The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between student engagement and overall satisfaction of traditional and nontraditional students at the community college level at Northeast State Community College. Three professors, 2 staff, 2 administrators, 5 traditional students, and 5 nontraditional students from Northeast State Community College comprised the sample for the study. A descriptive case study was the qualitative approach used. Data were collected in individual in-depth interviews with participants. The findings of this study could provide community college administrators, staff and faculty with an understanding of traditional and nontraditional students’ engagement and satisfaction and experiences on campus. This information can assist administrators, staff and faculty in identifying needs and priorities on campus along with developing learning environments that are effective for traditional and nontraditional students. Recommendations for future research are presented. Results of the research revealed positive overall perceptions of engagement and satisfaction from students, faculty and administrators. A theme that emerged was the strong focus on student centered, student focused, educational practices at Northeast State Community College. Additionally, it was evident that the community college continuously strives to improve their student support services as well as the academic learning environment to increase student engagement and satisfaction. Further, the findings revealed a need for more advising on the importance of utilizing student email and additional modes of communication from student support services to students and from faculty to students.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between instructional environment and student engagement during reading instruction. Environment is composed of three key elements: teacher attributes, instructional methods, and the physical classroom setting (Blair, Rupley, & Nichols, 2007; De Naeghel, Van Keer, Vansteenkiste, & Rosseel, 2012; Guthrie, Hoa, Wigfield, Tonks, & Perencevich, 2006; Housand & Reis, 2008). This study examined a first, second, and third grade classroom in one East Tennessee school. Qualitative data was collected using a combination of instructional observation and teacher interviews in order to examine existing practices for successfully engaging young readers. Teachers for each of the classrooms were interviewed; following the interview, each teacher’s classroom was observed three times to examine the teacher’s attributes and most frequently used instructional methods, the physical classroom setting, and the expressed level of engagement of the student body in the classroom. The findings indicate that environment in terms of teacher attributes, instructional methods, and physical classroom setting affects student reading engagement; classrooms with high levels of organization, novel reading areas, and opportunity for students to select reading material were found particularly effective for reading engagement.

Participants will discuss how they could use the lab concept in courses outside of the sciences to encourage and improve student engagement. The questions participants will be able to answer after attending the session will be: (1) How can I use a "lab" in my classes? and (2) How could use a lab improve student engagement?

Abstract is available to download.

abstract: Colleges and universities have continued to refine their understanding of engagement, affinity, and retention. At Arizona State University (ASU), the goal has been to continually retain first-year students at a 90%+ retention rate. At ASU, two key aspects of the first-year experience have been employed to foster retention. First, ASU has grouped on-campus students so they lived in residential colleges, housing students with others in the same college, to aid retention of first-year students. Second, ASU has required first-year students to take a 101 class, an orientation to ASU resources (library, advising, etc.) and its community (student organizations, clubs, etc.). The residential college living experience has afforded students opportunities to intentionally engage in campus events, connect with other students, and develop a vision for success. The 101 class has provided students with opportunities to learn about resources and community that have enriched their first-year experiences. Together, these two key approaches have offered students pathways to building initial engagement at the institution. The current research study was conducted to examine the ways in which students became engaged during their initial semester at ASU. Student participants in this study all lived in the W. P. Carey (WPC) Residential College Community in Hassayampa Academic Village (HAV) and were enrolled in WPC 101—Student Success in Business. WPC 101 was focused on helping students navigate college and learn about campus resources. In the study, the researcher infused three Engagement Workshops into the WPC 101 curriculum alongside pre-existing assignments to afford students learning opportunities for a richer, deeper exploration and reflection on their first-semester experience. Students participated in a pre- and post-intervention survey, contributed written narratives and reflections, and six students completed individual interviews. Results of the study, particularly the qualitative results, indicated (a) quality of relationships, (b) ASU community, and (c) campus environment emerged as variables that served as the ‘roots of engagement’ for these first-semester students Thus, the current work extended previous research on engagement by identifying the initial developmental aspects of engagement among first-semester, university students. The discussion included detailed explanations of the results, limitations, implications for research and practice, lessons learned, and conclusions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2019

The purpose of this study was to apply a mixed-methods approach using an exploratory case study design to identify the impacts of a physical activity intervention program on student engagement in an elementary school setting. This exploratory case study research examined teachers’ perceptions of student engagement prior to and following implementation of a classroom-based physical activity intervention program, ABC for Fitness. Participants completed the Teacher Assessment of Student Engagement survey of student engagement and behavior, participated in an ABC for Fitness workshop, semi-structured interviews, a question and answer session, a mid-point check-in, and completed daily written behavior incident logs. Results indicated three main findings: 1) intervention teachers’ ratings and perceptions of student engagement improved; 2) intervention teachers’ attitudes towards students improved; and, 3) intervention teachers’ level of engagement in the classroom improved following implementation of the ABC for Fitness program. The demonstration of the ABC for Fitness program on student engagement levels during the three week intervention examination of its long-term effectiveness. With so much of the public educational discussion revolving around student engagement and student success, a detailed look into a classroom-based physical activity program would be a cost-effective approach to student engagement which is linked to student success.

