Despite the substantial shifts in education to align classroom instruction and assessment to common academic standards, traditional grading practices remain largely associated with longstanding beliefs and practices. Research suggests that traditional grading may be an inequitable practice that inaccurately communicates student learning (Plourde,…

Net Promoter System (NPS) is well known as an evaluation measure of the growth engine of big companies in the business area. The ultimate goal of my research is to build an action rules and meta-actions based recommender system for improving NPS scores of 34 companies (clients) dealing with similar businesses in the US and Canada. With the given…

This study looked at the effect of a number of factors such as the choice of analytical method, the handling method for missing data, sample size, and proportion of missing data, in order to evaluate the effect of missing data treatment on accuracy of estimation. In order to accomplish this a methodological approach involving simulated data was…

This study examines the relationship between accent and identity in three Chinese graduate students attending a large research-one university in the northeastern United States. The study is based on Och's (1993) concept if identity as jointly constructed by the individual herself and the persons and conventions of her culture. It also examines the…

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between employees' reading skills, E-learning readability, student learning, and student satisfaction. The Tests of Adult Basic Education (TABE) form 10 Level A instrument evaluated student-reading skills. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Index course assessed…

The purpose of this methodological study is to explore how well a process called "concept mapping" (Trochim, 1989) can articulate the theory which underlies a social program. Articulation of a program's theory is a key step in completing a sound theory based evaluation (Weiss, 1997a). In this study, concept mapping is used to…

Purpose: International service-learning (ISL) is popular in higher education, and many physical therapy educational programs are adding ISL opportunities to their curricula because doing so aligns with student interest and the increasingly global nature of the profession. The faculty leading these experiences have not been studied. Nearly all…

This study examined the self-perceived leadership orientations of headmasters of independent schools. This research expanded the current body of work that supports Bolman and Deal's (2003) multi-frame explanation that leaders use different orientations (frames) to understand their roles, clarify organizational situations, and make decisions. Using…

The goal of this study was to create an evaluation tool that would be the new standard for evaluating clinical competencies of interns in the field of orientation and mobility (O&M). Using results from previous research in this area, specific competency skills were identified and the O&M Clinical Competency Evaluation Matrix (CCEM) was…

Continued improvement of the training and preparation of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agents is critical to the organization's ability to protect the national security of the United States. Too little attention has been paid to the factors that improve new agent trainees' (NATs) ability to learn and succeed in their training…

In emergency management, scientific models are widely used for running hazard simulations and estimating losses often in support of planning and mitigation efforts. This work expands utility of the scientific model into the response phase of emergency management. The focus is on the common operating picture as it gives context to emergency…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the representation of other cultures in award-winning picture books from the United States, Australia, and Great Britain between 1960 and 2009. Not only was the cultural content of children's literature over the past fifty years investigated, but the protocol created to evaluate the books was a newly…

As the demands for public accountability increase for the higher education industry, institutions are seeking methods for continuous improvement in order to demonstrate quality within programs and processes, including those provided through online education. Because of the rapid growth of online education programs, institutions are further called…

More engineers are needed to support the infrastructure of the United States and to solve economic, human, and environmental problems. Women have been cited as the untapped resource who can provide new perspectives, solutions, and diversity. Unfortunately, over the last 20 years, colleges have not learned how to graduate more women, keeping…

The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. Among those incarcerated are juveniles. However, the higher the education obtained, the less likely it is that those previously incarcerated will reoffend. Legislation such as No Child Left Behind and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act set the structure…