UMD Theses and Dissertations
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Item Leveraging Complexity Science to Promote Learning Analytics Adoption in Higher Education: An Embedded Case Study(2024) Moses, Phillip Scott; Ketelhut, Diane J; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR) defines learning analytics as “the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs” (SoLAR, n.d.). To fully realize the potential of learning analytics, especially in its perceived ability to reveal previously hidden aspects of the learning process, researchers have called for more intentional approaches in order to harness resources and affect change. These researchers argue that without this coordinated effort to integrate learning analytics into the fabric of higher education institutions, the field will continue to languish, with learning analytics tools and approaches left forever incapable of affecting more systemic change. At the same time, other researchers focused on leadership and change management have recognized the difficulty, if not impossibility, of such top-down approaches. Instead, many researchers have pointed to the need to view higher education institutions through the lens of complexity science, and, in particular, to consider higher education institutions as complex adaptive systems (CAS) in which change tends to happen through the process of emergence. Within such a paradigm, change occurs from the ground up, as a result of countless interactions among many different agents (students, educators, and administrators, to name a few). Recognizing this conflict between the sort of top-down approaches suggested by many learning analytics researchers, and the ground-up reality recognized by many complexity science researchers, this dissertation project investigates how learning analytics usage is happening within a higher education institution. Using an embedded case study methodology to examine current learning analytics practices across multiple academic units and stakeholders within a single higher education institution, I apply a CAS framework to determine how this institution might expand and grow their approach to learning analytics across key areas.Item EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF EXPENSE DISAGGREGATION AS A FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT TOOL IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION THROUGH A MIXED METHODS APPROACH(2024) Baker, Dylan R; Joyce, Philip; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This mixed methods dissertation investigates the impact that cost-disaggregating tools like the Delaware Cost Study (DCS) have on the expenditure patterns at large, public research universities. It draws on public budgeting and higher education finance literature to form a theory of action that hypothesizes that expense management at such institutions will result in the internal realignment of resources but will not alter the total amount spent. The quantitative model employs a 15-year panel data set comprised of financial and operational activity data for 69 R1 universities to tests the influence of DCS participation against this idea. The primary quantitative outcome shows that total costs are indeed not altered by cost disaggregation efforts, but that spending at universities employing such approaches is, on average, higher for Instruction and Scholarships and lower for Institutional Support and Student Service activities than the spending at non-DCS participants. The results inform the contrasting case selection strategy that highlights three similar constituted universities with differing quantitative results in an extensive interview-based qualitative analysis. The interviews detail the varied positive and negative outcomes of the use of DCS and similar tools, sheds light as to why the quantitative results occurred at each university, and documents the commonalities. Recommendations derived from the combined results of the two research methods signal key tenets that policy makers may utilize to enhance the effectiveness of public financial management for large, complex state-sponsored universities.Item IN THE PURSUIT: BLACK WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES IN PWI DOCTORAL PROGRAMS & THE USAGE OF BLACK JOY AS PERSISTENCE(2022) Sessoms, Christina Simone; Williams-Forson, Psyche; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Out of 104,953 doctoral degrees earned by women within the United States in 2019-2020, Black women obtained 10,576 PhDs across the span of academic disciplines, equating to 11.1%, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (2021). However, research has not done its due diligence of parsing through the data to understand the stories of the women who make up those 10,576 PhDs granted. This dissertation study explores the lived experiences of Black women who specifically transitioned from their undergraduate institutions into doctoral programs at predominately white institutions (PWIs) and how Black joy may be employed as a persistence mechanism toward degree completion. Because no literature exists to understand this community of doctoral students, this groundbreaking study begins with the question of what are the lived experiences of Black women who transition directly from their undergraduate to doctorate at PWIs? The dissertation continues to push further to then question how Black women in doctoral programs understand, experience, and sustain their joy and in what ways does joy