Executive functioning (EF) is found to be a powerful predictor for children's school readiness and long-term school outcomes. However, the current research base indicates that children with autism may have an increased likelihood of experiencing deficits in EF or delayed developmental trajectories. Additionally, although there is ample evidence…

As educators, our goal is to help our students be successful, but in order to accomplish this, we need to understand what factors contribute to student success. One factor, small-group active learning, has been correlated to improved academic outcomes; however, the magnitude of this improvement can vary across different courses, different types of…

Executive functions (EF) are a collection of cognitive domains governing task initiation, motor planning, attention, and goal-oriented action. Difficulties with EF have marked impacts on adaptive living skills, learning outcomes, and quality of life for people with cognitive and psychosocial disabilities, as well as the broader population. While…

Skill acquisition theorists conceptualize second language (L2) learning as the acquisition of a set of perceptual, cognitive, and motor skills. The dominant view in skill acquisition theory is to regard L2 skill acquisition as a three-stage process "from initial representation of knowledge through initial changes in behavior to eventual…

Currently, educational games are designed with the educational content as the primary factor driving the design of the game. While this may seem to be the optimal approach, this design paradigm causes multiple issues. For one, the games themselves are often not engaging as game design principles were put aside in favor of increasing the…

The human body provides a wealth of information that, when captured and analyzed, offers deep insight into the mind and its processes. At no other point in history has this information been as accessible as it is today. Using various sensor systems, researchers can now efficiently capture fine-grain behavioral data and leverage it for scientific…

In natural language, evidence suggests that, while some rules are productive (regular), applying broadly to new words, others are restricted to a specific set of lexical items (irregular). Further, the literature suggests that children make a categorical distinction between regular and irregular rules, applying only regular rules productively…

Math fluency, which refers to the ability to solve single digit arithmetic problems quickly and accurately, is a foundational mathematical skill. Recent research has examined the role of phonological processing, executive control, and number sense in explaining differences in math fluency performance in school-aged children. Identifying the links…

The purpose of this non-experimental study was to determine whether teacher cognitive and behavioral agility relates to student achievement as measured by their value-added model (VAM) score and their performance evaluation measured through the Marzano instructional practice (IP) framework, and whether that relationship is moderated by contextual…

The current study explored Dweck's (1999; Dweck & Leggett, 1988) model of implicit theories in the context of teaching in order to establish its usefulness for describing teachers' beliefs about students' ability and social behavior. Further it sought to explain the connections between teachers' implicit beliefs and their…

A theoretical model of metacognition in complex modeling activities has been developed based on existing frameworks, by synthesizing the re-conceptualization of metacognition at multiple levels by looking at the three sources that trigger metacognition. Using the theoretical model as a framework, this study was designed to explore how students'…

Knowledge of scientific models and their uses is a concept that has become a key benchmark in many of the science standards of the past 30 years, including the proposed Next Generation Science Standards. Knowledge of models is linked to other important nature of science concepts such as theory change which are also rising in prominence in newer…

Current research regarding the neurocognitive construct of memory in children and adolescents within clinical populations is insufficient (Hughes & Graham, 2002). Controversial theories of memory have led to divergent hypotheses about the construct of memory. Based on current disparity regarding the theoretical paradigm of memory, it cannot be…

While investigating how the relationship of abilities and skill acquisition changes over the course of training, researchers have unknowingly obscured the very relationship they sought to examine by relying on analyses that focused on attainment and did not model acquisition. Although more recent approaches have modeled acquisition independently…

This dissertation tests a dynamic assessment-based cognitive hierarchy model and attempts to identify mathematical concepts that predict student learning potential on more advanced mathematical concepts using the units from ST Math, a self-paced curriculum, for third, fourth, and fifth grade students. The quantitative analyses compared a…