Browsing by Author "Lane, Tonisha B."
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- Black doctoral women: Exploring barriers and facilitators of success in graduate educationPatterson-Stephens, Shawna; Lane, Tonisha B.; Vital, Louise Michelle (2017-05-01)The purpose of this phenomenological study was to expand upon extant research and uncover trends observed among Black women who are in pursuit of – or have recently attained – their doctoral degrees within the United States. Exploring the voices of seven women, findings revealed three primary themes: (1) socialization experiences, (2) student success, and (3) challenges. Implications for students, administrators, and faculty are provided.
- A Black Sense of Place: Deep Mapping the Career Journeys of Black Mid-level Student Affairs AdministratorsPete, Kendall Kreshon (Virginia Tech, 2022-12-06)Mid-level administrators are underrepresented within the literature despite years of research on university administration. Moreover, there is significantly less knowledge about administrators of color in higher education. While the reason for their decreased prominence is unclear, Jackson and O'Callaghan (2009) offer that people of color were historically not part of the leadership landscape as an explanation for the minimal formal analysis and categorization of them and their work. Despite the surge of research interest in Black administrators, there still remains limited knowledge about who they are, their professional lives, and their overall lived experiences. As such, the purpose of this study was to understand the career journeys and the experiences of Black mid-level student affairs administrators (BMLSAAs) as they navigate transitions and advancements within their careers. Guided by a conceptual framework using tenets of Critical Race Theory, Space and Place, and the Great Migration, this study investigated the following questions: (1) What are the career migration patterns of BMLSAAs? (2) What role does race and racism combined with location play in the career journeys of BMLSAAs? (3) How do BMLSAAs make meaning of their career journey and their experiences? I employed a qualitatively driven multimethod research design consisting of narrative inquiry and a Critical Race Spatial Analysis (CRSA) with a sample size of 11 BMLSAAs across the U.S. Data sources included a demographic questionnaire, documents (i.e., current resume/curriculum vitae), a career journey map, and a semi-structured interview. Findings provided insight into the racialized engagement of spatial features throughout participants' career journeys; on the campuses where they worked and the geographic regions where participants have lived. Ultimately findings expressed what it is like being Black not only in a mid-level student affairs administrative role, but also traversing one's career as a Black person. Additionally, this study has implications for research, practice, and policy.
- Cultivating Graduate STEM Pathways: How Alliance-Based STEM Enrichment Programs Broker Opportunity for Students of ColorGarcia, Ariana L.; Lane, Tonisha B.; Rincón, Blanca E. (Frontiers, 2021-07-28)To understand how higher education institutions broker graduate opportunities for Students of Color (SOCs) in STEM, we employ a single case study of a Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) alliance. Drawing primarily from student interviews and informed by Small’s (2006) organizational brokerage theory, our findings illuminate how 1) alliance-based STEM enrichment programs (SEPs) bridge social capital via interorganizational networks and 2) how SEP instability creates barriers to building the trust that is central to the brokerage process. We conclude with recommendations for future research and practice.
- An Examination of High School Teacher Experiences with STEAM Curriculum ImplementationMitchell, Anza Laquetta (Virginia Tech, 2024-11-19)In the United States, there has been a growing focus on using science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to increase global competitiveness. Despite increased attention to these subjects and funding through the years, American students still fall behind students in other countries in math and science achievement. STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) education has been proposed as a reform effort to address this problem. Designed to prepare students for the interdisciplinary demands of the 21st-century workforce, STEAM education aims to incorporate art and design principles into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subjects to foster creativity, critical thinking, and innovation. This study examines the experiences of high school teachers as they implement STEAM. Despite the potential benefits of STEAM to learning and STEM career interest, little is known about the teachers who are an integral part of its implementation. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how high school teachers' backgrounds and social interactions influence their understanding and implementation of STEAM curricula, the roles high school teachers play in developing and modifying said curricula, and the challenges high school teachers face when implementing it. This research was guided by a conceptual framework built upon three theories: social constructivism, teachers as curriculum makers, and barriers to technology integration. Social constructivism emphasizes the importance of social interactions and cultural context in shaping teachers' understanding of STEAM education. Teachers as curriculum makers highlights the active role teachers play in designing and adapting curricula to meet the needs of their students and educational environments. Barriers to technology integration provides a lens for understanding the challenges teachers face in implementing STEAM curricula. Using qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis, this exploratory study examined high school teachers' experiences implementing STEAM curricula. The findings reveal that high school teachers often lack formal STEAM pedagogical training, leading them to rely on prior content knowledge, informal learning experiences, and collaborative planning with colleagues to make decisions about implementation. Teachers face significant challenges in implementing STEAM, including a lack of funding, insufficient support from administrators, and difficulties with school timetabling. Despite these challenges, teachers hold positive attitudes toward STEAM and believe in its benefits for student career preparation, skill-building, and exposure to various subjects. The implications of this study highlight the need for targeted professional development programs that address the specific needs of high school teachers, emphasizing both content knowledge and interdisciplinary pedagogical strategies. They also highlight the importance of creating flexible and adaptable STEAM curricula that allow for teacher autonomy and creativity. Furthermore, the findings suggest that schools and districts should prioritize STEAM education by providing adequate funding, resources, and support structures to ensure its successful implementation in high schools. This research contributes to the growing body of literature on STEAM education by providing a detailed exploration of the experiences and challenges faced by high school teachers. It concludes with practical recommendations for educators, policymakers, and curriculum developers to support the effective implementation of STEAM education, aiming to prepare students with the skills and knowledge necessary for success in the 21st century.