inform persistence and resistance amongst these sista scholars. Utilizing Patricia Hill Collins’ (2000) Black Feminist Thought as a theoretical foundation and Black feminist-womanist storytelling as the chosen methodology, I argue that this specific transition is one that must be deeply explored because of unique components and that Black joy does, in fact, serve as a positive mechanism for persistence. Life stories were collected through two interlocking methods of semi-structured interviews and focus groups amongst 14 Black women spanning 12 different academic fields in PhD programs across the United States. By sharing life narratives of Black women in doctoral programs, in-depth insight is gathered concerning reasons for going to graduate school, academic and socialization transitions, three primary barriers to success - age being a salient identity, mental health challenges, and perceived & real pressure, and, lastly, understanding and experiencing joy through self, community, and work. Through this research project, Black women in doctoral programs created space to critique and disrupt the Ivory Tower while producing joy amongst each other.Item Postsecondary Stratification and the Democratization of Education: Using stratification theories and national data to examine stratification, the community college, and the transfer mechanism in postsecondary institutions(2020) Patricio, Kalia Raquel; Malen, Betty; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Stratification in postsecondary education has been a persistent issue since education became widely available to women, racial and ethnic minorities, and low-income students. This unequal access to education has significant consequences on where people end up in the labor market because of the strong connection between education and job attainment. Decades of policy have attempted to reduce educational stratification, with expanded community college access being a popular approach. Theoretically, expanded community college access increases the use of the transfer mechanism to reach the restrictive four-year institution and its associated degrees. In the past few decades there have been changes to the demographic make-up of the US and a variety of policy efforts aimed at the k-12 system and higher education funding, yet there is a dearth of recent research to indicate how the transfer mechanism is operating in the current educational environment. This three-paper dissertation uses sociological theory to hypothesize about the potential utility of the transfer mechanism to reduce stratification and uses complex samples logistic regression and recent data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 to analyze the current effectiveness of the community college transfer pathway in reducing stratified patterns of enrollment and outcomes at four-year institutions. Findings from these analyses show that the transfer mechanism is at best an unreliable solution to stratification in higher education. While there is some evidence to suggest that low-income students are utilizing the transfer pathway at greater rates compared to traditional four-year enrollment, the transfer mechanism is doing little to facilitate access to four-year institutions for first-generation and racial and ethnic minority students.Item Essays on the Economics of Skills(2019) Saltiel, Fernando Andres; Urzua, Sergio; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this dissertation, I examine the importance of specific components of the skill vector in affecting outcomes across various settings. In particular, I first consider the importance of non-cognitive skills in higher education in the United States, both in explaining academic undermatch, but also showing their importance towards successful degree completion. In the Chilean context, I consider how early-life math skills affect the likelihood of reaching the top of the income distribution, partly through leading to employment in higher-quality firms. The last chapter of my dissertation presents a discrete choice model of college majors, in which I consider how non-cognitive skills contribute to the gender gap in STEM majors in the United States. In particular, I document the importance of mathematical self-efficacy as an important driver of the gender gap in STEM. In Chapter 2, I analyze the importance of non-cognitive skills in the context of higher education. Using longitudinal data for the United States, I first find that students with higher non-cognitive skills are more likely to enroll in higher-quality four-year colleges. Furthermore, students who have been previously characterized as "under-matched" in higher education have significantly lower non-cognitive skills than students with equivalent test scores. While enrollment is the first step towards higher education completion, a burgeoning literature has documented falling completion rates among enrollees. In this context, I find that for both two-year enrollees as well as those in four-year colleges of varying qualities, non-cognitive skills are strong predictors of subsequent college completion. Chapter 3, written in collaboration with Sergio Urzua, estimates the returns to skills in the labor market by taking advantage of three administrative data sources. We first test for non-linearities in these returns and find that the returns to mathematical skills are highly non-linear, with math skill 'superstars' far outearning other high math scorers. High math-skilled workers not only complete