The purpose of this quantitative correlational-predictive study was to determine if and to what extent students' Cognitive Ability, first-term GPA, and ethnicity predict student graduation status from a CTE college in Texas. Student retention rates continue to be a cause for great concern for higher learning, even more so for CTE institutions.…

Standard assessments of cognitive ability have been the preferred method of assessing the probability of student achievement at community colleges, but there is a growing trend in the use of noncognitive factors to assess student potential. Factors related to a student's race/ethnicity and family income have been shown to be correlated with…

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…

Magnet schools have been a main tool or innovation in urban education settings in the United States, originating in the early 1970's and expanding into most large urban districts today (Blank, 1989). While some magnet schools do not rely on a specific criterion to determine entry, many do. This study focuses on such a setting where students must…

Special education is a critical access point for the identification of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and subsequent provision of intervention services. However, it remains unclear which children will qualify for services in the educational setting, as ASD represents a heterogeneous group. The current study used structural equation…

Data from a randomized control trial of a multi-component intensive reading intervention were analyzed to determine the proportion of students nonresponsive to intervention and to identify predictors of nonresponse. Participants included 216 first-grade students identified as at-risk for reading difficulties. Response to intervention was…

The predictive utility of cognitive abilities on reading, writing, and mathematics achievement domains helps inform high-stakes decision making, such as learning disabilities. An examination of differences in specific groups may increase understanding of obtained scores on cognitive ability and academic achievement standardized tests. One…

In this dissertation, I use data from Chile to study the determinants of schooling trajectories. Chapters 1 and 2 focus on higher education, Chapter 3 on secondary education, and Chapter 4 on teachers. Chapter 1 explores the role of a socio-emotional ability, self-efficacy, in understanding why students with comparable qualifications transit…

Reading fluency involves a complex interaction of different cognitive skills and abilities that develop with instruction and practice and relies on the automaticity of many distinct reading skills (e.g., pacing, word recognition, expression, phonological awareness). Fluent reading frees cognitive resources, such as working memory, for more…

Each year many students take college admissions exams (i.e., SAT® and ACT®), hoping to demonstrate their ability to perform at a collegiate level and gain admission to desired universities. However, a growing movement encourages colleges and universities to abandon this practice in their admissions protocol and instead consider alternative…

The current study is an "ex post facto" nonexperimental design analyzing archival data collected from previous trials of a large-scale longitudinal study conducted by researchers at JFK Partners, Center of Excellence in Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities in collaboration with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical School…

Assessment of specific learning disabilities (SLD) in educational settings is one important function of a school psychologist. The federal definition of SLD describes "underlying cognitive processing deficits" as part of the assessment criteria, that is also incorporated in several states' SLD eligibility criteria, that is difficult to…

The study was born out of a deep concern that there have been missed opportunities to apply cultural intelligence to enrich leadership, instruction, and learning. In particular, direct interaction and observation of students from multicultural backgrounds have revealed the value in adjusting one's mindset to creating a more inclusive learning…

This study was performed as the result of gaps in the literature in the area of transition to independent living (IL) using secondary data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2 (NLTS-2). Its findings identify individual, skills, family, and school factors that predict postsecondary living status and moderators of the relationships…

The current study investigated college students' content knowledge and cognitive abilities as factors associated with their algebra performance, and examined how combinations of content knowledge and cognitive abilities related to their algebra performance. Specifically, the investigation examined the content knowledge factors of computational…