Over the past decade the market for children's digital play activities focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has grown exponentially. One benefit to the growth in digital STEM play is that it can provide children opportunities to engage the cognitive skills and practices that can be valuable for formal STEM learning.…

As biomedical cognitive enhancement becomes more popular in competitive contexts such as schools, teachers and administrators will face new challenges related to cognitive enhancement and cognitively enhanced students. In this dissertation, I identify five of the most pressing ethical challenges presented by cognitively enhanced students in a…

Humans excel at detecting patterns in information, abstracting rules, and making inferences. Underlying these skills is relational reasoning: the cognitive ability to identify and map abstract, generalizable relations between pieces of information. Though this powerful ability supports higher-order cognition, it can also be a processing bottleneck…

This quantitative study aimed to research factors that influence third-graders' reading performance on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, a standardized test used to measure the proficiency of students in various subjects. The independent variables of this study were student attendance, teacher's professional background, and…

Learning agility has gained significant traction within organizational talent management. This trend is not surprising, given that meta-analytic reviews have indicated that learning agility is a strong predictor of leadership performance and potential. Yet, despite significant empirical findings, critics have argued that learning agility is…

Research has consistently demonstrated a link between spatial and math skills as well as a link between spatial and math anxieties and their respective cognitive skill (i.e., links between math anxiety and math performance). However, less work has examined the potential for domain-specific and cross-domain relations and, more specifically,…

This study was conducted to further research into the impact of student-group item parameter drift (SIPD) --referred to as subpopulation item parameter drift in previous research-- on ability estimates and proficiency classification accuracy when occurring in the discrimination parameter of a 2-PL item response theory (IRT) model. Using Monte…

The beneficial effects of nature and natural environments have been extensively researched and the findings generally support that nature and natural environments can reduce stress and improve cognitive function. To evaluate if self-reported stress levels are reduced, or if cognitive functions are enhanced among adult learners in the presence of a…

There has been a particular emphasis on the ways that an individual's concept of self and their own perceived academic competence is influenced by their socio and external environment (Bandura, 1999; Baumeister, 1999). However, existing research has provided little to no focus on how these internalized beliefs of self, and perceived academic…

Spatial ability is a multifaceted construct with demonstrated ties to success in mathematics and gesture production. Recent empirical work has also begun investigating whether targeted interventions for spatial ability can transfer to mathematics but are often limited to specific populations and specific math outcomes. Spatial anxiety has been…

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) may result in a wide array of cognitive deficits, including executive functions. A proposal by Ferretti and colleagues (2011 & 2013) has suggested that executive dysfunction caused by traumatic brain injury (TBI) impact navigation and discourse abilities in similar ways, suggesting that these skills may share…

The purpose of this quantitative method, causal-comparative study was to explore the impact of gender, socioeconomic status, school climate, and parental involvement on reading ability and intrinsic motivation. This study focused on a group of 113 9th grade students from a rural Tennessee high school. Data were collected and analyzed to determine…

Technology and innovation are reshaping our societies and economies at an accelerated pace, requiring new skills for individuals to thrive in economy and society and new educational models to support these changes. In response, world organizations seek solutions rooted in sustainable human development to ensure that future educational models are…

Cognitive and academic assessment are fundamental to learning disability diagnosis in children and adults. This study sought to evaluate the relationships between cognitive abilities and reading skills in a sample of referred postsecondary students. It was hypothesized that the relationship between cognitive ability and reading skills may change…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a transition to homogenous ability grouping between secondary grades on MAP test scores in an international private school in Dubai. Participants were students who have been enrolled at PISD for two years for grades 6, 7, 8, or 9 from 2020-2022 and who have presented MAP test scores both…