UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item A Benefit-Cost Analysis of the Student Support Services Program(2009) Pacchetti, Ed M.; Rice, Jennifer K.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Document: A BENEFIT-COST ANALYSIS OF THE STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICES PROGRAM Ed M. Pacchetti, Doctor of Philosophy, 2009 Dissertation Directed by: Jennifer K. Rice, Ph.D. This study extends previous research on the Student Support Services program, a federal program that works to ensure college retention and graduation for low-income and first generation students, by examining the benefits and the costs of higher-impact SSS projects. Higher-impact SSS projects are defined as such because the graduation rates of their participants exceed the national graduation rate for other low-income and first generation students who have not participated in the SSS program. Applying a methodology used in other benefit-cost analyses of education programs, this study explores how the benefits over 40 years following participation in higher-impact SSS projects exceed the costs of these projects. This study focuses on benefits and costs to society. The benefit measures utilized in this study include higher income, lower health care costs and lower costs of crime. The cost measures include grant award costs, institutional project contributions, Pell Grant costs and the costs of Stafford Loan subsidies. The findings show that at three discount rates of 3%, 7% and 10%, the benefits of higher-impact SSS projects consistently exceed their costs. In addition, in most estimates of the future value of benefits generated by higher-impact SSS projects, the benefits generated by these projects are significant enough to provide for the grant award costs of all SSS projects at 4-year colleges and universities in project year 2005-2006, the year that is the focus of this study. This study's findings have implications for future research. Because the benefits of higher-impact SSS projects are significant, future research should focus on identifying the components of these projects responsible for success and incorporating these components into less successful projects in an attempt to increase the college graduation rates of all SSS projects. However, this study emphasizes that benefit-cost analysis should be one of many measures used to evaluate SSS projects and determine program success.Item Cost-Effectiveness of an Enhanced Whole-School Social Competency Intervention(2008-10-22) Huang, Sharon; Gottfredson, Gary D; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Background The cost and efficacy literature regarding elementary school-based preventative programs is limited, and many cost and efficacy studies suffer from research design and methodology problems. Purpose This study compares the marginal costs of a specific whole-school intervention to marginal costs of control school programs. It also assesses the cost-effectiveness of treatment and control interventions with respect to self-reported aggression, academic grades, and Maryland State Assessment (MSA) scores. Setting The study takes place in elementary schools in Anne Arundel County, a relatively diverse, suburban county in Maryland. Subjects Counselors (n=9) and principals (n=11) from 12 schools; the project manager, data clerk, and coordinator of guidance from the school system central office; and five research team members completed questionnaires about their time use. The study relies on efficacy data from another study. Intervention Implemented for three years, Second Step is a popular preventative, school-wide social competency program that aims to augment students' social skills and prevent problem behavior (Frey, Hirschstein, & Guzzo, 2000). Using manual-based lessons, classroom teachers in first through fifth grades were trained to deliver 30-minute lessons once a week to their classes in the areas of empathy, anger management, problem solving, and impulse control. Teachers also supplemented the formal lessons by reinforcing what had been taught at other times during the day (Frey et al., 2000). The intervention was enhanced by adding specific implementation standards and the use of periodic feedback about implementation to intervention managers and teachers. Research Design and Methods This study makes use of results from a large-scale randomized controlled trial that investigated the efficacy of Second Step. Researchers selected 12 elementary schools that had never implemented Second Step to participate, and these schools were matched based on their demographics and achievement history. Within each pair of schools, researchers randomly assigned one school to the treatment group and one to the control group. The methodology used for assessing costs is the ingredients approach (Levin & McEwan, 2001). Data Collection and Analysis Effect sizes for third and fourth graders for the third year are obtained from outcome evaluation reports. Third-year costs are added to retrospective training costs to estimate three-year costs. Data for costs of personnel time are collected in the form of time-use questionnaires, supplemental teacher questionnaires, and implementation logs. Accounting expenditures, rental agreements, and contacts with district personnel provide other cost data. To reflect current and annual costs and to account for opportunity costs, costs are discounted (expressing future costs in terms of their present values) and amortized (distributing a cost across its lifetime). Finally, incremental cost-effectiveness ratios are calculated for some of the outcome measures examined. Sensitivity analyses are conducted to consider variability in cost and cost-effectiveness estimates. Results Results imply that the enhanced whole-school social competency intervention attained no positive effects in student self-reported aggression, academic grades and MSA scores, at a cost of only $69 less per student over a three-year implementation period. Conclusions The enhanced whole-school social competency intervention is no more cost-effective than the control programs: annual marginal student costs are only slightly less than those of the control program, and the program is not efficacious. Limitations include the small number of schools and personnel and correspondingly large standard errors for effect sizes, the use of self-report methods to estimate time, and dependence on unreliable accounting expenditure data from the school district. Undependability of cost data may result from both measurement error and bias. In addition, since this particular Second Step program was implemented in only one school district, its generalizability to other school districts or variations of program implementation is unexplored. Despite these limitations, the study provides a range of credible values for cost-effectiveness for the program. It may provide insight to the scientific community about the costs involved in operating an enhanced whole-school intervention to share with school administrators and educators in their considerations of elementary school-based preventative interventions.Item Risk and Economic Estimation of Inspection Policy of Periodically Tested Repairable Components(2005-08-02) Barroeta, Carlos Eduardo; Modarres, Mohammad; Mechanical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This report presents a model to identify the optimal time between surveillance tests and overhaul frequency of components whose failures are detected upon inspection. The model is based on minimizing the total cost per unit time during the component renewal cycle. It considers the component availability assuming that the unit is "as old" after tests and repairs and "as new" after overhauls. The model takes into account costs associated with tests and maintenance, as well as potential losses related to unavailability. General conditions and a case study are discussed to evaluate the effect of costs, maintenance task durations, and the uncertainty of the reliability parameters on the optimal inspection policy of typical tested components. This report also discusses the advantage of the cost-based optimization versus the traditional approach based on maximal availability.