Counseling, Higher Education & Special Education Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2757
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Item Principal and Teacher Reports of Principal Leadership: An Examination of Congruence and Predictive Validity(2015) Green, Meghan Rebecca Finney; Strein, William O; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Principals influence school characteristics including morale and teacher turnover, but the utility of different methods of measuring principal behavior is unclear. Using data from public schools in the National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools, I examined relations between school-level teacher reports and principal self-reports of leadership, which better predicted student-reported rule clarity and fairness, and whether agreement or congruence between reports of principal leadership predicted school morale, organizational focus, and teacher turnover. The data used are from 263 schools and thousands of respondents; limitations of the study include the measures of principal leadership used, which are not strictly parallel and the age of the data used. I hypothesized that correlations between teacher and principal reports would be small and positive, that teacher reports of leadership would better predict rule clarity and fairness, and that congruence between reports would predict better school morale, better organizational focus, and lower teacher turnover.Item "Being the Faculty Face:" A Grounded Theory of Living-Learning Program Faculty Motives and Experiences(2012) Drechsler Sharp, Marybeth Joy; Quaye, Stephen J; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Few evident incentives exist for faculty to become involved with living-learning programs. The purpose of this constructivist grounded theory study was to investigate the motives and experiences of faculty members working with living-learning programs at doctoral-granting research institutions. Illuminating the experiences of living-learning faculty is necessary, because for these environments, their participation is a signature element. An enhanced understanding of what motivates faculty members to participate in living-learning programs can help administrators recruit and retain faculty partners, allow administrators to better structure opportunities to meet faculty's needs, and provide voice to living-learning faculty to potentially yield new theoretical understanding. The findings of this study revealed participants' different paths into and through work with living-learning programs. A grounded theory approach resulted in a model to guide practice for living-learning practice and research. The subsequent theory suggests that faculty members' interactions with living-learning environments are propelled by personal motivations and attributes, academic environment, and perceived advantages and disadvantages of involvement; these factors are depicted in the model by overlapping gears. In the model, a large gear represents living-learning faculty members' experiences, including their different roles and varied responsibilities, assorted challenges they navigate, and perspectives they hold about living-learning environments. For administrators seeking to involve faculty, the study's findings regarding what motivates faculty members to work within living-learning settings and their perspectives on their experiences can help with recruiting new faculty, assisting faculty with the transition to living-learning work, incentivizing living-learning involvement for faculty, developing relationships with faculty participants, and providing necessary support for faculty. For involved faculty, this study may help them investigate their own motives with an eye toward improving their living-learning experiences, point them toward resources or approaches they can integrate in their work, and promote self-exploration of what makes living-learning involvement meaningful to them.Item The Lived Experience Of Latina/o Peer Mentees: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Approach(2012) Gomez Riquelme, Luis Angelo; Hultgren, Francine; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This research is about the peer mentee experience of Latina/o students. For this purpose, a group of nine participants were selected, who were part of a peer mentoring program in a Mid-Atlantic public university. The experiences they shared were interpreted through the methodological lens of hermeneutic phenomenology. The purpose of this study is to begin filling in one of the voids in the mentoring practice, which is the experience of peer mentees, and what this study reveals is that the peer mentee experience is the result of loneliness and prejudice that Latina/o students are able to overcome when they have a good peer mentoring experience. This interpretation is done following Clark Moustakas' philosophy of being. Peer mentees receive guidance and help alleviating their solitude, which in this study is interpreted as being-with. Consequently, peer mentees find purpose and are reminded of the reason why they stay in college, which herein is interpreted through the existential concept of being-for. Finally, this study also reveals that being a peer mentee can help finding or making sense of being in college and recovering a sense of belonging, which is interpreted through the phenomenological concept of being-with. The recommendations of this study to improve this practice involve fostering community, creating a sense of belonging, and advocating for a pedagogical experience that is liberated of prejudices and assumptions about Latinas/os, in addition to continuing the support of peer mentoring.Item An Exploratory Study of Student Affairs Professionals' Conceptualization of Adulthood(2011) Pickard, Jennifer Meyers; Komives, Susan R; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study used the conceptualization of emerging adulthood (a newly proposed phase in the lifespan that is attributed to demographic and societal shifts extending the time period in which young people feel as if they are in-between and neither adolescent nor adult) to examine student affairs professionals' perceptions of college student adulthood. Specifically, the research questions examined differences by generational status (Baby Boomer, Generation X, and Millennial) on the importance of the 34 individual criteria that comprise adulthood (Arnett, 2001; Badger et al., 2006; Nelson et al., 2007) and the importance of these criteria when grouped into the five subscales of emerging adulthood: role transitions, norm compliance, biological/age-related factors, family capacities, and relational maturity. An online survey of student affairs professionals produced 654 respondents. Results from statistical analysis indicated that the most important criteria for student affairs professionals in determining whether or not a person has reached adulthood are accepting responsibility for the consequences of one's actions, developing greater consideration for others, becoming less self-oriented, being financially independent from parents/guardians, and establishing a relationship with parents as an equal adult. Overall, generational status did not result in dramatic differences in student affairs professionals' conceptualizations of adulthood. Regardless of their generational status, almost half (46%) of the student affairs professionals in this investigation did not believe that traditional undergraduates just entering college were adults but when these same students graduate, almost three-quarters (72%) of the student affairs professionals respondents believed that the traditional students were full-fledged adults. Findings confirmed that student affairs professionals' criteria for adulthood are similar to those of traditional college students and parents (Nelson et al., 2007), but also revealed a significant disconnect in the timeline that student affairs professionals deemed necessary for the achievement of adulthood as compared to traditional college students and their parents. These results have implications for both higher education research and professional practice as they highlight the conflicting expectations of students and parents as compared to student affairs professionals and higher education as a whole regarding the role that the college milieu plays in the achievement of adulthood.