Although not officially named in the shared governance of an institution, instructional designers play an important role as they collaborate with administrators and faculty to create high quality, regulatory-compliant courses for enrolled students. Instructional designers working in centralized, academic reporting units may be well-positioned to…

This study utilized performance improvement theories, models, tools, and techniques to investigate why a new Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) Bachelor of Science program at a comprehensive university was experiencing low enrollment. The program was recently launched based on thorough research in the job market that indicated a high demand…

This qualitative research study examined the design of collaborative learning experiences in an online graduate course in educational leadership. Based on principles of design-based research, this single case study analyzed the design process among the faculty member and learning design team who created the course. Data were also gathered from the…

Research has recognized that a student's culture plays a role in how they experience an online learning environment, and many higher education institutions are challenged by retaining and graduating historically underserved students identified as a "success gap". For historically underserved students -- defined in this study as students…

Digital competencies have become an essential skill set for most professions. The University of Delaware (UD) needs to recognize and give credit for the digital skills students bring to their graduate studies, and for digital skills learned while in graduate programs. The current structure of humanities graduate programs at UD does not offer this.…

How does leadership emerge and develop among university STEM faculty working to adopt evidence-based teaching practices? This qualitative case study examines academic departments as sites for instructional change, viewing leadership as an emergent property of the relationships within a social system. The researcher adopted a dual lens of McElroy…

There is a resounding push for education to be equitable and effective for all students, including students with disabilities--a subgroup of students that fall under the special education categorization. In public schools nationwide, historically students with disabilities have underperformed when compared to their non-disabled peers (American…

Professional advocacy is central to the counselor's professional identity and is essential for counselors to maintain the privilege of serving clients. Despite CACREP requirements for programs to provide training in professional advocacy, counseling students may need more training in this area. This quantitative study examined professional…

This dissertation investigates how collective process-oriented documentation tools, combined with Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, can enhance knowledge construction in hands-on, open-ended learning environments, such as makerspaces. Through a three-year design-based research, the study developed and tested a collective documentation…

Serious or educational games have been a subject of research for a long time. They usually have game mechanics, game content, and content assessment all tied together to make a specialized game intended to impart learning of the associated content to its players. While this approach is good for developing games for teaching highly specific topics,…