Academic programs for student athletes are an integral part of collegiate athletic programs across the country. The Summer Bridge Program at Texas A&M University is a transition program for student athletes that are beginning their first year of college. The program allows student athletes to begin their college career in the summer immediately following graduation and take a few courses and learn study and time management skills. The purpose of this study was to determine if transition programs were effective in helping student athletes succeed academically while in college. Chickering’s Theory of Identity Development and literature on learning communities formed the framework of the study. Learning communities and transition programs are becoming popular programs at colleges and universities to help all student transition to college and succeed academically. Also, there was much literature regarding the Academic Progress Rate and the 40/60/80 rule which determines the amount of degree plan that must be completed at the end of the sophomore, junior and senior year of college created by the NCAA. These rules are a driving force for academic centers to provide services for the academic success of student athletes. Data were collected both quantitatively and qualitatively with cumulative grade point ratios (GPR’s) of the student athletes and interviews were conducted with a small number of student athletes in select sports. After the GPR data was analyzed, the student athletes that participated in the program had lower GPR’s than those that did not participate. The qualitative data from the interviews provided positive statements and feelings toward the Summer Bridge Program. Additional research is needed since the area of transition programs for collegiate athletics has not been extensively investigated.

Educators are frequently faced with the challenges of politics, hostility, selfishness, and violence; it is unwise to think that the principal is the only one providing leadership for school improvement. Thus a distributed perspective of leadership urges us to take leadership practice as the focus of interest and address both teachers and administrators as leaders. The purpose of this descriptive statistical study was to explore principals’ leadership practices as perceived by teacher leaders and its possible affect to student achievement. Data were collected by using the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) (self and observer) instrument (Kouzes & Posner, 2003) from all willing teacher leaders to determine the leadership practices of the principals in Region VI, Texas. Also, statewide assessment data available from three school years (2004-2006) were obtained from the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) report. In order to answer research questions one to four, descriptive statistics including frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were calculated for the LPI results. The distributed framework offers considerable influence for studying leadership as a schoolwide rather than individual practice. Based on the literature, six conclusions were drawn and recommendations were made regarding practice, future study and policy. First, the findings indicated that principals’ collaborative working style with teacher leaders seems to have positive impact on student achievement. Second, failing to enlist teacher leaders in a common vision might have a negative affect on student academic performance. Third, the perceptions of teacher leaders in School 7, School 5 and School 16 reflected a need for the principal to take challenges and seek challenging opportunities to change and grow. Fourth, recognizing teacher leaders’ contributions and celebrating team accomplishments is likely to have a positive and indirect impact on school academic performance. Fifth, schools that had higher principal self and observer LPI scores tended to have better TAKS scores. Last, the findings from the study complement studies of the effects of site-based management teams. The positive impact of “Enabling Others to Act” and “Inspiring a Shared Vision” on student achievement implies that distributed leadership is most likely to contribute to school improvement and to build school capacity for improvement.