- Historically Marginalized Engineering Doctoral Students' Motivation and Socialization in Graduate EducationHuggins de Murzi, Natali Carolina (Virginia Tech, 2023-02-16)Doctoral education in the U.S. is essential to cultivating professionals, scientists, and researchers capable of advancing and contributing to national goals. However, the engineering field warrants diversification to respond to global, social, and demographic demands. It is necessary to support students from historically marginalized backgrounds by acknowledging their unique experiences and encouraging them to activate their agency while faculty and institutional leaders work toward dismantling systemic barriers. Such practices may aid historically marginalized students in completing their degrees which will contribute to reduced attrition rates, time to degree, and degree completion. Over the past 10 years, Blacks and African Americans, Hispanic and Latinx people, and Native Americans and Indigenous people have demonstrated steady growth in doctoral education in engineering, despite several challenges and systemic barriers encountered during their doctoral journey. Even though they are growing in the field, attrition rates, time to degree, and degree completion remain an issue. Higher education researchers, workforce stakeholders, and educational organizations have been focusing on diversifying the STEM fields. Still, little attention has focused on the psychosocial elements that influence historically marginalized doctoral students' academic journeys. For example, research shows historically marginalized doctoral students encounter various challenges in doctoral education such as isolation, tokenism, and microaggression among others. To this end, it is essential to understand historically marginalized doctoral students' motivation and experiences in doctoral engineering education to identify strategies for mitigating these challenges as well as increase degree completion and decrease the time to degree. Guided by the situated expectancy-value theory and the graduate socialization framework, this dissertation consists of two manuscripts. The first manuscript is a qualitative holistic single case study that explores Latinx students' motivations to pursue a doctoral degree in engineering by investigating the following question: What values motivate Latinx students to pursue a doctoral degree in engineering? The second manuscript applies transcendental phenomenology to explore historically marginalized engineering doctoral students' socialization experiences by considering the following question: How do historically marginalized doctoral engineering students perceive their socialization experiences? The data sources for both manuscripts consist of interviews and surveys from participants in a research boot camp conducted between 2017-2021 from a larger national science foundation (NSF) funded project named the Dissertation Institute (DI). These studies are significant because they will provide implications for students who identify as members of these populations, research, practice, and policy concerning historically marginalized doctoral students' socialization experiences in engineering. Findings from the first study revealed that Latinx student motivation to pursue and persist in engineering doctoral degrees contained different subjective task values from SEVT and was influenced by educational and research experiences, role model interactions, and socio-cultural values. The second manuscript unearthed that students' socialization occurs in progressive, sequential, and connected stages. Each stage indicates students' development, even with the possible recurrence of previous stages depending on the challenges tied to systemic issues. Both manuscripts uncovered motivation and socialization vary from person to person contemplating various dimensions, and they are interconnected and influence students' journeys. In addition, the engineering context impacts both elements with respect to funding sources, research emphasis, and the persistent White male normative culture.
- Integrating diversity training into doctoral programs in mathematics educationSears, Ruthmae; Lane, Tonisha B. (2016-12-01)
- “It’s just a reflection of America”: The experiences of Black students with racism in the residence halls at a historically White institutionLane, Tonisha B.; Morgan, Kali; Clarke, LaFrance Jr.; Hutchful, Jimmy; Adams, Venice (2022-01-12)The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the role of campus housing in being spaces of injustice for Black students at one Floridian, urban, research university. Using critical race theory (CRT) as a theoretical framework, we analyzed focus group interview data of 28 self-identified Black collegians. From this analysis, three themes emerged: (a) navigating everyday racism with White roommates, (b) counterstories of Black resident advisors (RA), and (c) living-learning communities as microsystems of racial oppression. Based on these findings, we argue that if institutions are to become the beacon for diversity, equity, and inclusion that they purport to be, they need to be more intentional about how they add(red)ress racism in campus spaces. This vision is particularly critical for residence halls, which should be a place of respite for students.
