Adult Learners in Higher Education (ALHED) Research Lab - 2020 -2021 projects

• Team 1: Teaching and Learning Strategy [Started Jan 2020]; Teaching Strategies and Building GRIT, [Team Leader: Mansureh Kebritchi, Team Members: Ryan Rominger, Danielle Sixsmith]
• Team 2: Faculty Issues [Started Jan 2020];   Study into why practitioner faculty are motivated to teach as associate faculty at University of Phoenix [Team Leader: Ryan Rominger Team members: Mansureh Kebritchi, Liz Johnston, Danielle Sixsmith]

Adult Learners in Higher Education (ALHED) Research Lab - 2021 -2022 projects

These proejcts focus on major research areas in the field of practitioner higher education supported by Dr. John Woods, the provost, and Dr. Hinrich Eylers, the vice provost of UOPX.

• Teaching and Learning Strategy
  • Team 1: How and to what extent does short burst learning/badging provide value to UOPX students or employers?
  • Team 2: Quality of Feedback: Investigating the quality and timeliness of feedback. Research literature and turn into a coaching model/opportunity for UOPX faculty. [A Lit Review]
• Curriculum Enhancing online higher education: Lessons learned from COVID-19 Pandemic
  • Team 3: Different skills set; How can we use UOPX online curriculum to build better remote workers. Collaborate with people virtually, engage people virtually?
  • Team 4: How to reshape practitioner oriented higher ed institutions after COVID-19 to attract more students (comparison of strategies used by US practitioner higher ed institutions)?
• Student Issues
  • Team 5: How Covid-19 has affected UOPX students? What resources do they need? [e.g., Changing our mindset on how we view incompletes.] Shifting our mindset. High training needs and different criteria (specific for each content) for job applicants (remote, flexible, virtual) e.g., huge change for hospitality.
  • Team 6: A research about adult non-traditional students attending open enrollment institutions and what is an appropriate persistence baseline that you can target to achieve? What is a goal to achieve with that level of student?

• Curriculum Development (alignment with the fields)
  • Promoting Industry Alignment within Curriculum Development: Best Practices (focus group, survey, or qualitative)
  • Team 7: Promoting Industry Alignment within Curriculum Development: Best Practices (focus group, survey, or qualitative);
    • Study how UOPX is aligning with industry
    • Focus on education: In college of education/doc of education, is what we are teaching the students applicable once they graduate? Can they apply what they have learned to the post-graduate world? (surveying alumni and/or employers or UOPX students [did they, or employees in general, have necessary skills?]) – Influenced by Pandemic?
• Certificates
  • Certificate: Career Power Boost or Resource Sink? (identify where and when certificates are beneficial, and when they are not)
  • Team 8: Mini-certifications as professional development – higher ed AND businesses who offer;
    • What ‘mini-certificates’ would UOPX faculty like to receive within their professional development? [mixed method – 1st, content analysis of other institutions which offer mini-certificates to see what they offer, then survey own faculty, and interview how it would make a difference]
    • What ‘mini-certificates’ could UOPX offer to other businesses (or school staff) which would be useful to those faculty and institutions? [content analysis and survey research?]

Procedure

Monthly Web-Based meetings will be offered to support the teams for 12 months. Some of the research projects will draw on members of University of Phoenix for participants. Each team will need a leader, a writer, a methodologist, a literature reviewer.

Team Member Requirements

• Research team leaders must have at least 1 peer reviewed publications within the last 5 years [will be considered as CEITR Fellow Residence].
• Research team members (i.e., writer, methodologist, literature reviewer) must have at least 1 prestation within the last 3 years [will be considered as CEITR Fellow Residence].
• Doctoral students may join research teams as Student Research Assistant, please see the requirements here.
• Research team members are required to meaningfully contribute to the advancement of the project from the beginning until end of the research project and presenting/publishing the research.
• Research team members are required to attend monthly general Web-based meetings and additional meetings planned by the team members.

Participants respond to Mansureh and Ryan listing project you are interested in and role you might play on the team; e.g., writer, methodologist, literature reviewer.  Please also include any experience with research, publication, and other research groups. A CV would be appreciated demonstrating research experience, but if you would rather write this out in your email to us that would work too. The main point is to let us know your experience level regarding research and the main role you would be playing on a research team (i.e., writer, methodologist, literature reviewer, or leader/organizer).

Thank you and looking forward to working with you!