With the rise in popularity of social media and e-commerce platforms, "discrete math" is at the heart of our online experiences, playing a front-end role in the recommendation of what to click, watch, or buy, or who to follow or friend, as well as a back-end role in data storage, access, and transfer. This thesis focuses on two such…

Response style, one common aberrancy in non-cognitive assessments in psychological fields, is problematic in terms of inaccurate estimation of item and person parameters, which leads to serious reliability, validity, and fairness issues (Baumgartner & Steenkamp, 2001; Bolt & Johnson, 2009; Bolt & Newton, 2011). Response style refers to…

The purpose of this comparative study is to determine whether the linguistic input approach based on Krashen's (1989) comprehensible input (CI) and supported by Kolb's (2015) experiential learning (ELT) and Siemens' (2005) connectivism theory (CT) to improve eighth graders' Spanish speaking and writing linguistic proficiencies. Previous research…

This dissertation reports the results of a research project that examined the effects of varying rates of reinforcement on students' math performance and assignment preference. The relationship between students' instructional level and the rate of reinforcement threshold for influencing assignment preference was also explored. Participants were…

Leaders often manage both chaos and diversity. We can improve our leadership effectiveness by better understanding our motives and behaviors, and those of our followers. A potential tool for leadership development is the Instinctual Variant Questionnaire (IVQ). Based on Enneagram theory (pronounced "ANY-a-gram"), this online instrument…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of PECS phase III application training on independent mands in young children with autism. Participants were five children with autism ranging from ages 2 to 4 years old. A multiple baseline across participants was used to evaluate acquisition of independent correct mands across baseline and…

This study examined the acquisition of the BA construction by English-speaking learners of Chinese. The BA construction is a unique yet important grammar phenomenon in Chinese. Whether second language (L2) learners of Chinese are able to understand and use this construction correctly and appropriately may affect the overall success of their…