The decision to undertake undergraduate studies as a mature student poses challenges, especially when service mathematics is part of the programme of study, giving rise to mathematics anxiety. Mathematics anxiety comprises negative feelings pertaining to a person's engagement with mathematics. While much research into mathematics anxiety…

This dissertation investigates how the numerical representation of women in small collaborative groups influences their learning in a college biology class for non-majors focused on sex, gender, and society. Prior to the start of the semester, the researchers divided students into all-male, all-female, or mixed-gender groups of varying sex ratios.…

Statistics education is increasingly important to our society with enrolment increases of 16% in introductory statistics courses and 85% in upper-level statistics courses. Research has demonstrated many factors related to students' behaviors and outcomes in statistics courses such as past achievement, attitudes, and effort. We sought to model…

Even though it is widely held that the theory of evolution is one of the pillars of the biological sciences, as we begin the third decade of the twenty-first century, it is alarming how little we know about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors and non-STEM majors' misconceptions about evolution in countries such as…

The purpose of this study was to investigate non-music major college and university students' self-efficacy beliefs and their perceptions of the four sources of self-efficacy as they related to their participation in active music making and creation in college (e.g., ensembles and musicals, group and private lessons, music theory classes). An…

This dissertation focuses on three different populations of learners served by typical physics departments: STEM majors within a calculus-based introductory physics course, non-STEM majors within a general education survey astronomy course (Astro 101), and in- service STEM teachers within a professional development workshop. The three studies…

Mathematics is an important and hotly contested aspect of U.S. postsecondary education. Its importance for academics and careers and the extent and impact of math achievement disparities are all subject of longstanding debate. Yet there is surprisingly little research into how much and what types of mathematics courses are taken by U.S.…

This study hypothesized whether the gender group composition in traditional learning (TL) versus collaborative learning (CL) classrooms of undergraduate biology majors and nonmajors correlate with students' achievements. We measured the effect on gender and the gender-specific achievements of the TL versus CL approach in single-gender and…

Developmental education courses have been designed to support underprepared students, as they attempt to bridge the gap in academic knowledge among students who enter postsecondary education underprepared for college-level coursework. The effectiveness of these programs, however, particularly in terms of promoting degree attainment, remains an…

Teachers are motivated by extrinsic, intrinsic, and altruistic values, but little is known about what might convince other students to become educators. Conducted in two stages, the present study uses a survey to show education majors and non-education majors have different impressions of how careers in education satisfy intrinsic, extrinsic, and…

Background: Dataset skills are used in STEM fields from astronomy to zoology. Few fields explicitly teach students the skills to analyze datasets, and yet the increasing push for authentic science implies these skills should be taught. Purpose: The overarching motivation of this work is to understand authentic science learning of STEM dataset…

This paper investigates the relationship between gender, students' perceptions of accounting subjects, their learning approaches and the role of mobile app technology in accounting education. Based on a self-administered questionnaire developed and distributed to 153 respondents comprising of non-accounting students in Malaysia, it was found that…

The study investigated the perceptions among non-English major students of autonomous language learning (ALL) of their responsibilities, ability to act autonomously, motivation to learn English, and autonomous activities within and outside of class. The data were collected using questionnaires and follow-up interviews. Nearly 300 students at a…

The science laboratory learning environment has been a distinctive area in science education since the 19th century. Unfortunately, students are generally not aware of what science instructors expect from laboratory experiences, and far too often, the undergraduate science laboratory curriculum lacks explicit, well-defined goals. Science…

Due to the outbreak of COVID 19, an online bilingual curriculum was conducted via "Google Meet." The learning material was developed and implemented by using a smartphone application, STEMUP, based on augmented reality (AR) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies. This study investigated the oral performance and perceptions…