Counseling, Higher Education & Special Education Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2757
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Item Secondary Transition Experiences: Analyzing Perceptions, Academic Self-Efficacy, Academic Adjustment, and Overall Impact on College Students' with LD Success in Postsecondary Education(2011) Butler, Allison Lynette; Fabian, Ellen; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The National Center for Special Education Research at the Institute of Education Sciences under the United States Department of Education funded the National Longitudinal Transition Study - 2 to provide the first national overview of the characteristics and experiences of youth with disabilities which includes self-representations of themselves, their schooling, their personal relationships, and their future aspirations. The study was initiated in 2001 and data collection ended in 2010. The NLTS2 provided insight to youth's perceptions of secondary experiences and expectations for the future which was an area with limited research. The current study draws from college students with learning disabilities in an attempt to analyze their perceptions through experience. Exploratory and descriptive, this investigation examines the relationship between students' perceptions of their secondary transition experiences, academic self-efficacy, academic adjustment, and cumulative semester grade point average (GPA). The purpose of this study was to analyze participants' experiences to generate information regarding how students perceive the effectiveness of their secondary transition programs in pursuit of postsecondary success. In addition, this study examined self-efficacy issues and academic adjustment. Through online survey administration the following instruments were used: a demographic questionnaire, National Longitudinal Transition Study - 2 (NLTS2) Youth Continuation Interview (YCI) containing questions asking participants to rate their perceptions, the Academic Self-Efficacy scale (CASES; Owen and Froman, 1988), and the academic adjustment subscale of the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ; Baker & Siryk, 1989). Data was analyzed using a one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Pearson's product moment correlations. In addition a step-wise multiple regression was performed in order to identify the most influential factors associated with postsecondary academic success (GPA). Academic self-efficacy was the primary determinant of student success. Variables found to have significant relationships with academic self-efficacy were perceptions of secondary transition experiences, academic adjustment, self-reported cumulative grade point average, and number of semesters completed. An inverse relationship was discovered to exist between academic self-efficacy and type of institution as well as being African American and Latino students.Item A LEARNING COMMUNITY PROJECT: COMPARATIVE INTERVENTIONS ON WRITING APPREHENSION AND LOCUS OF CONTROL OF DEVELOPMENTAL STUDENTS AT A TWO-YEAR COLLEGE(2010) Massie-Burrell, Terri; Komives, Susan R.; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The education of under-prepared college students is a topic that interested and motivated this researcher to conduct a study on learning communities and measuring change in writing apprehension and locus of control of developmental students at a community college. Higher education is generally viewed as a place for the intellectually elite. However, more institutions are finding that students are enrolling at post-secondary institutions lacking proficiency in basic skills such as mathematics, reading, and writing. This study focused on the developmental studies area of writing. A limited, but growing, number of institutions are pursuing differing ways of addressing the educational needs of students at risk of possible failure. Astin's (1984, 1999) foundational research states that locus of control is a factor of consideration to facilitate academic success for college students who are coming to some resolve about whether they have influence over, or if their effort in college is directly correlated with, successful outcomes; that is, students' beliefs about control being external or by chance opposed to internal based on effort or involvement. Pajares' (2003) research which is grounded in Bandura's work (1986) found that students' beliefs about their writing have an influence on academic outcomes. The purpose of this study was to contribute to the sparse body of knowledge in developmental education and the success of developmental writing students. The goal was to increase the knowledge base about developmental writing students at a two-year college and their engagement in a learning community.