose lives and work are situated within a practice of liberation and transformation. With a newly awakened critical consciousness, the oppressed are empowered to consider the option of critical resistance, those forms of dissent that arise not in opposition to a particular manifestation of oppression but rather in pursuit of imagined landscapes where social justice is the norm and oppression is vanquished. These utopian spaces arise within the Borderlands, liminal spaces where illusions of reality are jettisoned and creativity flourishes. The application of this form of resistance within public education requires the recognition that 5 the current climate reflects a convergence of government surveillance through high-stakes testing and educational colonization manifested through the infusion of profit-driven consultants and product lines within the system. This study includes three testimonios, created to offer examples whereby individuals respond to oppression by imagining and the enacting diverse manifestations of critical resistance in their everyday lives.

Drawing on my climb of Mount Rainier to frame my inquiry, I meander through the circuitous and strenuous terrain of my personal history in education to clarify my identification with transformative learning and my constantly evolving pedagogical temperament. I start with the premise that each student is thrown into an elusive world of inherited stories and expectations. I presume that she embodies her own rhythms of change and metamorphosis, her own specific ways of expanding and contracting in response to what she is engaging and learning, and that this shapes and is shaped by where she comes from and her consciousness of the world in which she dwells (Abram, 2009, p. 19). Reflecting my presumption, I take my reader on a journey through a series of movements wherein I discover the cognitive topology of my inquiry into exposure and presence. Grounding this interpretive study philosophically in Somervilles (2007, 2008) postmodern emergence, I employ Kralls (1988) personal history research heuristic to guide my poetic exploration of thrownness (Heidegger, 1962) in education. Writing against the backdrop of the mountain, I uncover and highlight significant moments with exposure and presence to explicate how I have negotiated complicated relationships with teachers, students, and my thrown self, and navigated various theoretical and concrete pathways that have presented themselves as provocative and heartening guides along the way. As my reader will discover, I believe that if we seek to avail ourselves of and transcend the inherited stories and expectations we have learned to live out in the classroom, then we are compelled to consider that our venture will require of us a great deal of curiosity, compassion, courage and creativity. With this in mind, I have become convinced while traversing the landscape of my educational past that an important aspect of my role as a teacher is to expose and be present to students in a way that supports and honors their specific ways of responding to what they are engaging and learning, and awakens them to possibilities not yet discovered regarding their being-and-becoming-whole-in-education.

Mongolia is similar to several other Asian countries in experiencing significant growth in higher education enrollments, in part due to expansion of the private sector. In 2004-2005, 62 percent of Mongolian undergraduates were female, a pattern that has existed since the early 1990s. The study investigates reasons for the lower participation of male students than their female counterparts in Mongolian higher education. It intends to contribute to an understanding of why this gender imbalance persists in Mongolian higher education, especially since in all spheres of life, including politics and business, males predominate in leadership positions. This qualitative study examines what kind of reasons influence the reverse gender balance. Using an inductive model of qualitative analysis design, this investigation considers the human capital theory and socio-economic effects on college choice as a conceptual framework. Forty six respondents were interviewed and the findings of this study were based on analysis of these interviews using the conceptual framework. Four major sets of factors have been found as reasons why the gender imbalance exists in Mongolian higher education, which include cultural, social, economic and institutional factors. Some of the factors are very unique to the Mongolian context while others reflect global trends within the Mongolian context. The findings suggest that most of the reasons for the reverse gender gap in higher education are closely related to the fact that Mongolia went through and still is undergoing major changes caused by the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. Prior this transition however, the consequences and structural elements of the socialist period have had impact on gender equity in higher education. On the other hand, some of the reasons for the gender imbalance are related to unique Mongolian traditions and a nomadic lifestyle that Mongolians have lead for centuries. The gender imbalance favoring female enrollment in higher education is a phenomenon also shared with the United States and other countries. Hence, the research contributes to a broader understanding of shifting gender equity patterns in higher education enrollment in the United States and Mongolia as well as around the world.