Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-137). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Field trips are a basic and important, yet often overlooked part of the student experience. They provide the opportunity to integrate real world knowledge with classroom learning and student previous personal experiences. Outdoor guided field trips leave students with an increased understanding, awareness and interest and in science. However, the benefits of this experience are ambiguous at best (Falk and Balling, 1982; Falk and Dierking, 1992; Kisiel, 2006. Students on an outdoor guided field trip to a local nature park experienced a significant increase in their understanding of the rock cycle. The changes in the pre-field trip test and the post-field trip test as well as their answers in interviews showed a profound change in the students’ understanding and in their interest in the subject matter. The use of the “student’s voice” (Bamberger and Tal, 2008) was the motivation for data analysis. By using the students’ voice, I was able to determine the mechanisms that might influence their understanding of a subject. The central concepts emerging from the data were: the outdoor setting; the students’ interest; the social interaction. From these central concepts, a conceptual model was developed. The outdoor setting allows for the freedom to explore, touch, smell and movement. This, in turn, leads to an increased interest in subject matter. As the students are exploring, they are enjoying themselves and become more open to learning. Interest leads to a desire to learn (Dewey, 1975). In addition to allowing the freedom to explore and move, the outdoor setting creates the condition for social interaction. The students talk to each other as they walk; they have in-depth discourse regarding the subject matter -- with the teachers, each other and with the guides. The guides have an extremely important role in the students’ learning. The more successful guides not only act as experts, but also adjust to the students’ needs and act or speak accordingly. The interconnections of these three concepts-- the outdoor setting, the students’ interest, the social interaction - worked to provide the mechanisms by which the students increased their understanding of the rock cycle. / text

As online learning becomes more popular, higher education is becoming more interested in this new medium of learning. However, attrition has become a developing problem for colleges and universities that offer online classes, as some students found it was difficult to stay engaged in their online courses. From the literature, it was hypothesized that instructional designs that incorporate collaborative activities will lead to higher perceived engagement levels than those that incorporate individualistic learning. An exploratory study used a self-report survey instrument to measure students' perception of level of engagement in six graduate-level online classes (n=66). Half of the courses in the study integrated formal collaborative activities as a significant component of the course and half represented learning environments characterized by whole group and individualistic learning. The results showed a significant positive relationship between classes that used collaborative activities and engagement levels. However, the coded responses of the participants showed that while classes that use such activities had higher levels of engagement, it is possible that this may be attributable to other factors external to the formal elements of collaboration in the course. Recommendations are offered for future research that may help identify the elements that contribute to engagement in online courses. / text

Suicide among Asian college students becomes a major challenge for campus administrators and mental health professionals. The author contends that it is important to understand different and similar characteristics between Asian American and Asian international college students regarding suicide risk factors and protective factors in order to prevent them from committing suicide. The author provides a review of suicidal risk factors and protective factors and implications for campus mental health professionals and recommendations for future research. / text

The current study evaluated a multiple-membership growth curve model that can be used to model growth in student achievement, in the presence of student mobility. The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of ignoring multiple school membership when modeling student achievement across time. Part one of the study consisted of an analysis of real longitudinal student achievement data. This real data analysis compared parameter estimates, standard error estimates, and model-fit statistics obtained from a growth curve model that ignores multiple membership, to those obtained from a growth model that accounts for multiple school membership via the MMREM approach. Part two of the study consisted of a simulation study designed to determine the impact of ignoring multiple membership and the accuracy of parameter estimates obtained under the two modeling approaches, under a series of data conditions. The goal of the study was to assess the importance of incorporating a more flexible MMREM approach when modeling students’ academic achievement across time. Overall, the results of the current study indicated that the Cross-classified multiple membership growth curve model (CCMM-GCM) may provide more accurate parameter estimates than competing approaches for a number of data conditions. Both modeling approaches, however, yielded substantially biased estimates of parameters for some experimental conditions. Overall, results demonstrate that incorporating student mobility into achievement growth modeling can result in more accurate estimates of schools effects. / text

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This thesis uses Native American Student Affairs (NASA) at the University of Arizona (UA) as a case study to see where NASA matches and diverges from the current literature on Native American Cultural Centers (NACC). Twenty-eight current Native American undergraduates and graduates were surveyed about their views on NASA, and their responses were then analyzed for common themes. The findings showed that NASA was similar to the current research when it came to themes of community, promoting culture, feeling less isolated, networking, and having an independent space. It diverged on one demographic aspect, namely a significant portion of student respondents came from reservations, which is not reflective of the Native community in the United States as a whole. Additionally, it mentioned the importance of event hosting, which is not mentioned in the current literature at all. The majority of students identified NASA as creating a space for them to feel supported, provide resources, network, and host events that promote awareness of Native American issues. The thesis ends with recommendations for NASA based on the responses, and advocates for further research to delve deeper into the nuances of NACC's and their responsibility to continuously adapt to the needs of their students.