In recent years attention has been concentrated on the experiences of traditional college students, with very little research or attention on the experiences of transfer students. The purpose of this causal comparative mixed-methods study was to describe the experiences of transfer students who engage in the experiential learning activities of service learning and/or internship activities at a four-year public Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in the Inland Empire. Relationships were found between transfer students who participated in service learning and/or internship activities and those transfer students who did not participate in those activities on the following: level of satisfaction with their educational experience, current job/career, and sense of connectedness to the university, and beliefs about how much the university contributed to their acquisition of job- or work-related knowledge and skills. Predominant concepts regarding transfer students' beliefs about what the university could do to help them be successful, were the implementation of a transfer student orientation and creating a transfer student center.

The attrition rate of teachers in an urban/suburban school district in a northeastern state caused schools to fail to attain annual yearly progress. To reverse this problem, administrators must understand the importance of their leadership and teacher efficacy and the need to nurture teachers to increase student performance. The purpose of this sequential mixed-methods study was to determine whether a relationship existed between leadership and efficacy. Total-population sampling was used to obtain 19 elementary and middle teachers who completed two surveys to examine the relationship between principals' behaviors (human relations, trust/decision making, instructional leadership, control, and conflict) and teacher efficacy (student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management). Survey data were analyzed using Pearson's product-moment correlations. In addition, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 3 teachers who had 5 or fewer years of teaching experience. These data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Quantitative findings indicated significant relationships between instructional leadership with teacher engagement and conflict with teacher engagement. Themes, based on the integrated model of teacher efficacy, revealed connections with the principal and support, guidance, and structure provided by the principal. Principals must focus on leadership behaviors that may increase teacher efficacy. These endeavors may contribute to positive social change when school leaders support teachers, who, in turn support students in their educational challenges to increase academic performance.

From 2012 to 2015, students' academic performance at a community college in North Carolina fell below North Carolina Community College System baseline benchmarks despite the institution's adoption of several student success initiatives. Building from the established correlation between student academic achievement and academic engagement and the importance of noncognitive competencies in moderating student academic engagement, this qualitative case study investigated the academic experiences of 7 students who were members of the Paying It Forward mentoring program to determine the types of support and resources that students needed to develop and hone intrinsic motivation, sense of belonging, and self-efficacy-the noncognitivenoncognitive competencies proven to most directly moderate academic engagement. The guiding frameworks included a student-engagement framework developed by the Chicago Consortium on School Research, the learner-centered curriculum framework, and the generalized internal/external model. The research questions focused on specific factors that facilitated students' development of intrinsic motivation, sense of belonging, and academic confidence. The findings identified relationships between student academic performance and academic engagement as moderated by these noncognitivenoncognitive competencies and supported previous research concerning the invaluable role of faculty in developing students' sense of belonging. A resulting professional development project may enable faculty to systematically bolster students' academic engagement and performance by directly supporting mastery of these noncognitivenoncognitive competencies. This project may contribute to social change through increased graduation and transfer rates, which would create opportunities for enhanced social capital.

Rapid technological advances have created major societal changes, transformed business sectors, and revolutionized enterprises. In contrast, the curricular structure of medical education has remained unchanged for the last 100 years, and, for the most part, medical education has been reluctant to embrace the use of technology. The prevalent pedagogical model is reliant on rote memorization. The conceptual framework that informed this study was the user-centered framework for meaningful gamification. This framework's components are organismic integration theory, situational relevance, situated motivational affordance, and the universal design for learning. This quantitative study focused on key research questions related to identifying whether significant increases occurred over time in cooperative learning, cognitive level, and personal skills 'the dependent variables' when using a gamified learning method-the independent variable. The validated Student Engagement Survey was used to collect data from second-year medical students in a Southern California medical school, with N = 64. A repeated measures MANOVA with follow-up univariate ANOVAs was used, and statistical results indicated that there were significant differences over time in cooperative learning, cognitive level, and personal skills when using gamified learning methods. This research was conducted over a period of 3 months, divided into 3 Time Periods (TP). For all three variables, significant increases were noticed between TP 1 and TP 2, followed by significant decreases between TP 2 and TP 3. These findings pointed to the fact that more studies are needed to better understand whether certain types of gamification implementations are detrimental to student engagement in medical education, or whether more sound design principles ought to be explored to produce effective gamified learning components that could positively impact student engagement in medical education.