This study analyzed the impacts of participation in short-term study abroad programs at Oklahoma community colleges through a quantitative research design. Student retention and degree completion are concerns for all types of higher education institutions, but U.S. community colleges experience an even greater struggle to retain students from…

The purpose of this quantitative study is to understand the role that character education curriculum, specifically the "Leader in Me," plays on overall elementary school culture. The primary question guiding this study is, has the implementation of "Leader in Me" provided any measurable impact on elementary school culture prior…

Through continuing education, educators improve their skills and become more proficient at their jobs. However, some educational leaders are unaware of the perception of teachers regarding professional development. Grounded in Desimone and Garet's framework of best practices in teachers' professional development, the purpose of this interpretive…

The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of short professional development interventions, covering core concepts in teaching and learning, on the self-efficacy of academic librarians in the teaching role. The participants in this study were six academic librarians at a large, research-intensive university in Canada for whom instructional…

This study investigated the difference in specific internship program outcomes of undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) work-integrated learning (WIL) experiences as a function of the length of the experience. The study employed analysis of archival data representing a sample of over 1,000 undergraduate STEM students who…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the SREB critical success factors being implemented as part of the Illinois PreK-12 principal preparation internship, as well as, the authenticity of the internship process. The following research questions guided this study: (1) To what extent do the 13 SREB critical success factors affect…

The people around us - as well as the methodical progression of education through content - often shape our relationship to the world. Currently, Earth is at a crossroads, which requires humans to act and live more sustainably with an intentional environmental ethos, whether for literal survival or for slowing Earth's resource degradation.…

This qualitative descriptive narrative research was the first known study to collect participants' perceptions on the effectiveness of the Marine Corps' Light Armored Vehicle driver training. The general problem was the Marine Corps' vague guidance on curriculum development, instruction, and assessment for driver training of the Light armored…

Faced with meeting the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, schools are under pressure to have 100% of their students meet national standards in reading by 2014. For the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school years, Sussex Technical High School (STHS) in Georgetown, Delaware chose to adopt Read Right, a reading comprehension improvement…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the extent to which professional development practices in professional learning communities are consistent with research-based principles of effective professional development. Additionally, the study investigated potential differences in the content focus, active learning, coherence, and…

A longitudinal evaluation study of a science professional development program for K-12 teachers was conducted using the CIPP evaluation model. Eleven years of program data were described and analyzed. Elementary teachers comprised 62% of the 384 participants, 17% of all participants were middle school teachers, and 13% of all participants were…

This research study examined questionnaires that included responses from 4,886 teachers employed by 90 schools in the state of Tennessee. The purpose of this study was to analyze the perceptions of teachers from an existing state-administered on-line questionnaire concerning the professional development activities they had participated in during…

In this descriptive, mixed methods study, the researcher investigated the influence of teacher preparation programs' field experiences on teacher candidates' sense of teaching efficacy. Tschannen-Morgan & Woolfolk-Hoy's (2001) Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale questionnaire was sent to 221 teacher candidates enrolled in one of…

Students, who are at risk of academic failure, are reading and achieving below their grade level yet the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act requires that all students perform on or above grade level. Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Education Program (NAEP) showed that 37% of fourth graders across the United States are reading below grade…