The problem of this study is to determine the relationship between attitudes of student teachers and the way these student teachers are perceived by their pupils. A subproblem is the effect of student teaching on these attitudes.

The problem of this study was to determine the status and practices of supervisors of secondary student teachers in Texas colleges and universities and to compare these practices with those practices recommended by national authorities in the field of student teaching.

The problem of this study was the prediction of aggressive, submissive, and normal student teaching behavior by the use of needs profiles from sociometrically defined groups of education students. The criteria profiles were constructed using beginning education students, and prediction was made on a student teaching population.

The study attempted to determine the relationship between student evaluation of instruction and institutional performance ratings with the following predictors: faculty job satisfaction, faculty attitudes toward the evaluation process, faculty attitudes toward factors associated with the evaluation process, and faculty characteristics.

The objective of this thesis is to determine guidance practices in four-year, Class A High Schools in Texas by: (1) surveying related literature in the field of guidance to determine what the experts consider a good guidance program for secondary schools; (2) means of a survey in the form of a questionnaire, to determine what is actually being done in guidance work in Texas Class A Schools; (3) arriving at a conclusion concerning good guidance work practices for four year, Class A High Schools in Texas.

M.Ed. (Adult Education) / This study focused on tutors’ roles in the formation of learning communities during an educational excursion (EE) and explored how tutors enable the transfer of the social and academic cohesion formed during the EE to the formal university environment. This research inquiry is a subsection of a larger NRF, Thuthuka research project. The general focus of the larger study is the investigation of the EE as a precursor to the development of learning communities at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). Higher education in South Africa and worldwide is being tasked with improving student retention, especially in the first year of study, as this is when the highest attrition takes place. One of the initiatives that had good success rates in other countries is the introduction of First Year Experience (FYE) programmes that address first year students’ academic and social transition into the formal learning environment. This study focuses on the Education Faculty at the UJ and the EE that forms part of their FYE programme. Tutors as more senior peers accompany staff on a directed intervention namely, a three day field trip, aimed at accelerating first year students’ enculturation into university life. The tutors’ roles in the formation of learning communities fall within the fields of teacher education and development and higher and adult education. Within the field of tutoring, the roles the tutors play in the formation of learning communities during an EE is relatively unexplored, especially from the viewpoint of the tutors and staff who accompany the students on the excursion in a higher education context. This study used a generic qualitative research design and employed qualitative methods of data collection (interviews) with academic staff, support staff, a facilitator and students as peer tutors. Qualitative content analysis and specifically the constant comparative method were utilised. The study found that tutors facilitated the development of social cohesion during the EE between students, students and staff and tutors and staff. The tutors played an important role in promoting learning by scaffolding student interaction during activities, and by aiding interaction through facilitating activities in small groups since they are closer to the student experience. The social and academic cohesion was transferred to the formal learning environment by scaffolding students’ learning, linking theory and practise and supporting students socially. Tutors’ experiences with students’ struggles during the EE allow them to support students more effectively at university

M.Ed. (Psychology of Education) / The political upheavals of decades before the advent of democracy left far reaching consequences to the South African education system. The culture of teaching and learning suffered a severe blow since schools were the battlegrounds of the oppressor and the oppressed. Whilst learners developed an academic attitude, teachers lost sight of their professional ethos. The oppressor’s ultimate aim was largely to create a black labour force mentality that is denied opportunities to creativity and critical thinking approach. A different approach to the training of student teachers was necessary if the integrity of the teaching profession was to be retained. This includes the inculcation of a perspective in which aspirant young student teachers embrace the teaching profession with more positive attitude to their practice. It is significant that diverse institutions such as the University of Johannesburg, with its education faculty, began to conceptualise a framework based on the educational excursion for first year B.Ed Students. The Golden Gate Educational excursion became an outdoor learning experience for realisation of the faculty framework. The framework expresses the commitment to the education and training of caring, accountable, critically reflective educational practitioners who would be able to nurture and support learning in a diverse educational context. The educational excursion curriculum was therefore, tailored to serve both conceptual framework and the professional development. This research report attempted to articulate the views of first year B.Ed students on the professional development after the Golden Gate educational excursion. A generic qualitative study situated within an interpretive research paradigm was applied in the study. Observations, interviews and feedback evaluation forms were vital in the collection of data. B.Ed first year students were the participants in the research process. The premise for the study of their professional development is deduced from Bronfenbrenner’s ecosystemic model. The central view is that development cannot be fully understood unless we view it in relation to various systems in which people are involved. It is therefore, viewed within the social context. Within the social context, students accumulate experience that determines how they attach and construct meaning to reality around their environments. The accumulated experiences as well as their personal reflection on the professional practice provide a learning experience that result in new paradigm about the teaching profession. Feedback evaluation forms completed by first year B.Ed. students served as a reflective exercise on detailed aspects of the excursion. Their views were well articulated and triangulated with interviews and observation data in form of pictures attached in the addendum. The evidence clearly showed a positive change of first year B.Ed. students’ views about teaching profession after Golden Gate excursion.