- Latter-day Saint Undergraduate Students' Interfaith Engagement: A Post-Intentional Phenomenological StudyAnderson, Ian James (Virginia Tech, 2023-05-25)Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are a minoritized and marginalized population in the United States and on most college and university campuses (Rockenbach, Bowman, et al., 2017). Recent studies highlight the negative characteristics of campus environments that affect Latter-day Saint undergraduate students' experiences. Furthermore, non-Latter-day Saint college students know little about Latter-day Saint beliefs and do not dedicate time to learn about them during college (Rockenbach et al., 2020). This qualitative study aimed to explore the question: How might interfaith engagement take shape for Latter-day Saint undergraduate students in the context of the interfaith learning environment? I used a post-intentional phenomenological research approach (Vagle, 2018) to investigate the research question and guide my study. The findings revealed that students' Latter-day Saint identity and the context of their experiences shaped their interfaith engagement. Additionally, both intrafaith and interfaith engagement influenced students' interfaith learning and development while in college. This study has implications for university administrators, faculty, and staff, Latter-day Saint Institute Directors, and Latter-day Saint students. The findings also have implications for future research on interfaith engagement, interfaith learning and development, and experiences of Latter-day Saint undergraduate students.
- Leveraging Epistemic Exclusion as a Lens for Investigating Black Engineering Students' Undergraduate Research ExperiencesBrisbane, Julia Machele (Virginia Tech, 2024-06-04)Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) are presented as a mechanism for improving the persistence of Black engineering students. However, because most engineering UREs are led by faculty and staff in Colleges of Engineering, it is reasonable to assume they are not immune to the systemic racial issues that plague engineering education. Existing scholarship on epistemic exclusion theorizes that individual biases and institutional practices contribute to faculty of color's scholarship being devalued and deemed illegitimate, but this topic is underexplored in UREs. LSAMP is an NSF-funded program that provides funding for institutions to create UREs for racially minoritized students in STEM, providing a ripe context for exploring the phenomenon of epistemic exclusion in UREs. This explanatory mixed methods study examines facets of epistemic exclusion prevalent in the undergraduate research experiences of Black engineering LSAMP scholars and the practices undergirding it. The findings of this study are based on survey and interview data collected from current and former LSAMP scholars. The survey results reveal perceptions of low levels of epistemic exclusion via scholarly devaluation; and there were no significant differences in survey responses based on race, gender, or whether in an engineering discipline or not. However, the qualitative phase helped explain the quantitative results. Black engineering students, specifically, experienced epistemic exclusion in ways that differ from literature on underrepresented faculty; and they perceived UREs as an opportunity for learning knowledge – not producing it. While positive peer interactions and a welcoming lab enabled epistemic inclusion, a toxic lab culture and inadequate URE program structures enabled epistemic exclusion. These findings have implications for faculty mentors, URE program administrators, policymakers, and education researchers. They are valuable for advancing our understanding of Black engineering students participating in UREs, contributing to national efforts to broaden participation of racially minoritized students in engineering education, and diversifying the research enterprise and the engineering workforce.
- (Mis)communicating postsecondary opportunities through diploma policies: A content analysis of Louisiana public high school websitesAdams, Venice Marie (Virginia Tech, 2024-06-21)This study explored high school communication (i.e., policy translation) of Louisiana statutes pertaining to postsecondary opportunities aligned with the CTE graduation pathway and the implementation of curriculum tracks through high school track-shifting policies. Two research questions guided this study: 1) To what extent do diploma policies listed on high school websites in the Louisiana Acadiana region describe the actual postsecondary opportunities available to students in a CTE program? and 2) What information do high school websites reveal about curriculum track-shifting policies? To answer these questions, I conducted a manifest content analysis (Kleinheksel et al., 2020) of websites for 29 traditional public high schools operated by school districts in Louisiana's Acadiana region. My analysis was guided by a conceptual framework that included horizontal differentiation, track shifting, and misinformation (Rosenbaum, 1978; Sørensen, 1970). Two major themes emerged in the findings: Inconsistent and Incomplete Information about Postsecondary Options for CTE Diploma Pathway Students and Limited Flexibility (Semi-Closed) Curriculum System. These themes and their respective subthemes revealed that high school websites contained inconsistent and incomplete information about graduation pathways that constrains students' postsecondary options. Findings from this study offer implications for practice, policy and policy translation, and future research regarding high school diploma policies, curriculum tracks, track-shifting policies, and curriculum enrollment decisions. This study also offers recommendations for officials at the state level and school leaders at the local level.