The literature in the field of teacher education has recognized the cooperating teacher as the most important member of the professional team which supervises the clinical laboratory experience of the student teacher. In fact, various educators have noted that no single individual has so direct an influence as the cooperating teacher in shaping the attitudes, skills, and ideas of a prospective teacher. In spite of the recognition given to the significant role the cooperating teacher plays in the daily supervision of the student teacher, information is still missing on the identification and validation of important tasks or competencies necessary for the cooperating teacher to perform. The purpose of this study was to identify specific competencies of secondary school cooperating teachers, to determine the degree of importance of these competencies, and to analyze the differences in perceptions regarding the most important competencies. Respondents in the study were cooperating teachers, student teachers, and university supervisors associated with student teaching programs at The University of Arizona during the 1978-79 academic year. The study was conducted in the following manner: (1) A search of the literature was completed to locate lists of existing cooperating teacher competencies. (2) A list of cooperating teacher competencies published in 1966, by the Association of Teacher Educators was adopted as a starting point for competency identification. (3) A jury of eleven experts critiqued the original 35 competencies for appropriateness and clarity. These experts also offered suggestions for additional competencies. (4) The list of competencies was then revised to include new competencies, strengthen each existing competency, eliminate duplication, and correct grammatical inconsistencies. (5) To insure content validity, the list was next critiqued by two research specialists, who examined the competencies for appropriateness, clarity, and completeness. (6) Revised once again, the final list served as the data gathering instrument for this study. All 32 competencies identified in this study were validated. The most crucial competency identified as necessary/most important for the cooperating teacher was a human relations competency, that of maintaining communication. In fact, those competencies considered to be more directly related to maintaining interpersonal human relations and those more closely related to classroom interactions were perceived by all groups as more important for the cooperating teacher than were other competencies. Consistently, cooperating teachers viewed competencies as more important than did student teachers. As a result of their perceptions, university supervisors placed themselves in a middle position with perceptions overlapping those of both cooperating teachers and student teachers. Experience in teaching and subject matter specialization had little effect on perceptual differences regarding competencies. Experience in supervision and amount of graduate study did not impact on perceptual differences at all. Integrating these competencies into teacher education inservice programs would necessitate determining the following: (1) perceived need for developing each competency; (2) current level of competency integration; (3) instructional methods for facilitating competency achievement; (4) criteria for assessing achievement of competencies. Data from this study will be useful to the extent that it provides an expanded base on which to make decisions regarding the professional development of the cooperating teacher.

No description available.

This study was designed to analyse university presidents' perceptions of the student role in university governance. A comparison of these perceptions was made with the written policies and with student perceptions of actual student participation in the governance process on the individual campuses. These comparisons were made to determine if the presidential responses were congruent with or divergent from the stated policies and the perceived practices. The areas of university governance that were investigated were: faculty concerns, student services, physical plant, academics, and administrative concerns. A review of literature was conducted to determine what areas should be considered when dealing with student participation in the university governance process. This information provided a basis from which a questionnaire was developed for the purpose of interviewing university presidents, student leaders, and student government advisors. Handbooks, policy manuals, and other documents stating policies were obtained from the sample institutions to ascertain what the written policies were for each campus. The interviews with the student leaders and advisors provided information that was used to determine the student-perceived practice of university governance on each campus. A content analysis was made of the presidential responses and then the comparisons were made and placed on tables to simplify recording the information. The findings of the study indicate that there are many varied perceptions among university presidents in regard to the student role in university governance. The highest rate of congruency with stated policy and with student-perceived practice on campus came in the area of student services. The lowest rates of congruency were found in both the academic concerns and the administrative concerns. There were no strong patterns shown in making comparisons based on the type of institution, state or private, or the size of the institution, the three largest institutions as compared to the three smallest institutions. In the beginning of the study two predictions were made in regard to the presidential responses. These predictions were stated as follows: (1) The presidents' perceptions of the student role in university governance of state institutions will be more divergent from the stated policies on the student role in university governance than the perceptions of presidents of private institutions. (2) The smaller the institution, the more congruent the presidential perceptions of the student role in university governance will be with the student-perceived practice of university governance. In the final analysis, that made by totaling all responses, it can be concluded that prediction number one is true. The final analysis proves prediction number two to be false. There is a higher rate of congruency among the larger institution presidents than among the smaller institution presidents.