The current financial state of our nation, in combination with the pressure to meet state accountability testing and a global call for better prepared twenty first century learners, has produced a situation where all levels of government have to make difficult decisions regarding expenditures. In order to ensure that education receives appropriate…

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) have been described as employee behaviors that are not required by job descriptions, are not formally rewarded, and contribute positively to the organization. Previous research has shown that OCBs are related to both individual and organizational performance. Given the importance of OCBs to individual…

The public higher education economic and competitive environments make it crucial that organizations react to the circumstances and make better use of available resources (Duderstadt, 2000; Floyd, 2008; Shulman, 2007; State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO), 2009). Viewing higher education through the perspective of new institutionalism…

Trying to adequately and equally educate the at-risk populace has been and is still a challenge for school administrators and teachers. Students considered at-risk of academic failure is of overwhelming concern to educators who are accountable for ensuring the academic success of the at-risk populace. Considerable interests of educators connect…

This paper explores several research questions that identify differences between conditionally admitted students and regularly admitted students in terms of achievement results at one institution. The research provides specific variables as well as relationships including historical and comparative aggregate data from 2009 and 2010 that indicate…

This study examined Missouri's A+ Schools Program and its impact on school improvement. Effective schools research combined with the mission learning for all provided a conceptual foundation for guiding research development. A mixed-method design allowing a triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data was applied using telephone…

Beginning in April 2007, the Japanese government implemented efforts to shift the focus of educational policy away from the notion of "Special Education" towards "Special Needs Education". The primary objective of this change in focus is to move towards a policy of ensuring that the educational needs of students with learning…

The overall purpose of this study is to explore the creation and implementation of competency models in higher education masters level preparation programs. The study answers five research questions. Why and how did two higher education preparation programs create a professional competency model for the graduate students in the program and what…

The problem addressed by this study is the impact of the current high-stakes accountability policy on the work of teachers, and whether this impact has created an environment of intensification. Research has shown that intensification manifests itself in teachers' feeling a loss of autonomy, a de-professionalization of their working…

During the 1970s college campuses in the United States were often the venue through which change occurred. Female faculty and students were assertive in their efforts to influence equality between men and women across the country (Morris, 1984). This historical phenomenological study examined the oral history of several women who advocated for…

Projections estimated that nontraditional student enrollment in post-secondary education would increase by 19% as compared to traditional student enrollments of 10% from 2006 through 2017. Adult students were less likely to complete a college degree compared to traditional students, and drop-outs cost taxpayers billions of dollars in lost taxes.…

Increasing demand for nurses with bachelor degrees, the growing culture of accountability in higher education, and the community college baccalaureate phenomena provided the impetus for this study. This ex-post facto quantitative study examined the graduation rates and time to degree of 240 students who were enrolled in a bachelor of science in…

As the U.S. population quickly moves toward linguistic diversity, it is essential that sufficient numbers of linguistically diverse nurses be available to provide care, and nurse educators play a significant role in the preparation of these nurses. Little information was found in the literature about factors that influence the practices of the…

For decades software managers have been using formal methodologies such as the Constructive Cost Model and Function Points to estimate the effort of software projects during the early stages of project development. While some research shows these methodologies to be effective, many software managers feel that they are overly complicated to use and…

This dissertation presents a theory of grammatical aspect in which perfects and prospectives form a sub-group separate from perfectives and imperfectives. I claim that aspects in this sub-group display a number of similar semantic and syntactic behaviors because of the way in which they relate event and reference times. While perfectives and…