Exploring the Effects of an Open Access Mindfulness Course on Online Graduate Student Persistence, Stress, and Mind Wandering: A Mixed Methods Explanatory Sequential Study

As enrollment in online graduate education increases, retention continues to be problematic for many colleges and universities across the United States. Retention is greatly influenced by persistence or continued enrollment from one term to the next. Non-traditional students, who represent the majority of online graduate student enrollment, have unique issues related to persistence considering they often must juggle the demands of graduate school with work and families. The competing demands can lead to increased levels of perceived stress, which can impact academic performance due to increased mind wandering and decreased attention. Mindfulness is a practice that has been shown in the literature to decrease levels of perceived stress and mind wandering, therefore, the integration of mindfulness practice could have a positive effect on student persistence in online graduate education. The purpose of this explanatory sequential dissertation was to examine relationships between, and factors related to student self-reported perceived stress, mind wandering, and persistence (i.e., degree/ institutional commitment) and to explore the impact of teaching mindfulness to online graduate students. A total of 31 online graduate students completed Module One of an open access course, "Mindfulness and Optimal Performance" and the associated pre- and post-surveys. The pre-and post-surveys included valid and reliable instruments to measure self-reported levels of perceived stress, mind wandering, and persistence. To expand on and clarify the quantitative results, six one-on-one interviews were conducted after the post-survey. Self-report levels of perceived stress and mind wandering were significantly lower after students completed Module One of an open access mindfulness course. Self-reported perceived persistence levels were found to be significantly higher after Module One with students in the first or second quarter of their program, students with little or no mindfulness experience, and students who meditated four or more times a week. Furthermore, students interviewed felt that the course provided excellent foundational information about mindfulness that could be immediately applied, and therefore should be a requirement for all incoming students. Given the findings, the recommendation is for colleges and universities to offer education on mindfulness to all incoming students as a way to support students holistically and provide strategies to help students manage their stress, increase their focus, and potentially increase their persistence to graduation.Ed.D., Educational Leadership and Management -- Drexel University, 202

Relationships Matter: Improving Student Engagement and Retention with Marketing Strategies

Community colleges have traditionally struggled with student retention. A growing subset of today's community college students seek degree programs that will not only fortify their minds, but prepare them to meet current workforce demands. The post-recession view of community colleges as engines of change, relative to affordability and gainful employment, has prompted government officials and college leaders to explore ways to best meet students' needs from enrollment to graduation. This study examined the effects of infusing relationship-marketing strategies into academic advising practice to improve student retention. The researcher believes that service augmentation and relationship customization can significantly improve student-institution bonds. The conceptual framework for this study is grounded in Tinto's student engagement model (retention), Berry's relationship-marketing approach, and academic advising theory. The researcher used an explanatory mixed-methods design to explore the following research questions: (a) How can relationship-marketing strategies be used to improve the formation of affective advisor-advisee bonds? (b) How does academic advisors' implementation of relationship-marketing strategies impact student retention? And (c) What is the relationship between students' satisfaction with academic advising and retention rates? This research used an explanatory mixed-methods approach and a sample of 93 students and four professional academic advisors to examine the impact of relationship-marketing on student retention. The results indicated that relationship-marketing concepts, namely service augmentation and relationship customization were strong determinants of affective advisor-advisee bonds. The results also indicate that students' retention behavior was strongly determined by advisor-advisee bonds and a sense of belonging to the institution. Student satisfaction with the advising process was also a contributing factor in their decision to remain enrolled at the college. In addition, trust, honesty, and openness in the relationship-building process was a strong determinant of a student's decision to return. The findings of this study suggest that a comprehensive, authentic approach to developing, managing, and maintaining student relationships can impact student satisfaction with the university and their college experience.Ed.D., Educational Leadership and Management -- Drexel University, 202