more years of education, but graduate from higher quality universities and earn higher-paying degrees. We further examine the role of firms as a mediator of the returns to skills, a dimension not previously explored in the literature. We find that high-skilled workers match to high-paying firms immediately upon labor market entry. We conduct a decomposition to examine the separate contribution of education and firms in mediating the returns to skills, and find that worker-firm matching explains almost half of the estimated returns. Chapter 4 studies the relationship between pre-college skills and the gender gap in STEM majors. I expand upon the analysis in the first two chapters, by introducing structure to students' human capital investment decisions using a discrete choice model of college major choices. I implement the model using longitudinal data for the United States and consider students' initial and final major choices in a context where college students sort into majors based on observed characteristics and unobserved ability. More specifically, I distinguish observed test scores from latent ability. I find that math test scores significantly overstate gender gaps in math problem solving ability. Math problem solving ability strongly predicts STEM enrollment and completion for men and women. I further explore the importance of math self-efficacy, which captures students' beliefs about their ability to perform math-related tasks. Math self-efficacy raises both men's and women's probability of enrolling in a STEM major. Math self-efficacy also plays a critical role in explaining decisions to drop out of STEM majors for women, but not for men. The correlation between the two math ability components is higher for men than for women, indicating a relative shortfall of high-achieving women who are confident in their math ability. Lastly, I estimate the returns to STEM enrollment and completion and find large returns for high math ability women. These findings suggest that well-focused math self-efficacy interventions could boost women's STEM participation and graduation rates. Further, given the high returns to a STEM major for high math ability women, such interventions also could improve women's labor market outcomes.Item Embargoed Exchange: A Critical Case Study of Study Abroad Programming Between the United States and Cuba(2018) Woodman, Taylor C.; Klees, Steven J; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Internationalization continues to remain a central focus within the U.S. university environment. Internationalization motives are under question as neoliberal policies continue to limit sustained, long-term state funding for public universities and undermine the academic mission of these universities. Universities are leveraging internationalization practices, like study abroad programming, in response to the pressures of neoliberalism. Using both an academic capitalist and post-colonial lens, this dissertation seeks to understand how study abroad programming, specifically in non-traditional locations (viz., Cuba), operates within and is shaped by political and economic contexts. In this study, qualitative case study methods were used to critically examine study abroad programming between the United States and Cuba before, during and after the Obama Administration’s announcement changing diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba on December 17, 2014. The perspectives of 12 of the main actors in the field, including educational administrators and faculty from U.S universities, Cuban universities, and study abroad program providers, were captured to provide a more comprehensive view of U.S. study abroad implementation in Cuba. The findings illustrate four key aspects of the political and economic context that significantly impact study abroad programming. First, the U.S. blockade (embargo) on Cuba is shown to hinder academic operation and impede international relationship building. Additionally, the neoliberal and neo-colonial university environment in which study abroad programming is situated leads to the reproduction of colonial dynamics and amplifies inequities and power dynamics within North-South study abroad programs. Yet, in the face of neoliberal and neo-colonial pressures, solidarity building emerged as a key area for resistance within these programs. Thus, two opposing approaches, market-based and solidarity building, are dictating how study abroad programming is developed and implemented. The tensions between these approaches provide insight into the liminal space within which educational administrators and faculty develop and facilitate study abroad programming. Therefore, this dissertation critically analyzes the political and economic environment in which study abroad operates to determine implications for internationalization practice and policy in an effort to guide the future international dimensions of the university.Item Taiwanese College Graduates' Employability in the Global Context(2019) Peng, Yuyun; Lin, Jing; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)College graduates’ employability has been one of the focal objectives in higher education globally since the 1970s (Brown & Lauder, 2011; Hillage & Pollard, 1998; Brown et al., 2003). Under the massive impacts of globalization, technology revolution, and knowledge-based economy, the essence of graduate employability is shaping the curriculum design, as well as the career paths of Taiwanese college graduates. While current