Abstract This study, based on the method of questionnaire survey and interview, mainly investigate the attitude towards love among the vocational high school students. In the process, the researcher made reference to correlated documents first, and then inducted the information as the reference of study design. Furthermore, the researcher modified the Love Attitudes Scale by Hendrick & Hendrick (1986) and experienced the pre-tests and formal tests. By the information of statistics and analysis, this study investigated the differences among the vocational high school students in personal factors (grade or sex), personal experiences of falling in love (times of having fallen in love, whether being falling in love or not, or the lasted time of falling in love) and the condition of his/her parents¡¦ relations (very good, good, bad or very bad). Simultaneously, the researcher picked six boys and six girls as interviewers, making the semi-structured interviews according to the outlines of six distinct attitudes for love. This study summed up the connected information which analyzed the love in the mind of the vocational high school students. Through the discussions and analyses, this study came to the following conclusions: 1. The students of first grade in vocational high school, whose attitude towards love tends to ¡§storge¡¨ more. 2. The girls in vocational high school, whose attitude towards love tends to ¡§pragma¡¨ more. 3. The boys in vocational high school, whose attitude towards love tends to ¡§eros¡¨, ¡§ludus¡¨, ¡§storge¡¨, ¡§mania¡¨ and ¡§agape¡¨ more than the girls. 4. Investigating the attitudes towards love in distinct experiences of falling in love among the vocational high students by means of the formal questionnaire, this study got the following points: (1) Those who fell in love once to four times tend towards ¡§eros¡¨ more than those who never fell in love. (2) Those who never fell in love tend towards ¡§ludus¡¨ more than those who fell in love once to four times. (3) Those who never fell in love tend towards ¡§storge¡¨ more than those fell in love once to four times and those more than four times. (4) Those who are falling in love now tend towards ¡§eros¡¨ more than those who are not falling in love now. (5) Those who are not falling in love now tend towards ¡§ludus¡¨ more than those who are falling in love now. (6) Those who are falling in love now tend towards ¡§agape¡¨ more than those who are not falling in love now. (7) Those who fell in love for 6 to 12 months and those for more than one year tend towards ¡§eros¡¨ more than those who fell in love for 1 to 3 months and those who never fell in love. (8) Those who never fell in love tend towards ¡§ludus¡¨ more than those who fell in love for more than one year. (9) There is not evident difference between the attitudes towards love among the vocational high students and the condition of their parents¡¦ relations (very good, good, bad or very bad). 5. This study got the following points from the interview. (1) The definition for love among the vocational high students is that there are feelings between two sides, that they are willing to give to each other without any complaint and regret and that there is the phenomenon of owning him/her by herself/himself. (2) Family is the earliest organization that one steps into the society. It¡¦s an important institution as well. As parents, they are supposed to pay attention to the feeling management so that there are good interactions with their children. As a result, their children can get well along with the opposite sex. (3) The Mr. Right in vocational high students¡¦ hearts is supposed to have both ¡§the outer¡¨ and ¡§the inner¡¨. The former includes the height, the appearance and wearing long hair. The latter includes the emotional conditions (personal quality, talent, character, behave and obedience, ¡Ketc.) and the instrumental conditions (being good at study, sport, specialty and home chores, ¡Ketc.) (4) According to the response for the questions of the formal questionnaire from the interview, most of the questions were able to investigate the inner view points of the interviewers, except for the question 10, 13, and 26 about ¡§ludus¡¨ are completely opposite, and question 2, 5, 21 and 27 about ¡§storge¡¨ and question 7 about ¡§mania¡¨ are not correspondent completely. According to the above conclusions, this study puts forward the proposals that are classified as the fallowing: 1. The suggestions for students. (See this thesis) 2. The suggestions for parents in teaching their children. (See this thesis) 3. The suggestions for educators. (See this thesis) 4. The suggestions for being engaged in research. (See this thesis) 5. The suggestions for the study method. (See this thesis)

In this study, the political socialization process, which includes the family factor, school factor, fellows factor and mass media factor, of the junior high school students were explored and analyzed by using a questionnaire survey. The object of this study is to understand the diverse effects in political study, which includes the basic political view, democratic value and democratic attitude, of students with different social background. Some findings in the study are: ¡]1¡^First of all, parent¡¦s occupation and ethnic group are mostly relevant to student¡¦s character in terms of family political socialization factors (PSF). But the school PSF is more relevant to gender and year of study. Besides that, there is a slightly relevance between the use of media, gender and year of study. The fellows PSF is more connected to gender, year of study, parent¡¦s job and ethnic group. (2) The PSF of gender, year of study, parent¡¦s job and ethnic group, national identity are clearly correlated to national identity, the definition of national territory, the relationship between Taiwan and China, the definition of Chinese in nationality, and the relationship between Taiwanese and Chinese in terms of students¡¦ basic political attitude. However, among them, the gender factor is less relevant than the others. ¡]3¡^In respect to student¡¦s characters with the democratic value, gender factor is relevant to political equality and majority governance; and year of study, parent¡¦s job are relevant to democratic belief, political equality, majority governance, party competition and political trust. There are also some relevance between gender and political participation; year of study and political effects, citizen responsibility and political knowledge while talking about student characters with democratic attitude. However, overall speaking, democratic attitude less relevant to student characters compared with democratic value.