Nondestructive Approach for Defect Detection in Hard Armor Protective Inserts

Delamination detection in hard body armor is uniquely challenging and has affected the defense acquisition plan while generating uncertainty with respect to ballistic performance. The ability to confidently detect armor delamination is necessary to protect the warfighter and manage risk. The tap test has long been a benchmark in nondestructive inspection (NDI), including the investigation of composite structure delamination. The application of impact-based NDI to composite parts, although widely reported, is still hampered by a number of challenges. In a simple summary, NDI can be characterized as an inverse problem with the goal of inferring the presence of a defect by interpreting and extrapolating the system's "reaction" under controlled conditions. The fundamental challenge is that realistic armor delaminations (e.g. from manufacturing) may be too deep or too slight to be confidently deconvolved from the noise generated by armor system complications using an impact-based NDI approach. The subject research postulates that existing impact-based methods are not sensitive enough to detect small defects in thick-sectioned, finite-geometry, laminar composites such as hard body armor; however, modifications to the impact-based approach may provide greater sensitivity in discerning the presence of small delaminations. The research approach has three objectives: (1) define the target defect in hard armor protective inserts (2) evaluate the capabilities and limitations of impact-based NDI (3) propose methodology improvements that may achieve the desired sensitivity for hard armor inserts. Defect characterization, method sensitivity, potential confounds, and the extension to small defects are discussed. Impact-based NDI is a rudimentary tool that is deceivingly simple, yet versatile and widely applied. Under the right conditions, it can illuminate delamination in complex material systems.Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics -- Drexel University, 202

Optimization of Additively Manufactured Sandwich Panels with Composite Face Sheets

Sandwich structures are of great interest to researchers all around the world for their flexural stiffness, strength-to-weight ratio, and high energy absorption. These structures are extensively used in the aerospace, naval, and automotive industries. In this work, we describe a novel method to make monolithic sandwich panels with fiber-reinforced face sheets using a DLP 3D printer. The method was tuned to achieve high fidelity parts with accurate dimensions. For example, the amount of photo absorber was adjusted and found to be essential in achieving high print resolution. Samples with and without fiber-reinforced face sheets were printed using two different core geometries, honeycomb and rectangular, and printed in two different orientations, in-plane and out-of-plane. The specific stiffness of each of these four sample categories was then analyzed via 3-Point-Bending tests. In both reinforced and non-reinforced sandwich panels, the honeycomb structure showed the highest stiffness-to-weight ratio for out-of-plane orientation, while the rectangular structure showed the highest stiffness-to-weight ratio for in-plane orientation. Reinforced samples had a specific stiffness that was 130% and 240% more than that of non-reinforced samples in out-of-plane and in-plane samples, respectively.M.S., Chemical Engineering -- Drexel University, 202

Play By K – Building A Successful Model for Scholastic Athletics in Urban Schools: A Collective Case Study

The intersection of athletics and academics have been a focal point of numerous research studies since schools began sponsoring sports teams and competing against local rival districts. Many recent high-profile scandals that have exposed the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and other national governing bodies brought to light an unfortunate by-product of education-based athletics: winning at all costs. This "need to win" mentality is negatively impacting our scholastic athletic programs, which are beginning to lose their focus. The purpose of this qualitative, collective case study is to examine perceptions of district-level athletic administrators on successful models of scholastic athletics in urban schools. Urban school districts, which are chronically under-resourced when it comes to scholastic athletic opportunities for students, are disorganized across the K-12 grade span. In schools that lack programming, students are often shuffled to their local playground or community center - facilities that typically do not have the capacity to operate quality programming. This study aims to address the central research questions on developmentally appropriate programming, leadership development in scholastic athletics, and the impact of scholastic athletics on student outcomes. The research analyzed common themes among the urban school districts and the scholastic athletic programming they offer at different levels of a student's educational experience. "Play By K" is used as a benchmark initiative to ensure all students have the opportunity to engage in open play by the time they start kindergarten - and to be able to continue with their love of sport through their high school years and beyond. The researcher explores models of successful scholastic athletic programs in urban schools by conducting individual interviews with district-level athletic administrators in order to better support opportunities for all students-athletes through construction of an inclusive and comprehensive K-12 model

A Differential Capacitive Sensing System for Knitted Textiles

Textiles, in combination with advances in materials, intelligent sensing and signal processing, offer exciting new possibilities for fabric-based human interfaces and flexible, touch-sensitive devices. This thesis introduces a novel touch detection method and applies signal processing techniques towards measuring distributed capacitive touch across knitted fabric circuits. This work introduces differential capacitive sensing--a technique to measure capacitive touch along a continuous linear conductor using paired input and output voltage waveforms. A framework for constructing compatible knitted circuits from conductive yarns is introduced that enables the creation of extensible fabric touch interfaces using digital weft knitting. Touch localization, through differential capacitive sensing, is improved by applying Bode analysis to measure frequency-specific signal attenuation invariant to distortion from electromagnetic interference. A real-time sensing controller is constructed to generate, acquire and process voltage waveforms measured from the fabric circuit. The processed data are recorded as a time series of paired gain measurements with respect to input frequency. The contributions of this work make possible the development of Mixed-Source Description, a method to extract scale-space features from time-frequency measurements. A scale-space representation of temporal gestures, such as press-and-release, is constructed and compared using a novel distance metric, the Euclidean Levenshtein Distance, developed to quantify the similarity between temporal touch data. This work provides the foundation for quantifying high-level user input using textile-based sensors and a robust capacitive touch sensing system.Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics -- Drexel University, 202

