Sense of belonging is an important construct that has been understudied in college student development. Prior research suggests that undergraduate students' sense of belonging plays a key role in persistence and degree completion. In this study, I test the assertion that sense of belonging stems from developmental tasks that are typically salient…

Historically, colleges and universities have walled themselves off from their host communities. Community and government agencies, in turn, have often viewed colleges as islands, complaining about their tax-exempt status, physical encroachment, and noisy students. Although universities have spent millions of dollars to improve their relationships…

The purpose of this research was to investigate teachers' perceptions of professional development programs in Kuwait. These perceptions were compared to the criteria that underpin Learning Forward's standards of professional development. The researcher used both quantitative and qualitative data, separate analyses of the data, and then a merging…

Induction Programs, Teacher Efficacy, and Inquiry Practices in Novice Teachers This purpose of this study was to identify the influence of Induction Programs on first-year teachers. Research shows that a large percentage of novice teachers leave the profession within the first five years. Novice teachers often begin the first year of teaching with…

The call to better prepare nurses in safety and quality performance resulted from the concern of the Institute of Medicine regarding egregious gaps and errors in U.S. hospitals that resulted in serious injuries and patient deaths. Quality and safety education for nursing (QSEN) competencies were set forth in 2005 to enhance nursing curricula and…

Over the past fifty years, cheating among high school students increased substantially and affected the morale of students (Simha, Armstrong, & Albert, 2012). According to a nationally representative survey of 36,000 U.S. adolescents, some 60% of high school students confessed to cheating on a test during the previous school year, and that the…

More than half of information technology (IT) outsourced projects fail, primarily due to a lack of effective management practices surrounding the outsourcing end-to-end process. Ineffective management of the IT outsourcing (ITO) process affects organizations in the form of higher than expected project costs, including greater vendor switching or…

This Education Leadership Portfolio (ELP) explores the New Faculty Development (NFD) program at Delaware Technical Community College. The program has undergone a series of redesigns; this study considers the evolution of the program and examines the most recent updates in the initial implementation phase. I collected data from several sources to…

Research indicates that teamwork, communication, self-directed learning, and problem-solving skills are strongly linked to individual academic and professional success, yet little is known regarding how college educators and employer trainers learn to better teach or train others in these valuable skills in postsecondary and employment STEM…

Despite the proliferation of online homework websites and tutoring services, public libraries still have an important role to play when it comes to supporting young people's educational needs. Public libraries that take a proactive approach--by setting up organized homework centers--have the potential to become catalysts for better performance in…

In recent years, much emphasis has been placed on student outcomes on high stakes summative assessments. This call for accountability has forced educators to look critically at themselves and their schools to determine what they can do to improve the outcomes (Suber, 2011). Generally, in the United States, schools with high percentages of poor…

This phenomenological case study examined the link between teacher practice within the classroom and a newly implemented middle school social studies Professional Learning Community (PLC). More specifically, the use of mandates, theories, and activities were investigated through a series of teacher interviews, classroom observations,…

The purpose of this research was to gain a rich understanding of cultural perspectives for fostering quality and relevant education in the United States Virgin Islands (U.S.VI). Research explores which perceived cultural perspectives are functioning in the Territory. Specifically, how adult economic survival is sustained in the territory. Findings…

This dissertation proposes to enrich the scope of history education research, and by extension the preparation of history and social studies teachers and the classroom experiences of their students, through the inclusion of autobiography in the study of history. Education research on the teaching of history has typically focused on what scholars…

At an elementary school in the northeastern region of the United States elementary teachers struggled with using data to make instructional decisions. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore elementary teachers' perceptions about how their teaching experiences prepared them to use data to make lesson decisions. The…