The U.S. Army Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) dates back to the fall of 1947 and evolved from severe professional nursing shortages of World War II. Today, as in the past, to sustain U.S. Army readiness the highly medically trained combat soldier must possess skills and competency of an LPN, which is a result of successful completion of a 52-week 91WM6 training program. The purpose of this two-part descriptive study includes evaluation of quantitative and qualitative data. The Delphi technique and a retrospective student record review were utilized to gather data. Dependent variables included student demographics such as age, rank, gender, years of military experience, marital status, prior education and medical related experience, Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) scores, specifically Skilled Technical (ST) and General Technical (GT), students’ interpretation of stressors of military life, occupational goals, number of college units attained, number of examinations failed and physical fitness tests failed, Article 15’s administered, and counseling. The independent variable was successful completion of the National Council Licensure Examination for Practical Nursing (NCLEX) examination on the first attempt. Major research findings of this study included: 1. The research revealed higher pass rates for a private first class and specialist, as compared to lower pass rates of corporals and sergeants. Additionally, soldier students in the study who had completed at least one college unit (had attended college), had a 92% pass rate as compared to those who had not completed any additional education or college after high school (75.0%). It is suggested that prior experience may improve entry cognitive skills that enhance academic performance along with the student’s achievement. 2. The research revealed that those soldier students who tended to have higher GT and ST scores failed program tests significantly fewer times. 3. Based on the results of the expert opinions of the panelists (Delphi) who participated in the study, the highest-rated predictors in completing the course were positive study habits, demonstrating diligence, and motivation. For predictors related to passing the NCLEX-PN, the highest rate was the ability to think critically and specifically preparing for the NCLEX examination.

Research data revealed that Mexican Americans have the highest dropout rate of any other Hispanic group. Since Hispanics are becoming the highest minority group in the U.S., the primary purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate what helped third generation low socioeconomic Mexican American A.I.S.D. students successfully graduate from high school. Three former students were selected from three different high schools. The researcher collected data through individual interviews with each participant and with key informants such as parents and school personnel. Issues examined included participant perceptions of factors that kept them in school, the support systems they believed were important, and the challenges they encountered. The overall findings revealed that the three participants had a strong sense of control, positive relationships with peers and school staff, parents who valued education, and strong school support through programs or personnel. Recommendations for educators based on the findings include 1) staff development on building relationships with students and communicating with parents, 2) creation of nurturing and academically rigorous school environments.

This study determined the impact of downsizing on student achievement as reported in the AEIS database for the 10 downsized elementary schools in North East Independent School District (NEISD). Ten existing elementary schools lost students and teachers to four new schools that opened in 2005. Conclusions have been made regarding the impact of downsizing at these ten existing feeder schools on student achievement. The population of this study were students enrolled in third, fourth, and fifth grades at the ten downsized elementary campuses. Research questions were analyzed using an Independent Sample t test and the Pearson Product Moment Correlations to examine whether there was a significant difference between the variables and student achievement and correlations between student achievement and changes in teacher demographics. Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations are provided: 1. Total tested student population and White subpopulation TAKS scores returned statistically significant improvement at the ten elementary campuses in the area of reading "met standards" after downsizing. 2. The Hispanic subpopulation returned statistically significant improvement in the area of reading "commended performance" after downsizing. 3. The overall tested student population and the Hispanic subpopulation returned statistically significant in the area of mathematics "met standards" after downsizing. 4. The overall tested student population and the Hispanic and White subpopulations returned statistically significant improvement in the area of mathematics "commended performance" after downsizing. 5. The African American subpopulation was the only population in this study whose student achievement mean declined from 2005 to 2006 in the areas of reading "met standards" and mathematics "commended performance." 6. The African American subpopulation was the only population in this study to show a significant negative correlation between teacher years of experience and student achievement in "commended performance" for reading and mathematics prior to downsizing.

