Volume 2, Issue 1 (2016) Anniversary Issue
In honor of the beginning of the journal’s third anniversary, volume 2, issue 1 is released. I really appreciate the sincere support of the editorial review board members and the editorial team in the School of Education at Fayetteville State University. The success of the journal is actually dependent on the enthusiastic contributions of the peer reviewers who come from all over the world. In these three years, the members of the editorial review board have work diligently to make the journal more accessible to the education community.I think that the Journal of Research Initiatives is well on its way to being recognized as an emerging international journal, as the call for papers announcements always draw large responses from researchers and educators across the country. I am confident that the authors selected for our third year anniversary issue will provide readers with exceptional research on educational best practices.
Linda Wilson-Jones, Editor-in-Chief
Research Articles
Academic and Community Identities: A Study of Kurdish and Somali Refugee High School Students
Franco Zengaro, Mohamed Ali, and Sally Zengaro
Afghanistan Women Perceptions of Access to Higher Education
Khalida Mashriqi
Middle School Pedagogical Order: Lecture or Lab?
Barry R. Thompson and Thomas E. Deering
The Journey to the Top: Stories on the Intersection of Race and Gender for African American Women in Academia and Business
Deanna R. Davis
The Role of Black Colleges in the Development of Mathematicians
Viveka Borum, Adriel Adon Hilton, and Erica Walker
The Motivational Factors of African American Men Enrolled at Selected Community Colleges
Ted N. Ingram, Lavon Williams, James Coaxum III, Adriel A. Hilton, and Ivan Harrell
Friendships and Retention at a Historically Black University: A Quantitative Case Study
Mondrail Myrick, John A. Gipson Jr, and Donald Mitchell Jr.
Impact of Class Size on Learning, Behavioral and General Attitudes of Students in Secondary Schools in Abeokuta, Ogun State Nigeria
Taofeek Ayotunde Yusuf, C A. Onifade, and O S. Bello
Reversing the Tide in Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics (Stem): Academically Gifted African American Students in Historically Black Colleges & Universities
Delores Rice, Fred Bonner, Chance Lewis, Mary Alfred, Felecia M. Nave, and Sherri Frizell
Realizing the Dream: African American Males’ Narratives that Encouraged the Pursuit of Doctoral Education
Ted N. Ingram
A Phenomenological Study of Cultural Responsiveness in Special Education
Kimberly M. Jones-Goods and Marquis Carter Grant
The Impact of Teacher-Lead Professional Development Programs on the Self-Efficacy of Veteran Teachers
Seth Powers, Theodore Kaniuka, Brian Phillips, and Beverlyn Cain
Conceptual Article
Using the Culturally Proficient Continuum to Evaluate the Cultural Relevance of Gifted and Talented Programs
Lisa Thompson, Lisa D. Hobson, Patricia A. Smith, and Tyrone Tanner
Book Review
Best Practice
ISSUE REVIEWERS
- Charmion Rush
- Western Carolina University
- Elizabeth M. Bemiss
- University of South Carolina
Journal Updates.
Since the 2013 launch, the journal has increased its status as an international journal, as noted by the articles published in the most recent issues. As a result, we have increased the journal’s impact factor. The journal’s application was approved in 2015 for inclusion in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and the journal most recently received a 2.8 InfoBase Index (IBI) rating. The application to the Directory of Research Journals Indexing (DRJI) is pending.