Browsing by Subject "Student Engagement"
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Item Evaluating the impact of the Hispanic Scholarship Consortium(2010-12) Garza-Nyer, Eva Maria; Roueche, John E.; Bumphus, Walter; Reddick, Richard; Calzada, Lucio; Cantu, NormaThis study examines the Hispanic Scholarship Consortium (HSC), a scholarship program in Central Texas that serves Hispanic college students. This study analyses trends in awarding and persisting with the program. A better understanding of what influences persistence rates can help scholarship programs in implementing policies to increase college completion rates. The findings can assist programs identify needed changes to improve scholarship application and award processes. These results can also help programs assist scholars during their college careers by identifying at-risk students early on and developing supportive practices to promote student persistence. Additionally, scholarship organizations can utilize metrics to identify long-term trends among their scholarship recipients for ongoing program evaluation and enhancement. This mixed method study utilizes both quantitative and qualitative research methods by analyzing student focus group data along with HSC program data. Quantitative analysis is used to determine predictors of persistence in the HSC program. The qualitative analysis results are used to find themes regarding students’ perception of HSC offerings. The study focuses on college students who receive scholarships from the HSC. It examines the relationship between persistence in HSC with student factors such as high school and college grade point average (GPA), gender, college major, college type, first generation status, low-income status, citizenship, high school graduates from schools with more than 35% free and reduced lunch (F&RL) population, and scholarship award amount. Additionally, it examines the relationship between scholarship award amount and student factors. Ultimately, this study provides insights for best practices in scholarship programs. The findings will contribute to a better understanding of scholarship programs and their potential for influencing persistence and college graduation rates. The knowledge gained should not only benefit HSC, but also provide recommendations for other scholarship programs and possibly a state supported initiative.Item Examining the Blogging Habits of Agricultural Leadership Students at Texas A&M University: Understanding Motivation, Use, and Self-Efficacy(2013-05-31) Bumguardner, Kalee MarieBlogging is a form of social media, and student engagement is at the center of blogging. The benefits of blogging include being easy to create and maintain, making writing easier to share, encouraging students to write outside of the classroom, and supporting group collaboration. The findings suggest students are more passive in their blogging experiences, as the data found students generally read blogs more than they wrote blogs. The Unified Theory on Acceptance and Use of Technology and self-efficacy theory were used as the framework for the study. This study sought to explore agricultural leadership students? motivations for blogging. Student responses indicated on average they read blogs less than once a month. Students typically reported a preference for informal writing even if they did not blog. Teacher training could be used to increase awareness among educators about the benefits of blogging. Educators must be able to convey the benefits of educational blogging in terms of its ease and benefit for student acceptance.Item Mentored Engagement of Secondary Science Students, Plant Scientists, and Teachers in an Inquiry-Based Online Learning Environment(2012-10-19) Peterson, CherylPlantingScience (PS) is a unique web-based learning system designed to develop secondary students' scientific practices and proficiencies as they engage in hands-on classroom investigations while being mentored online by a scientist. Some students' teachers had the opportunity to attend PS professional development (PD). In this dissertation, I developed a process of assessing student learning outcomes associated with their use of this system and evaluated inquiry engagement within this system. First, I developed a valid and reliable instrument (Online Elements of Inquiry Checklist; OEIC) to measure participants' (students, scientists, and teachers) engagement in scientific practices and proficiencies embedded within an inquiry cycle I collaborated with an expert-group to establish the OEIC's construct and content validities. An inter-rater reliability coefficient of 0.92 was established by scientists and a split half analysis was used to determine the instruments' internal consistency (Spearman-Brown coefficient of 0.96). Next, I used the OEIC to evaluate inquiry cycle engagement by the participants who used the PS online platform designed by the Botanical Society of America which facilitated communication between participants. Students provided more evidence of engagement in the earlier phases of an inquiry cycle. Scientists showed a similar trend but emphasized experimental design and procedures. Teachers rarely engaged online. Exemplary students' outcomes followed similar inquiry cycle trends, but with more evidence of engagement with one notable difference. Exemplary students provided evidence for extensive engagement in immersion activities, implicating immersion as a crucial component of successful inquiry cycle engagement. I also compared engagement outcomes of students whose teachers attended the PD experience to the students of teachers who did not attend PD. Differences found between the two groups occurred throughout the inquiry cycle, typically associated with experiences provided during the PD. As a result of this research I have several recommendations about revisions to the PS online platform and use of approaches to assure students development of scientific practices and proficiencies. The recommendations include additional scaffolding of the platform, explicit inquiry cycle instruction, and continued opportunities for teachers to engage in PD experiences provided by PS.