Scholarship & Research
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Item Putting the "A" in AP: the effect of advanced course access on AP participation and performance(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2022) Callen, Ian Andrew; Co-chairs, Graduate Committee: Christiana Stoddard and Andrew HillThis paper investigates the effect of state-level policy regarding access to advanced course curriculum on participation and performance within the Advanced Placement (AP) program. From the early 2000's through 2019, participation in the Advanced Placement (AP) program, the most popular college-preparatory course in the United States, has nearly tripled in size. Today, nearly 20% of all high school students taking at least one AP exam per year. The AP program provides an opportunity for students to potentially earn college credit while still in high school which, at least in theory, reduces the cost of a college education. While the AP program provides many benefits to students, it also presents two major barriers - the ability to access advanced-level courses, and the monetary cost associated with taking the AP exam. We find that when states require schools to offer AP courses and when states fund AP exams, participation within the program increases drastically. For Black and Hispanic students, our estimates indicate a large increase in the number of exams that receive a passing score. These findings indicate that when states reduce the financial burden associated with taking an AP exam, students have the ability to participate and succeed in the program at higher rates than their peers in states without AP curriculum and exam funding.Item Saving cultural resources by learning places!(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2021) Sulam, Barry; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Eric AustinAccording to nationally reported citations uncovered during a recent scan of the environment, little research exists examining how a grassroots effort to offer an online course in Historic Preservation might increase service learners' competency. To address this gap, launching an intervention online and conducting research to better understand service learners' experiences with their chosen cultural resource in a community context used formative assessment technologies. The researcher used a mixed-methods design to examine how online and field experiences might support more service learners' preservation activity. For example, would authentic and robust service-learning opportunities in the online course for Historic Preservation training increase the utilization of federal preservation incentive programs? Summative assessments measuring outputs lead to a contextual comparison methodology to gauge future outcomes for more resilient communities? Results suggested that diverse participants sampled technology-focused online continuing education serving as confirmatory events for continuing education programs in Historic Preservation. The enrolled service learners' online training affords them opportunities to apply theory and content knowledge to practice and contend with issues related to technology integration, preservation project planning, and management within a hybrid of virtual online learning and chosen real-world contexts. The first two years of efforts had volunteers step up to protect and reduce their perceived problems of an endangered cultural resource. The prevention of unnecessary losses of cultural resources in rural communities required affordable online assistance modeled in this dissertation can be repeated and transferred whenever service learners volunteer to help save their cherished community's cultural resources. Based on the uniquely designed IDEALS(c) curriculum, anyone can participate in these grassroots actions through online learning of historic preservation fundamentals. Useful findings can improve the design of future modules for Historic Preservation field experiences for service learners and facilitate scaffolding the opportunities to help them better integrate technologies into their professional and volunteer experiences. The pluralistic, e-democracy, technologically aided grass-root project documented in this dissertation helped others learn how to heal some of the budget cuts of late from the federal government agencies involved in cultural resources that can reduce the number of threatened historic places caring, resilient communities.Item Hierarchical fuzzy spectral clustering in campaign finance social networks(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2021) Wahl, Scott Allen; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: John SheppardCommunity detection in networks is an important tool in understanding complex systems. Finding these communities in complex real-world systems is important in many disciplines, such as computer science, sociology, biology, and others. In this research, we develop an algorithm for performing hierarchical fuzzy spectral clustering. The clustering algorithm is applied to small benchmark problems, as well as a large real-world campaign finance network. Afterwards, we extend the hierarchical fuzzy spectral clustering for use in evolving networks. The discovered communities are tracked through the evolving network and their underlying properties analyzed. Third, we apply association rule mining on community-based partitions of the data. A comparison of the results within and between communities show the effectiveness of this method for adding interpretability to the underlying system. Fourth, we examine the ability of hierarchical fuzzy spectral clustering on a graph to predict behavior that is not present in the graph itself. The results are shown to be effective in predicting votes in the United States legislature based on the campaign finance networks. Finally, we develop an orthogonal spectral autoencoder that is used to perform graph embedding. This approximation model avoids the eigenvector decomposition of the full network, as well as allows out-of-sample spectral clustering. The results show the embedding performs comparably to the full spectral clustering.Item The value of telemedicine in rural healthcare and associated financial obligation(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Nursing, 2018) Nordlund, Sarah Lou; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Polly PetersenThe purpose of this project was to raise awareness of the vital impact emergency room telemedicine has on rural residents and health care and the financial challenges facilities face to maintain these services following implementation. Limited knowledge is available to determine how rural critical access hospitals are able to financially sustain emergency room telemedicine long term. The study completed found that more than half of the Critical Access Hospitals utilize telemedicine in their emergency rooms. Funding emergency room telemedicine projects is an area of concern at many of these hospitals. As health care continues to advance with the use of technology, health care facilities are in need of more research in this area to develop policy that could potentially improve sustainability and increased reimbursement to offset the cost.Item The costs of providing a basic public school education in Montana(Montana State University - Bozeman, 1990) Whitney, Sandy (Sandra Lode); Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Richard L. HainesItem Strategic planning : a rational budgeting process for the Advance by Choice program(Montana State University - Bozeman, 1990) Perchaluk, Monica Mary; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Karen C. JacobsonItem Revenue implications of agricultural land tax policy(Montana State University - Bozeman, 1984) Bohyer, David D.Item The Risks of excellence : the role of research at Montana State University(Montana State University - Bozeman, 1984) Western, Kenneth HenryItem The effect of new federalism on select social service agencies in Lewis and Clark County, Montana(Montana State University - Bozeman, 1984) Rosenthal, Jonas Howard; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Richard L. HainesItem A legislative and financial history of the Montana school foundation program (1949-1969)(Montana State University - Bozeman, 1970) Campbell, John Paul
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