Taiwanese college graduates’ employability research focuses on the demographic description of graduates', educators' and employers' perception regarding employability, in-depth qualitative research that examines Taiwanese college graduates' experiences and perceptions regarding their employability readiness is scarce in the literature. Moreover, employability research in Taiwan needs to be addressed using a more holistic and cultural relevant approach where graduates' social, emotional, and professional development needs are taken into consideration. This study aims to investigate Taiwanese college graduates’ employability building, in terms of whether and how Taiwanese college graduates are well prepared for the knowledge, skills, and competency for the fast-changing world of work in Taiwan's particular social and economic context. To address the gap in the literature, this study focuses on the graduates’ narratives and digs into their perception of how college experiences, including college curriculum, work-related experiences, engagement with extracurricular activities, and career coaching resources contribute to graduates’ formation of competitive employability. In addition, this study also attempts to re-envision higher education to extensively accommodate graduates' professional and developmental needs in a more holistic manner. The study uses criterion-based sampling to reflect certain demographic characteristics of the graduate population. Eleven recent graduates from various geographic locations, disciplines, professions, and types of universities were invited to participate in the study. All participants received undergraduate degrees from departments of a Taiwanese higher education institution within two years; and had worked for more than one year. For male participants who needed to fulfill compulsory military service, the time served in the military is excluded from the two years limit. For recruitment of the participants, the research also put in effort to achieve balance in terms of gender, profession, discipline, and geography. The researcher conducted eleven individual interviews and two focus groups, and collected participants’ written reflections for analysis. In the study, graduates reflected upon how effectively the college curriculum, involvement in extracurricular activities, work-related engagement, career services, and other relevant college experiences contributed to employability building. Findings indicate that Taiwanese graduates perceive the existence of a gap between the preparation in university and the real world of work. The study also points to the context-bounded career transition struggle facing Taiwanese graduates. The researcher carefully examines graduates' experiences and proposes constructive solutions to enhance college students’ and graduates’ learning outcomes in all aspects of their college experiences. Based on the finding, the researcher proposes to redefine employability in a culturally relevant way, acknowledging unique Asian work ethics, and identify the critically needed employable skillset demanded in the participants’' professional fields. Besides mending the current campus-workplace gap, the study further discusses how higher education should prepare students and graduates for challenges brought upon by the fast-advancing technologies, and contemplate on the core values of the 21st century higher education.Item The Triumphs and Tensions of Transfer Articulation: Investigating the Implementation of Maryland's Associate of Arts in Teaching Degree(2018) Maliszewski Lukszo, Casey Lynn; Cabrera, Alberto; Espino Lira, Michelle; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation study investigated the implementation of the Associate of Arts in Teaching (A.A.T.) degree at two, public four-year universities in Maryland. Using Honig’s (2006a) Framework for Policy Analysis as a conceptual framework, I used higher education and policy implementation research to expand the conceptual model’s three dimensions: the Policy Dimension, the Places Dimension, and the People Dimension. Using an interpretative case study design, I used multiple data sources, including semi-structured interviews with state and university administrators and faculty, interviews with A.A.T. students, observations of state and university meetings, and a review of federal, state, and university documents. This study revealed that administrators and faculty generally perceived the A.A.T. degree to be an effective method to recruit diverse students into teaching professions and to create more efficient transfer pathways into education baccalaureate programs. However, administrators and faculty acknowledged a number of challenges associated with implementation, including: 1) confusion surrounding admissions policies into education programs; 2) trouble completing the Basic Skills Test requirement; and 3) miscommunication, misadvisement, and misalignment with regard to transfer courses in the A.A.T. program, which often led to transfer credit problems. Three factors were found to influence implementation challenges: 1) state and organizational governance structures and culture; 2) state and university leaders (particularly how they interpreted the A.A.T. policy and how they communicated those interpretations to others); and 3) external pressures, such as accreditation and state workforce demands. Some challenges associated with transfer credit articulation can be attributed to differences between community college and