The purpose of this study was to identify ways in which students interact with faculty members outside of the classroom and learn what students believe makes for high quality interaction. Additionally, this study sought to identify successful out-of-classroom facultystudent interaction strategies from the student perspective. This knowledge can aid colleges and universities in promoting more formal and informal faculty-student out-of-classroom interaction, thereby increasing the overall quality of the undergraduate student experience. The study employed a naturalistic inquiry paradigm of research. The author interviewed 25 students at a Hispanic Serving institution (HSI) in San Antonio, Texas. All students interviewed had interacted with faculty outside of the classroom. Six themes emerged in terms of types of interaction: course-related activities; traveling for conferences or study abroad; casual interactions around campus; career and graduate school focused interaction; visiting faculty in their offices (most common); and participating together in campus clubs or athletic activities. High quality out-of-classroom interactions had four characteristics: faculty members were approachable and personable; faculty members had enthusiasm and passion for their work; faculty members cared about students personally; and faculty members served as role models and mentors. The most powerful element of high-quality faculty-student out-of-classroom interaction is that of relationship. The most pronounced differences between underclassmen and upperclassmen were in the areas of going to faculty offices and speaking with faculty about career and graduate school plans. Juniors and seniors proportionately had more interaction with faculty on these themes. Students offered suggestions on how the University could encourage more facultystudent out-of-classroom interaction. Students' ideas revolved around three themes: promoting social events and interaction; stressing the importance of office hours; and suggestions directed at faculty members. Students can also serve as ambassadors to other students by encouraging them to engage in faculty-student out-of-classroom interaction. To continue improving the undergraduate collegiate experience, colleges and universities should strengthen and refine institutional commitment to practices that foster the undergraduate experience, including that of faculty-student interaction. Finally, institutions must remember to keep students at the center of their purpose and find ways to regularly solicit qualitative feedback from students of all segments of the campus environment.

This study examines Levels of Technology Implementation (LoTi) teacher selfratings and Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) scores. The LoTi instrument is explained comprehensively in the study. Using a series of survey questions about classroom instruction and technology use, the instrument measures a teacher's level of technology implementation in terms of that teacher's perception of classroom practices. The study assesses the relationship between LoTi ratings and TAKS scores of 9th, 10th, and 11th grade students as reported in student records at Alamo Heights Independent School District, San Antonio, Texas. The study determined the degree to which teacher LoTi ratings were a predictor of success on TAKS exam scores as reported in student records at Alamo Heights Independent School District, San Antonio, Texas. In addition, the study ascertained the existence of differences among the variable of student economic status. For the purposes of this study, school and student performance analysis included only Alamo Heights High School in the Alamo Heights Independent School District (AHISD). The student data in the study came from approximately 359 9th graders, 372 10th graders, and 309 11th graders (1040 total students). A total of 11 English teachers, 14 math teachers, 9 science teachers, and 10 social studies teachers (44 total teachers) from this campus made up the population under study. The research findings of this study included: 1. A positive relationship exists between the level of technology implementation in the classroom and student performance on the TAKS test in math, English Language Arts/Reading, science, and social studies. 2. Further, the findings showed that this relationship impacts economically disadvantaged students the most in English Language Arts/Reading and math.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between vertical teaming in science and student achievement. This study compared student achievement of campuses implementing vertical teaming with schools that do not practice vertical teaming. In addition, this study explored the relationship between selected demographic variables and vertical teaming using Grade 5 Science TAKS results in the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS). Campus demographic variables such as economically disadvantaged, minority students, English language learners, student mobility, and experienced teachers were researched. A call-out yielded 168 responses. With the exclusion of the 12 campuses, a total of 156 participating campuses from 18 traditional school districts remained. Campuses employing vertical teaming were self-identified on the basis of having implemented the process for two or more years. The gain in percent mastered for Science TAKS scores from 2004 to 2007 was used as the Science TAKS score variable. Results indicated that there was no significant difference in student achievement in science for campuses practicing vertical teaming and campuses that did not. The twoway ANOVA was used to measure the relationship between the independent variables (vertical teaming and campus demographic variables) on the dependent variable (student achievement on Science TAKS). The results suggested that campuses having low percentages of economically disadvantaged students statistically gained more on the Science TAKS than campuses that have high percentages of economically disadvantaged students irrespective of vertical teaming practices. In addition, campuses that have low percentages of minority students statistically gained more on the Science TAKS than campuses that have high percentages of minority students despite vertical teaming participation. Recommendations include districts, state, and federal agencies providing campuses with a high percent of economically disadvantaged students with more resources and more flexibility in using those resources. Recommendations for further study included a replication of the study that takes into account the degree of implementation of vertical teaming.