This dissertation describes a Contextualized Appreciative Instructional Design process for equipping Ethiopian churches' intercultural workers to advance God's mission more effectively--"missio" Dei in Ethiopia and beyond. The CAID model can contextually equip intercultural workers to deal with the many challenges of the mission field…

In my journey of teen and young adult growth (junior high up to college) I have always had a vision and a plan to achieve goals. The reason I had goals is because I had an awareness of who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. When I started having children, I taught to them the things that I was taught to understand, recognize, and…

This qualitative particularistic case study was an exploration and evaluation of an online, asynchronous, non-human coaching system called an "eCoaching system." Developed by the researcher, the eCoaching system combined performance coaching with the latest technologies in eLearning. The coaching was based on the appreciative inquiry approach, and…

The purpose of this study was to determine if Appreciative Inquiry affects assessment scores of middle school students, grades 6-8. The data used in this study was collected from a cohort of students impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic school shutdowns with inconsistent return to structured, continuous in school routines. The data used in this study…

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of a collaborative inquiry group of middle school ELA teachers who were utilizing the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) framework to create a virtual library of e-books, examine students' reading motivation data, and implement classroom practices intended to increase student reading value, motivation,…

This qualitative study will explore how MSW faculty describe a community in online courses and what strategies they use in fostering a sense of community within courses from an online Master of Social Work program at the University of South Florida. There is an imperative need to ensure online courses provide a sense of community to support…

Higher education, as an industry, is facing extraordinary fiscal constraints. Universities increasingly consider online education and its e-learning variants as a promise to solve these fiscal constraints while also supporting advances in pedagogy. Many universities promise quality education, yet questions loom about the quality of online learning…

The goal of this study was to learn how school leaders in a complex adaptive system that is a suburban public high school influenced a process of adaptive change to the instructional core and how they were influenced by the process. For many years, U.S. public school leaders have faced challenges from the rapid pace of change in their internal and…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to use an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) approach to discover generative instructional and assessment practices of teachers in the language arts classroom at a 5th and 6th grade low socioeconomic public school campus in Texas that earned five distinctions or three consecutive years. The study sought to design a…

A number of Western-based faculty travel abroad to China each year to teach university-level Chinese students (Ozturgut, 2007) including the researcher of this study. Western and Eastern cultural differences were a main factor attracting faculty, but also prompted the need for effective communication and awareness (Durant & Shepherd, 2009).…

This experimental research study explored the effectiveness of using an Appreciative Inquiry approach in online instruction to enhance intrinsic motivation and improve student achievement in a blended higher education class. The relationship between intrinsic student motivation and student achievement was also examined. A pre-test/post-test…

I examined the embedding of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) in three micro-cases at Northeastern Regional Community College (NERC). This community college is a rarity for the way AI was adopted as an operational philosophy throughout the institution. The purpose of this research was to understand institutional agents' and students' perceptions of the…

The problem investigated by this study is that professional development (PD) provided for educators had not prepared them to implement behavior interventions and positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS) to meet classroom management and students' needs. This basic qualitative study was conducted to investigate the experiences of high…

Appreciative advising is an innovative academic advising method based on the organizational development theory of appreciative inquiry. This approach emphasizes student strengths through a collaborative relationship between advisor and student using open-ended questions and focusing on positive potential. This study addressed the local problem of…

The purpose of this study was to explore women district leader's perceptions of organizational change in a rural women's education and empowerment program in India, using an appreciative inquiry framework. This is a qualitative case study of the Mahila Samakhya (MS) program, which was initiated to provide non-formal education and empower rural…