university priorities and values. Overall, the findings from this dissertation provide additional understanding of the promise and the challenges associated with subject-specific state transfer articulation degrees, such as the A.A.T. While subject-specific transfer policies can yield some positive effects on transfer pathways, they are not the sole solution to fixing transfer credit problems. To conclude, I provide recommendations for state policymakers, considerations for university practitioners, and directions for future research.Item Essays on Higher Education(2017) Espinoza Gonzalez, Ricardo Andres; Urzua, Sergio; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Higher education has changed dramatically in the last 40 years. What was the privilege of rich nations or poor countries' elites is now an integral part of international competition and development strategies. However, the rapid expansion in enrollment has posed significant challenges in terms of providing adequate financing, access and securing quality in higher education. This dissertation explores three aspects of these relevant issues. The first chapter presents new estimates of the returns to higher education in two Latin American countries, Chile and Perú. Combining administrative records with a simple economic framework, I document large heterogeneity in the average returns to higher education, and I find negative net benefits of pursuing a number of degrees. The second chapter studies a potential unintended consequence of student loans. Overall, student loans have proven to be effective in increasing college enrollment, especially among low-income students. Yet, loans' ability to improve student welfare depends on the pricing response of schools. If schools exert some degree of market power and set tuition strategically, they may react to loans by raising tuition in order to capture some portion of the aid. This generates a negative externality on ineligible students, who have to pay higher tuition fees than if loans did not exist. I develop an econometric model of supply and demand for higher education and study this phenomenon in the context of a student loan program that was implemented in Chile in 2006. I find that, on average, schools raise tuition by 6% in response to loans, which generate an average externality of US$178 per student per year. Finally, the third chapter studies the endogenous formation of centralized admissions to college and its potential benefits. Policymakers around the world have adopted market-design-inspired centralized matching systems for assigning students to public schools. However, the question of whether policy intervention is necessary for such adoptions has been little studied. Examining a setting with application costs and heterogeneity in college quality, I show that sizeable application costs and small heterogeneity in college quality may lead to a voluntary transition to a centralized matching system. Using a 2012 system change in Chile, I demonstrate the plausibility of our theoretical setting and show that the enlarged pool of colleges in the centralized admission is welfare-improving, particularly for those students facing high application costs.Item From Counting Women to Ensuring Women Count: A Qualitative Study of University and Early Career Experiences of Women Secondary School Teachers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from a Capabilities Perspective(2016) Ashtari Abay, Negar; Stromquist, Nelly P; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)At the heart of this study is a concern with moving from counting women—from a quantitative focus on gender parity—to having women count—ensuring conditions exist that allow women teachers to fully participate in quality teaching and the positive transformation of the teaching profession. Women comprise less than 20% of secondary school teachers in Ethiopia (MoE, 2014), reflecting similar patterns of under-representation elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study uses in-depth interviews and field observations over a period of 15 months in Addis Ababa to shed light on why many women in Ethiopia who enter university do not make it into secondary school teaching and why many of those who enter teaching, in urban areas where most teachers are concentrated, do not stay in the profession. Drawing on a capabilities perspective, the study goes further to examine the cumulative disadvantage—in terms of well-being and agency—that women experience during the process of their university (undergraduate and teacher) training and in their early years of working in urban secondary schools, as well as the ways in which women contend with disadvantage. This study shows that such disadvantage and the responses to it have implications not only for whether women enter and stay in teaching but also for how they engage in their work. Utilizing the rich qualitative data collected and the analysis afforded by using the capability approach, the study concludes by recommending how different actors, including government, universities and schools, can foster institutional conditions of possibility (Walker, 2006a) and educational arrangements that enhance rather than limit full and equal participation in the teaching profession. Foregrounded throughout this study are the voices and experiences of young women, offering a perspective which disrupts the presumed norm of the single male teacher and highlights some of the limits of gender-neutral teacher policies.