PHD, Kent State University, 2022, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Studies

The purpose of this study was to examine the use and cognitive load associated with Open Educational Resources (OERS) and Affordable Digital Textbook (ADT) among pre- licensure Baccalaureate of Nursing students in an asynchronous on-line health policy course. OERS and ADT provide low student cost curriculum options for nursing faculty. The participants in this study were 171 pre-licensure nursing students who used both an OERS and ADT in their health policy course. A Convergent Mixed Methods design was used. Quantitative and qualitative data was gathered using a participant completed survey that measured textbook usability, cognitive load, and information about how the textbook were used and whether confusion arose while using the textbooks. The results revealed that most students used both textbooks throughout the course to complete assignments and understand course content. A paired sample t-test revealed no statistically significant difference in perceived cognitive-load scores between the textbooks. Students did report confusion related to navigating the texts and managing high volumes of content when using each of the textbooks. A statistically significant difference was found in textbook usability scores that suggests participants found the ADT provided greater usability. A MANOVA was performed. The number of civics courses and the number of policy courses had a main effect on cognitive load when using the ADT. An interaction effect between race and number of civics courses was observed when analyzing cognitive load when using the ADT. This study suggests that OERS and ADT are cost effective curricular choice in pre-licensure health policy courses.

Committee: Todd Hawley (Committee Chair); Barbara Broome (Committee Member); Anthony Vander Horst (Committee Member) Subjects: Higher Education; Nursing

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, EDU Physical Activity and Educational Services

Many college students struggle financially, and student debt continues to grow in the United States. Students that complete a degree can have high monthly student loan payments, and those that do not complete a degree can struggle financially even more. There is a growing amount of research examining methods to reduce these financial challenges. Since financial knowledge, attitudes and behaviors have been studied as to how they impact student debt, the purpose of this study was to examine financial knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of community college students and consider an educational intervention as a possible way to impact those variables. The intervention was in the form of exposing students to a series of short, specific, digital learning objects. The research objectives of this study were to describe community college students' financial knowledge, financial attitudes, planned financial behaviors, and actual short-term financial behaviors in the areas of budgeting/saving, credit, and student loans, before and after exposure to the digital learning objects. There was a statistically significant treatment effect for financial knowledge, but not for financial attitudes. For financial behaviors, six unique intended and actual financial behaviors were examined, with half of them showing a significant difference after exposure to the digital learning objects. Planned and actual behaviors in the areas of budgeting, saving, and payment behavior were most effected. Certain ages and racial groups reported salient results in some areas. Students identifying as Black/African American had lower than average scores and lessor treatment effects for financial knowledge, higher than average rates of behavior and higher treatment effects for monthly budgeting, and lower rates of behavior and lower treatment effects for positive payment behaviors. Students under 25 years old reported below average behaviors and treatment effects for monthly budgeting, savin (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Christopher Zirkle Dr. (Committee Chair); Caezilia Loibl Dr. (Committee Co-Chair); Melena Whittington Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Adult Education; Community College Education; Education Finance; Educational Technology; Finance; Teaching; Technology