Data-Driven Decision Making in the Community College Context

This case study explored how data-driven decision making occurred within institutional planning activities at a California community college. The problem statement for this research was that the practice of data-driven decision making for program effectiveness within community colleges has not been clearly defined and understood within the literature. The research question asked, "What enables data-driven decision making within a variety of routine planning activities, including how do practitioners employ data-driven decision making and what processes are utilized in data-driven decision making?" This study utilized a descriptive case study methodology. A descriptive case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a case in depth and within its real-world context (Yin, 2014). Using a combination of one-on-one interviews, document review, and observations, this study gathered data on organizational routines and processes, the people involved in planning, and the process and tools used within planning. Three major findings were that (a) data-driven decision making is enabled by organizational structure, dialogue, the availability of data reports, and support and guidance by institutional research professionals; (b) practitioners employ data-driven decision making by tracking various metrics, detecting barriers to goals, identifying needs, and adjusting practices accordingly; and (c) stakeholders within a college approach institutional planning with certain expectations and assumptions that reflect the college's broader culture. The findings indicated: (a) the design of the college's institutional planning structure and processes impacts how data-driven decision making is employed at a college; (b) stakeholders tend to form meaning together and dialogue about data is one avenue that facilitates the meaning-making process; (c) data collection is key, thus the research questions guiding data collection are also key; (d) the data-driven decision-making process includes using data to reach a decision as well as acting on or responding to the information or newly created knowledge; and (e) the practice of data-driven decision making is influenced by organizational culture. The recommendations suggest ways that community colleges, leaders, and practitioners can support or facilitate data-driven decision making within institutional planning activities.Ed.D., Educational Leadership and Management -- Drexel University, 202

A Microstructure-Driven Approach to Characterize Transport Phenomena in Porous Media of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells

The polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) is an electrochemical device which holds great promise as an alternative power source for use in a wide range of applications. However, improvements in cell performance are necessary for the commercialization of PEFCs. Recently, significant research effort has been placed on understanding the influence of the internal structure (i.e., microstructure) of fuel cell materials on the transport of water and reactant gases in PEFC systems. One component of interest is the porous diffusion media (DM), which has been shown to be vital for achieving necessary water management to maintain efficient fuel cell operation. However, current modeling efforts rely primarily on bulk correlations or idealized/randomly selected structures for these porous materials, which may misrepresent the true morphology of the DM and potentially fail to accurately capture the related effects on transport within this component. The objective of this dissertation work is to establish a framework which combines recent advances in 3-D microstructure quantification and pore-scale analysis to evaluate the structure and related transport characteristics of fuel cell DM. The presented framework includes the following features: i) the microstructures of the materials of interest are quantified rigorously in 3-D; ii) small representative volume elements (RVEs) are selected which capture the important features of the measured microstructure datasets to within high accuracy, for reliable and computationally efficient modeling of transport behavior; and iii) a suite of microstructure analysis tools is developed to determine several difficult-to-measure key structure-related transport properties. Using this approach, an in-depth understanding of the structure-related transport characteristics of a fuel cell DM sample is achieved.Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics -- Drexel University, 202

Chondroitin Sulfate Conjugated Nanofiber Shish Kebabs as Biomimetic Bone Templates

