The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of the design characteristics component of the Jeffries/National League for Nursing Framework for Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating Simulations when developing a simulation-based approach to teaching structured communication to new graduate nurses. The setting for the study was a medium…

The national shortage of certified special education teachers has reached crisis proportions. This shortage has been exacerbated by increases in special education populations and high attrition rates of special education teachers. This study examined the factors influencing the recruitment and retention of special education teachers. Several…

This replicated study (A. Tucho, 2000, "Factors Influencing the General Educational Development [GED] Program at Community College of Philadelphia as Perceived by the GED Students") determined which of the 3 types of educational barriers (institutional, situational, and dispositional) represented the major difficulty preventing adult learners from…

This qualitative case study seeks to identify factors that have a significant impact on the second language proficiency levels of adult English as a Second Language (ESL) learners at a four-year university in Puerto Rico. Current data indicate that a significant percentage of adult ESL learners encounter major difficulties within the process of…

The passage of a school bond can determine the direction of a district for many years to come (Faltys, 2006). Upkeep of older facilities and the building of new facilities can have an impact on instruction, teacher job satisfaction, student achievement, and perceptions toward the district (Moore, 2003). Despite the fact there is often state money…

The purpose of this study was to identify factors important in teacher termination decisions and to create and to test that model using survey responses for Missouri public administrators. The independent variables chosen were broken into five (5) scales: time commitment; teacher experience; structural support and policies; building climate; and,…

The purpose for conducting this study was to develop an understanding of undergraduate college students' social readiness for the collegiate experience. The study made use of a qualitative approach and a narrative research design that used focus group interviews. The seven focus group interviews were conducted at four sites across the Southern and…

I begin with a quotation from Virginia Held, taking this as a point of departure: "Few feminists identify ourselves specifically as pragmatists, but perhaps most of us could offer more support for pragmatism at its best than most pragmatists realize." Though a passing remark, Held has raised an intriguing question. Could feminism and pragmatism…

Currently, there are nearly a million high-achieving, low-income students in the United States. In the nation's most selective institutions of higher education, students from low-income families have been persistently under-represented. Elite colleges, in particular, have only recently begun admitting low-income students in large numbers, a result…

The atmosphere of monetary support for the community college and the community college president has changed. State funding and tuition have always been the primary sources of revenue at public higher education institutions. Unfortunately, tightening state budgets have led to a decrease in state financial support adding to the need to find…

This study analyzed treatment of geometric transformations in presently available middle grades (6, 7, 8) student mathematics textbooks. Fourteen textbooks from four widely used textbook series were evaluated: two mainline publisher series, Pearson (Prentice Hall) and Glencoe (Math Connects); one National Science Foundation (NSF) funded curriculum…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate how Rhode Island high school principals rate success in implementing 21st century skills in their schools. Secondly, this study investigated how high school principals rate the influence of implementing of 21st century skills in curriculum and instruction in their schools. The high…

The purpose of the study was to identify international university administrators' perspectives on organizational strategies to support higher education internationalization. Internationalization is the conscious effort to integrate international, intercultural, and global dimensions into the ethos and outcomes of higher education (NAFSA, 2008). A…

The purpose of this study was to utilize the Goal Attainment Scale (GAS) during the Marshall University Summer Enrichment Program (MUSEP) to determine the effectiveness of individual counseling, group counseling, and a combination of both, on student academic and behavioral goals. Results indicated that no significant differences were found when…

This dissertation presents a hybrid filtering method and a case-based reasoning framework for enhancing the effectiveness of Web search. Web search may not reflect user needs, intent, context, and preferences, because today's keyword-based search is lacking semantic information to capture the user's context and intent in posing the search query.…