- Resettled Refugee Experiences of Aspiring To and Navigating Through the Postsecondary Access ProcessHarendt, Sarah (Virginia Tech, 2024-01-12)More than 3 million refugees have resettled in the U.S. alone since 1948 (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 2018). Less than 10% of refugees resettled in the U.S. make educational advancements of any kind post-resettlement, and only six percent of refugees worldwide have entered postsecondary education (Capps and Fix, 2015; Ferede, 2018; Kerwin, 2012; Mendenhall, Russell and Buckner, 2017; U.S. Department of State, 2017; UNHCR, 2017, 2019, 2021). Despite these data, there is no lack of desire to attend college or university among refugees who have completed secondary school (Dryden-Peterson et al., 2010). This post-intentional phenomenological study sought to understand more deeply the lived experiences of resettled refugees accessing postsecondary education and how they utilize navigational and aspirational capital to negotiate exploration, application, and enrollment processes. Findings of this study surfaced barriers resettled refugees in the United States navigate at the meso-, macro-, and micro-levels of postsecondary educational access, the community cultural wealth that resettled refugees create, and how they utilize this capital to navigate the complexities of an educational system created without them in mind. This study has implications for secondary and postsecondary professionals, policymakers at the state and federal levels, and for researchers who are interested in postsecondary educational access for resettled refugees.
- Structural Impediments Impacting Early-Career Women of Color STEM Faculty CareersWoods, Johnny C.; Lane, Tonisha B.; Huggins, Natali; Leggett Watson, Allyson; Jan, Faika Tahir; Johnson Austin, Saundra; Thomas, Sylvia (MDPI, 2024-05-28)Women of Color faculty continue to experience many challenges in their careers, especially in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. As such, more research is needed that considers structural issues inhibiting their success. Using structuration theory and critical race feminism as a conceptual framework, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 19 faculty and administrators in STEM departments at higher education institutions to investigate their perceptions of structural impediments impacting early-career Women of Color STEM faculty careers. Our findings revealed the need to establish policies that are clear, documented, and transparent. Additionally, incremental approaches to tenure and promotion evaluations should be reconsidered, especially when this approach may position Women of Color faculty to appear as if they are underperforming, when the opposite may be true. Furthermore, as higher education institutions endeavor to diversify the professoriate, this study is significant in enabling institutions and STEM departments to be aware of systemic issues confronting them to make significant inroads in retaining and advancing Women of Color faculty in these disciplines.
- Transitioning, Belonging, and the Black Student Experience: A Phenomenological StudyMorgan, Kali; Lane, Tonisha B.; Hutchful, Jimmy; Willis, Selene Y.; Clarke, LaFrance Jr.; Rivera, Camille (2020-05-12)The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the orientation and transitional experiences of Black undergraduate students at Metropolitan State University (MSU, pseudonym) an urban, public research university in the southeastern region of the United States. MSU is a unique research site for this study, as Black students’ six-year graduation rates equal that of White students. Using sense of belonging as a conceptual framework, the research team collected data from 28 participants in seven focus groups throughout the 2018-2019 academic year. Findings revealed that participants experienced disparate orientation and transitional experiences, as well as a poor racial climate throughout their time at MSU. Specifically, participants noted a shortage of Black faculty, limited Black cultural programming, and a need for identity-based space. Among working with campus partners to improve the racial climate, implications for orientation professionals include recruiting professional and student staff members who represent the racial composition of the university and ensuring culturally relevant content during orientation programs.
- Unrealistic Expectations: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Lived Experiences of Former Campus-Based Fraternity/Sorority AdvisorsErwin, Abbey Rowe (Virginia Tech, 2024-06-11)The Great Resignation has brought a renewed national focus on job quit rates throughout the United States (Gittleman, 2022; Serenko, 2023). Researchers have explored why non-faculty higher education professionals leave the field of student affairs, but few recent studies have considered departure among functional area-specific professionals, with the exception of residence life and housing. Further, while there are studies on burnout, the field lacks research about how the day-to-day reality of fraternity/sorority advising (FSL work) impacts the quitting behaviors of fraternity/sorority advising professionals (FSAs). This general qualitative study was rooted in the sensitizing concepts (Charmaz, 2003) of the weight of the work of FSAs, the complexity of the fraternity and sorority advising job, and the burn-through that exists in fraternity/sorority advising. Participants included nine former campus-based FSAs who left the field from January 2018-December 2023. Data were collected through participant interest forms and semi-structured Zoom interviews to answer the following research questions: 1. How do former campus-based fraternity/sorority advisors describe their former FSA positions and work experiences? 2. What aspects of the fraternity/sorority advising position led to former campus-based FSAs' decisions to quit their campus-based role? Thematic analysis and inductive coding methods were used to analyze the data. Findings included four major themes related to the experiences of former FSAs: unrealistic expectations, challenges that are specific to working in fraternity and sorority life, the impact of the campus environment, and lasting personal effects of the FSA experience. This study offers implications and recommendations for policy and practice, specifically around the areas of training and onboarding, employee well-being, and the resources that are necessary to support the work of FSAs. Further research should explore how various stakeholders define the value of fraternities and sororities and the prevalence and lasting impact of the student affairs practice of burning through and exhausting student affairs professionals for the sake of the college or university.