Date of Conferral

2016

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Ramo Lord

Abstract

Not all students who enroll in postsecondary institutions have the skills needed to be successful in higher education in reading and writing. At a for-profit, online university in Minnesota, many students were not completing 4 weeks of a remedial writing program, Intervention Editing (IE). According to internal surveys and personal communications, students' struggles to complete IE were partly due to academic entitlement (AE). AE is defined as students placing the responsibility for their academic success on third parties rather than on themselves. Using the theory of self-efficacy as a framework, the purpose of this intrinsic case study was to determine the editors' best practices for addressing student AE and the additional training that they needed to mentor students who exhibited AE in IE. Data were collected using semistructured interviews with a purposeful sample of 5 editors who had completed at least 1 year of IE, a semistructured interview with the IE manager, and a document review of the IE application and university student handbook. The data from the semistructured interviews and archival documents were coded for emergent themes. The following best practices emerged on mentoring students with AE in IE: exhibiting a respectful tone with students, outlining student responsibility, stressing student personal agency, and refusing unreasonable student demands. The editors also outlined the following training needs: assistance in revising the mission and application for IE and professional development on identifying student AE. A white paper was written to document and improve editors' pedagogical strategies for mentoring AE students. This study provides editors with best practices for helping AE students in IE reclaim their self-efficacy, which may lead to improved quality of capstone writing at the local study site and reduce time to degree completion.

Download

Share

 
COinS