Bone defects affect over 2.2 million people worldwide through diseases, injuries, aging, or the combination of these. The gold standards for bone defects are autografts harvested generally from the iliac crest or the hip bone of the patient. The use of autografts is limited and require additional surgery, which increases the risk of infection and donor site morbidity. Although there is no immune or compatibility issue, some autografts still fail due to non-union of bone and related complications. There is a medical need to synthesize polymeric bone grafts that can perform similarly if not better than bone autografts. To this end, we have previously fabricated a polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofiber shish kebab (NFSK) template as synthetic bone scaffolds via polymer crystallization of a block copolymer of PCL-b-PAA. The novelty of this work is the ability to control the mineral crystal orientation and spatial location on the nanofiber, which mimics the molecular structure of bone or mineralized collagen fibrils. The objective of this thesis is two-fold: 1) to investigate the cell to biomaterial surface interaction provided by the unique NFSK surface features and 2) to use the NFSK platform to design biomimetic bone templates. The advantage of using NFSK templates is ease of modifying the template surface with different functional groups and biomimetic nature of NSFK-templated mineralization. As a result, the surface roughness and chemistry can be manipulated and designed towards an osteogenic microenvironment. For these reasons, it was hypothesized that the NFSK templates will promote cell differentiation and marker expression of mineralization of MC3T3 E1 pre-osteoblast cells. In the first part of the dissertation, NFSK templates were used to investigate the topological effect, e.g. fiber alignment and kebab size, on pre-osteoblast cell proliferation and ALP activity, which the latter is an important enzyme related to bone mineralization and osteogenesis. Aligned nanofiber with larger kebab size increased both ALP activity and cell proliferation because of the surface roughness of NFSK. NFSK templates were then mineralized in simulated body fluid to mimic mineralized collagen fibrils, which was showed to increase ALP and cell proliferation as well. Interestingly, the kebab period did not influence proliferation or ALP activity when mineralized indicating that surface chemistry played a more dominant role than surface roughness. The NFSK templates was further designed to also mimic the bone matrix by conjugating chondroitin sulfate (CS) onto the PAA region of the kebab. CS is an important glycosaminoglycan that is important in collagen fiber organization in the bony matrix. CS-NFSK templates were characterized using FTIR and mass balance, which showed formation of an amide bone between the CS amine group and the PAA carboxylic acid group and increases in the template mass after conjugation. Thermal analysis and contact angle also showed difference in thermal degradation, heat flow, and hydrophilicity. Lastly, CS-NFSK templates promoted ALP activity and cell proliferation compared to the control. Osteoblast gene expression including RUNX2, ALP, COL1, and BGLAP were also upregulated in the CS-NFSK templates indicating mineralization and formation of matrix. For the first time, CS-NFSK were molecularly engineered to mimic the bone structure and matrix, which showed promise as a biomimetic bone template.Ph.D., Biomedical Engineering -- Drexel University, 202

A Phenomenology Study into How Parents Understand and Perceive the Effect of Reading Aloud on Children's Emergent Literacy Skill Development and Reading Readiness

To address the void in scholarly literature, this study explored how parents approach and understand the read aloud experience and its effect on young children's emergent literacy development, reading readiness, and future reading success. Many children start school every year without the necessary skills to learn how to read, and it is virtually impossible to close the gap in this deficit. Choosing the most effective way of teaching emergent literacy skills to young children presents the current challenge for many early childhood educators and administrators. Much work has been done in the area of emergent literacy skills and their link to reading success. At a young age, children develop a desire to learn how to read as well as the self-confidence in their abilities to become readers. The problem addressed in this phenomenological study was a need to explore parental perceptions about emergent literacy and reading aloud to kindergarteners to understand the influence on children's literacy development, reading readiness, and future success. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore parents read aloud experiences with their children to understand how parents perceive children's emergent literacy skill development and the effects of their reading aloud approach on reading readiness. Research in the areas of emergent literacy skills and their links to reading success, best practices for delivering early literacy instruction, and the home literacy environment with the role parents play in developing emergent literacy skills, were examined to provide background germane to addressing the reading readiness issue. The study sought to answer the following research questions. 1. How do parents describe their perceptions about the effects of the read aloud experience on emergent literacy development for kindergarten learners in a south central Pennsylvania school? 2. How do parents of kindergartners experience and understand the read aloud approach to developing emergent literacy skills in a south central Pennsylvania school? 3. How does the prosody of parents reading aloud to their children affect kindergarteners' interest in reading in a south central Pennsylvania school? 4. How do parental reading aloud techniques inform or shape the reading experience of kindergarten learners in a south central Pennsylvania school? Parents of kindergarten students were surveyed with a demographic questionnaire and interviewed to gather qualitative data. Parents were also observed reading aloud with their children using observational notes and a reading observation checklist. Descriptive, structural, and in vivo coding were used to analyze the data. Keywords: Emergent Literacy, Fluency, Print Referencing, Prosody, Read Aloud, Reading Readiness, Text CodeEd.D., Educational Leadership and Management -- Drexel University, 202