Browsing by Subject "Education & Educational Research"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    African American professionals in higher education: experiencing and coping with racial microaggressions
    (Race Ethnicity and Education, 2020-07-03) DeCuir-Gunby, JT; Johnson, OT; Womble Edwards, C; McCoy, WN; White, AM
    Using a Critical Race Theory lens, we explored how African American professionals in both HBCUs and PWIs (4-year and 2-year institutions) experienced and coped with racial microaggressions. The participants in this study included fifteen African American instructors/professors and administrators. Despite the type of institution, the emerged themes from interviews indicated that participants experienced an array of racial microaggressions. In addition, many participants addressed race-related stress experienced in the workplace by engaging in both adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies. Implications are provided to discuss the impact that racial microaggressions has on African Americans in the higher education workplace.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Development and Assessment of the Effectiveness of an Undergraduate General Education Foreign Language Requirement
    (Foreign Language Annals, 2014-01-01) Thompson, RJ; Walther, I; Tufts, C; Lee, KC; Paredes, L; Fellin, L; Andrews, E; Serra, M; Hill, JL; Tate, EB; Schlosberg, L
    © 2014 by American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. This article describes a faculty-led, multiyear process of formulating learning objectives and assessing the effectiveness of a foreign language requirement for all College of Arts and Sciences undergraduates at a research university. Three interrelated research questions were addressed: (1) What were the levels and patterns of language courses completed under the language requirement compared to those under the previous curriculum? (2) To what extent was the oral proficiency learning objective being attained? and (3) How did oral proficiency vary by course level and the patterns of courses completed to satisfy the language requirement? The oral proficiency of 614 students was assessed with the Simulated Oral Proficiency Interview and categorized in terms of ACTFL ratings. Study findings indicated that 76% of students met or exceeded the objective of the Intermediate Mid level of oral proficiency and that oral proficiency differed by course level and the pattern of courses completed to satisfy the language requirement. In particular, the impact of completing an advanced-level course was clear, which in turn had implications for curricular policies and academic advising. It is argued that faculty-led evaluation of program effectiveness, in which assessment approaches are both summative and formative and findings are routinely used to improve educational practices as well as document student learning, is the necessary context for developing an evidence-based approach to undergraduate language education.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Gender Differences in the Impact of North Carolina’s Early Care and Education Initiatives on Student Outcomes in Elementary School
    (Educational Policy, 2020-03-01) Muschkin, CG; Ladd, HF; Dodge, KA; Bai, Y
    © The Author(s) 2018. Based on growing evidence of the long-term benefits of enriched early childhood experiences, we evaluate the potential for addressing gender disparities in elementary school through early care and education programs. Specifically, we explore the community-wide effects of two statewide initiatives in North Carolina on gender differences in academic outcomes in Grades 3 to 5, using administrative student data and information on variation in program availability across counties and over time. We find that although investments in early care and education programs produce significant gains in math and reading skills on average for all children, boys experience larger program-related gains than girls. Moreover, the greatest gains among boys emerge for those from less advantaged families. In contrast, the large and statistically significant reductions in special education placements induced by these early childhood program do not differ consistently by gender.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Improved reasoning in undergraduate writing through structured workshops
    (Journal of Economic Education, 2015-01-01) Dowd, JE; Connolly, MP; Thompson, RJ; Reynolds, JA
    © 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. The Department of Economics at Duke University has endeavored to increase participation in undergraduate honors thesis research while ensuring a high-quality learning experience. Given the faculty-to-student ratio in the department (approximately 1:16), increasing research participation required the creation of a stable, replicable framework for mentoring students through research. The department aimed to make the research experience more consistent and interactive so that students also learned from each other in a group setting. Here, the authors assess the relationship between changes in mentoring support of honors research and students scientific reasoning and writing skills reflected in their undergraduate theses. They find that students who participated in structured courses designed to support and enhance their research exhibited the strongest learning outcomes, as measured by systematic writing assessment.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    ItemOpen Access
    Listening to the literature: a case for centering writing in critical sociology of sport pedagogy
    (Sport, Education and Society, 2019-07-23) Kalman-Lamb, N
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Mentor perspectives on the place of undergraduate research mentoring in academic identity and career development: an analysis of award winning mentors
    (International Journal for Academic Development, 2018-01-02) Hall, EE; Walkington, H; Shanahan, JO; Ackley, E; Stewart, KA
    © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This study examines how Undergraduate Research (UR) mentoring fits into the career profile of award-winning UR mentors and the factors that motivate engagement as UR mentors. Twenty-four award-winning UR mentors in four countries were interviewed about their mentoring practices. Six themes emerged: (1) Academic Identity and Motivations; (2) Challenges to Academic Identity and Career Development; (3) Enhanced Research Productivity; (4) Recognition and Reward; (5) Institution Values Commitment and (6) Developing Other Mentors. The authors discuss these themes and how the findings can be utilized for academic development and identity formation for faculty.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    "on course" for supporting expanded participation and improving scientific reasoning in undergraduate thesis writing
    (Journal of Chemical Education, 2015-01-01) Dowd, JE; Roy, CP; Thompson, RJ; Reynolds, JA
    © 2014 The American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. The Department of Chemistry at Duke University has endeavored to expand participation in undergraduate honors thesis research while maintaining the quality of the learning experience. Accomplishing this goal has been constrained by limited departmental resources (including faculty time) and increased diversity in students' preparation to engage in the research and writing processes. Here we assessed the relationship between iterative changes in pedagogical and mentoring support of honors research that efficiently employed departmental resources (including the chemistry thesis assessment protocol, ChemTAP) and students' scientific reasoning and writing skills reflected in their undergraduate theses. We found that, although we cannot disentangle some gradual changes over time from specific interventions, students exhibited the strongest performance when they participated in a course with structured scaffolding and used assessment tools explicitly designed to enhance the scientific reasoning in writing. Furthermore, less prepared students exhibited more positive changes.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Salient practices of award-winning undergraduate research mentors–balancing freedom and control to achieve excellence
    (Studies in Higher Education, 2020-07-02) Walkington, H; Stewart, KA; Hall, EE; Ackley, E; Shanahan, JO
    © 2019, © 2019 Society for Research into Higher Education. This paper contributes to research on teaching excellence by extending the current body of literature pertaining to mentoring pedagogies in undergraduate research settings across diverse social, institutional and disciplinary contexts. Our data comes from in-depth interviews with 32 international faculty who have received excellence awards for undergraduate research mentoring. The data reveal a freedom – control dialectic, illuminating the ways in which expert mentors negotiate the desire to create opportunities for students to experience freedom and creativity in research, yet maintain control over the topic, quality and outcomes. The research findings reveal a defining characteristic of award-winning mentors as an ability to establish and sustain a sense of challenge, while maintaining meaningful engagement and a sense of achievement amongst students. The findings show the importance of tailoring practice to the needs of particular student groups, and there are implications for institutional resourcing, as well as mentor training and development.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access