Thesis advisor: Karen D. Arnold / As students increasingly incur high amounts of debt for their undergraduate education, there is heightened concern about the long-term implications of loans on borrowers, especially borrowers from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Drawing upon the concepts of cultural capital and habitus (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977) and the human capital framework (Becker, 1993), this research explores how student debt and social class intersect and affect individuals' trajectory into adulthood. A total of 50 interviews were conducted with young adults who had incurred $30,000 to $180,000 in undergraduate debt and who were from varying social classes. The findings explore how four categories of students -<italic>Insiders, Entrepreneurs, Pioneers, and New Moneys</italic>- varied along dimensions of economic and cultural wealth, and experienced their college search, college education, and transition to the workforce differently. The findings point to the immense role that habitus (Bourdieu, 1986) plays in shaping borrowers' educational experiences and post-graduation outcomes: Individuals' embodied cultural capital shaped their educational experiences and interactions with institutions and the labor market. Those who had high levels of cultural resources tended to have a more rigorous college search, stronger academic orientation, and greater student involvement during college. Compared to other students, they were more likely to transition to high-paying, high-status professional positions after graduation and attend graduate school. In contrast, individuals with low cultural resources tended to have a more casual college search, were more prone to encountering errors with their financial aid, spent a great deal of time working during college, and later faced underemployment in the labor market. They were less likely to report benefiting from a social network and their credential in the labor market and more likely to express regret about their debt and college education. The findings illustrate the inequitable payoff that college and debt have for borrowers with varying levels of cultural resources, and suggest that loans can serve as a form of social reproduction. A conceptual model outlines the factors associated with incurring high levels of debt and illustrates how they relate to borrowers' college experiences and lives post-graduation. In highlighting how debt exacerbates social inequities and the risks it can pose to students, especially students with low income and cultural resources, the findings call for higher education institutions to conduct a comprehensive review of their practices and services from the time students apply to college to after they graduate. Enhanced supports at high schools and community organizations can also assist families, particularly in encouraging participation in early savings plans and strengthening their financial literacy. Additionally, increased governmental scrutiny of borrowing can help protect students from over-indebtedness. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: Heather Rowan-Kenyon / Paid employment is one of the most common extracurricular activities among full-time undergraduates, and an array of studies has attempted to measure its impact. Methodological concerns with the extant literature, however, make it difficult to draw reliable conclusions. Furthermore, the research on working college students has little to say about relationships between employment and leadership development, a key student learning outcome. This study addressed these gaps in two ways, using a national sample of 77,489 students from the 2015 Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership. First, it employed quasi-experimental methods and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to investigate relationships between work variables (i.e., working status, work location, and hours worked) and both capacity and self-efficacy for leadership. Work location for students employed on-campus was disaggregated into 14 functional departments to allow for more nuanced analysis. Second, this study used text mining methods to examine the language that participants used to define leadership, which enabled a rich comparison between students’ conceptualizations and contemporary leadership theory. Results from HLM analysis suggested that working for pay is associated with lower self-reported leadership capacity, as defined by the social change model of leadership development, and that this relationship varies by workplace location and across institutional characteristics. The association between working status and self-efficacy for leadership was found to be practically non-significant, and hours worked per week were unrelated to either outcome. Results from text mining analysis suggested that most students conceptualize leadership using language that resonates with the industrial paradigm of leadership theory— leadership resides in a person with authority, who enacts specific behaviors and directs a group toward a goal. Disaggregated findings suggested that students who work off-campus consider leadership differently, using language consonant with contemporary, post-industrial scholarship—leadership is a dynamic, relational, non-coercive process that results in personal growth and positive change. In sum, the findings both echo and challenge aspects of existing research on leadership and working college students. Future research should explore off-campus work environments in greater detail, while practitioners and scholars who supervise students should aim to infuse post-industrial conceptualizations into on-campus work environments. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: Audrey A. Friedman / Despite the inherent obstacles posed by increasingly diverse student populations, school leaders worldwide are under mounting pressure to raise student achievement. This study utilizes hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to investigate the relationship between principal priorities and student achievement in reading literacy on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in sixty-four jurisdictions worldwide. Disaggregating the sixty-four systems into three performance levels, the research aims to equip principals across the global landscape with insights into current performance patterns of diverse learners and the leadership behaviors that associate with student achievement. The diverse groups of interest include boys, immigrants, language learners, socio-economically disadvantaged students, and rural pupils. Three conditions of effective leadership organize the priorities of investigation: defining a mission, managing instruction, and developing a climate (Hallinger and Murphy, 1985). The results reveal that across performance levels, diverse learners are underachieving but specific subgroups are faring better than others in some jurisdictions. Commonalities emerge from these jurisdictions and set a roadmap for interpreting the achievement of diverse learners worldwide. The leadership priorities that most frequently associate with student achievement when controlling for background factors vary across systems and across performance levels. The priorities under `defining the school mission' are most frequently statistically significantly associated to student achievement in promising systems and the priorities under `managing the instructional programming' and `developing school climate' are most frequent among high- performers. Overall, however, the associations are weak and ultimately open the possibility of a fourth condition of effective leadership: establishing a community connection. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.