Education Doctoral Work

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Browsing Education Doctoral Work by browse.metadata.program "Occupational and Adult Education"

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    Academic Success and Retention: Assessing Variables that Make a Difference in a Baccalaureate Nursing Program
    (North Dakota State University, 2018) Kopp, Wendy
    Attrition rates for both traditional and nontraditional students in nursing programs across the U.S. are of concern in light of the current and projected shortage of nurses. The lack of success advancing through the nursing curriculum affects the nursing student, the nursing program, and the healthcare of the community. As a result, nursing programs have been encouraged to make student success programs a priority; however, there has been a paucity of research that has examined the effect these programs have on student success. Framed by Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a study skills seminar on self-efficacy and academic performance in BSN students, with an emphasis on nontraditional students. A true experimental pre-test post-test control group design determined if there was a statistical relationship between a study skills seminar and students’ perceived academic self-efficacy, and performance on multiple-choice exams in their nursing courses. Data consisted of results from pre- and post-intervention administrations of a researcher designed self-appraisal tool, demographic information, and exam performance. Data was reviewed using descriptive statistics and factorial between subjects analysis of variance’s (ANOVA’s). Significant self-efficacy gain scores (p = .039) were noted for the treatment group compared to the control group. Results also revealed a lower mean gain (non-significant) in total self-efficacy for nontraditional students compared to traditional students. There was no significant relationship between academic performance as measured by mean exam scores for the treatment group compared to the control group, nor was there a significant relationship for the nontraditional student on mean exam scores. An exploratory research section revealed that as class or educational level in the program increased, both self-efficacy gain and mean exam scores decreased. This study was a step in the right direction as it confirmed the positive effect a study skills seminar had on academic self-efficacy as well as its potential to influence academic success. Further research related to the effects a study skills seminar and test taking strategies has on academic self-efficacy and academic performance is warranted.
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    Followership: A Study Exploring the Variables of Exemplary Followership
    (North Dakota State University, 2018) Rook, Brian Wayne
    This dissertation investigates exemplary followership and multiple variables identified as possible predictors of exemplary followership. The study examines relationship between exemplary followership and: organizational citizenship behavior sub-factors of individual and organizational; psychological collectivism; and team player. The topic was chosen as it relates to the evolution of employees in the workplace wherein employees in a follower role are more accountable to the performance of the organization. Moreover, most of the existing research on followership are through the lens of leadership and based in theory with little contribution to empirical evidence. Organizations and leaders are more dependent on the performance of their followers than before, and the need for exemplary followers is higher than before to meet evolving organizational needs. This dissertation examines predictor variables of exemplary followership and how to develop those variables to improve exemplary followership behaviors.
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    A Heuristic Inquiry: Examining the Negotiations of Identity, Self and Border Crossings of Rural Female Teachers in North Dakota
    (North Dakota State University, 2018) Crowston, Elizabeth
    This heurisitc study examines my voice, through a stream of consciousness, as an immigrant who moved from rural East Yorkshire, UK, to rural North Dakota, USA. I use the feminist lenses of intersectionality, the borderlands, and identity theory to examine my experiences as a rural female teacher; I also utilized those lenses to analyze other rural female teachers’ experiences. As a self-positioned outsider in the rural community where I have made my home, I expected to find that other women had different experiences than me. After conducting 18 semi-structured interviews, I coded the data using landscape coding, thematic coding, and emotional coding to emphasize the importance of place, relationships, and the experiences that these women shared. The findings revealed that women place a far greater emotional burden on themselves as they attempt to satisfy the cultural and place-specific needs. As such, a woman’s’ identity can become fragmented as she attempts to perform many different aspects of her identity in differing places. In times when these identities collide, the rural female teacher may speak out against societies expectations as she showcases an identity that does not seem to fit in that place.
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    Moving to the Other Side of the Desk: Learning Experiences of Preservice Teachers as They Transition to Becoming Professional Teachers
    (North Dakota State University, 2013) Okland, Sheri Lynn
    This study sought to understand learning through the lifeworlds of preservice teachers who are in the last semester of their elementary education program at a Midwest University. The research was an explorative study into preservice teachers' understanding of how they learn, how they define learning, and how their own experiences as students will transfer, as they become professional educators. This study addressed the overarching question: What does it mean to learn and think about learning through the lens of 21st century senior standing elementary education preservice teachers as they transition to the other side of the desk? This study employed a staged data gathering design in which 25 preservice teachers participated in an online questionnaire, a focus group session, and individual interviews. The data was analyzed systematically according to methodology outlined in transcendental phenomenology procedures. Two categories of themes were identified: (a) Preservice teachers' own learning, and (b) Preservice teachers' teaching. Within the categories, eleven themes were identified that addressed learning according to the lifeworlds and experiences of the preservice teachers involved with the study. The lessons learned through this study can be used to inform teacher education programs as more and more 21st century learners are taught to become teachers of other 21st century learners.
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    Operationalizing Creativity: Desired Characteristics for Instructional Designers
    (North Dakota State University, 2015) Clark, Daniel Sidney
    The purpose of this study was to explore the ways that creativity manifests itself in the field of higher education instructional design and to identify specific core competencies that could be considered desirable in this context. The study utilized the Delphi methodology in which an expert panel of 28 higher education instructional design managers and leaders, established through a selective snowball sampling process, provided both Likert scale and open – ended responses to a series of survey instruments to indicate their level of agreement with topic statements suggested by the literature as being related to creativity in the higher education instructional design context. Through this three-round process, the panel transformed these literature based constructs into their context of practice and reached consensus on 35 of 41 discrete concepts relating creativity to instructional design in higher education. In parallel with the Delphi process, panelists were asked to provide examples of specific instructional design tasks or duties that embodied traits associated with the topic statements, and subsequently respond to the resulting 27 creativity-related competencies in terms of the desirability that their instructional designers possess the indicated competency as well as the perceived level of correlation between the competency and creative potential in general. This portion of the research effort resulted in the creation of 11 desirable, practical, context-specific instructional design competencies that are tied directly to the broad-based creativity literature.
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    Re/braiding Catrachaness: The Testimonios of Subaltern Voices
    (North Dakota State University, 2016) Zavala-Petherbridge, Dina Yamileth
    The current literature about rural feminists in Central American countries lacks details about the experiences women like my Grandmother had. The physical and social realities of my Grandmother breathed collective participation, self-reflection, critical thought, and personal development connected to the social struggle. Becoming an engaged social activist gave her a chance to reflect and act, which are the elements for concientización. Once she became emancipated, she was part of the social change by providing others and me the guidance to our freedom. The simple fact that women acted against an oppressive society, and they took control of their own reproductive rights demonstrates the will of women to find a way to make change and create agency. Writing this dissertation is my way of carrying on my Grandmother’s legacy, as well as a means to create a space for rural feminist women from the next generation. My narrative offers everyday life discourses inversely related to those presented by the collective organized feminist movement narratives. In this research, I use testimonio as the method of inquiry and product through which my Grandmother’s and my narrative are braided and re-braided as a symbolic way to construct and deconstruct narratives, terms, and journeys. I completed this process under the lenses of theory in the flesh, Freire’s social emancipatory theory, and Mestiza consciousness. Una conscientización embodies and lives in context, no longer abstracted; therefore it embodies social and biological concepts of physical realities creating a generative resistance. I conclude this study with a reflection on the research process and future direction.