This mixed methods action research study explored how students reacted to using literature circles to enhance their knowledge and understanding of reading nonfiction text as compared to students using guided reading. This study showed a minimal improvement for students participating in the literature circle group in overall understanding of…

Teachers in the classroom need to be able to modify instruction in a meaningful way that helps students to improve academically. School districts provide electronic assessment data which helps teachers identify areas for improvement within their instruction. Electronic performance assessment systems can be an effective means of assisting schools…

Second language (L2) phonological acquisition involves learning novel target-language sounds, variable forms of sounds that arise in different phonological contexts, and any phonotactic constraints that govern their appearance. Interlanguage (IL) grammars must adapt to represent sounds and constraints that are novel to the native language (L1)…

State Education Agencies (SEAs) face challenges to the implementation of computer-based accountability assessments. The change in the accountability assessments from paper-based to computer-based demands action from the states to enable schools and districts to build their technical capacity, train the staff, provide practice opportunities to the…

Over the last two decades, there has been renewed interest in formative assessment, in large part due to the increasing pressures and prevalence of "high stakes" summative assessments. As states try to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind law, teachers and administrators are realizing that formative assessment offers an…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive case study was to understand how online undergraduate math instructors perceive student learning in the online learning environment. With significantly higher attrition rates in online math courses, researchers should seek to identify instructional elements that could potentially lead to increased…

Evaluation of instruction has typically occurred during development, before implementation, and after course completion. The problem is that evaluation is typically post delivery; courses are not traditionally updated in real time with feedback from students in the classroom. However the potential to evaluate and modify instruction during delivery…

The triad dimensions of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) has been widely used for assessing second language performance and development. Unlike accuracy and fluency, the construct of Chinese syntactic complexity has not been comprehensibly conceptualized or operationalized. Moreover, not tailored to the typological differences such as the…

Government entities set criteria for institutions that have teacher educator programs to use online assessment tools to show continuous ongoing evaluation, and use data from the tools to guide the improvement of courses. The purpose of this qualitative, multi-case study was to discover how Instructional Designers-by-Assignment (IDBA) are using…

Indirect metaphors are pervasive in everyday language: People talk about "long" vacations, "short" tempers, and "colorful" language. But, why do we use concrete lexical items that are associated with the physical world when we talk about abstract, or non-physical, concepts? A potential answer is provided by proponents…

African American and Latino students attending Title I schools in the metropolitan Atlanta area were not reading on grade level. The majority of students are low performing readers and minimally met the reading comprehension requirements. The 2015 average 8th grade reading score for these students was 246 out of 500. This applied dissertation was…

This qualitative study considers the perceptions of teachers from one rural county in North Carolina who implemented the program implementation of mCLASSRTM: Reading 3D. Reading 3D is an electronic early literacy assessment that is designed to assist teachers in planning appropriate literacy instruction based on student needs by offering immediate…

The purpose of this study was to explore the evolution of collaborative practices of PLCs as they emerge when using technology based formative assessment via iFAIT or innovative Formative Assessment with Instruction and Technology developed by the researcher using audience response systems and the online data compiler, Eduphoria!. This study used…

Serious Educational Games (SEGs) have been a topic of increased popularity within the educational realm since the early millennia. SEGs are generalized form of Serious Games to mean games for purposes other than entertainment but, that also specifically include training, educational purpose and pedagogy within their design. This rise in popularity…

This mixed methods study explored implementing guided reading in grades 3-5 in a suburban school district located in Southeastern Pennsylvania. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how teachers implement guided reading in their classrooms and how the use of guided reading affects student achievement in Text Structure and Vocabulary, Reading…