In their popular book "Made to Stick," Heath and Heath (2007) examined characteristics that make an idea sticky, that is, "understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact--they change your audience's opinions or behavior" (p. 8). Lecture-based instruction is a common but debated pedagogical approach in higher education,…

Accredited schools of public health are required to prepare graduate students to competently discuss how racism undermines health equity. A systematic assessment of academic public health norms is needed to clarify how graduate education structures the profession of public health to address racial health inequities. Three aims guided my…

Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly being used for education and training, raising questions about how to assess the degree to which people feel competent learning through VR. In 2022, Saville and colleagues developed the Virtual Reality Learning Self-Efficacy Scale (VRLSE). The current experiment builds on their work. VR can be used for a wide…

Although social justice advocacy is a core competency of counseling psychology training, a lack of formalized training prohibits trainees from engaging in advocacy efforts, specifically at the community and systems-level (Alexander & Allo, 2021). Moreover, prior research has suggested that counseling psychology trainees are feeling…

The purpose of this exploratory collective case study is to understand how climate change education can meet the learning needs of emergency management professionals to prepare and adapt to the impacts of climate change on communities throughout the United States. The primary research question guiding the study was: How do emergency managers…

Clinical judgment is a priority nursing skill to ensure the delivery of safe and effective nursing care. New graduate nurses lack the clinical judgment skills that are necessary for entry-level nursing practice. Nurse educators must therefore implement teaching strategies that foster clinical judgment. This study evaluated the clinical judgment of…

Formerly incarcerated individuals face a number of obstacles transitioning home, among which job search is one of the critical issues. While searching for a job can be difficult for most people, returning citizens face additional obstacles due to their criminal records, gaps in employment, and reduced professional networks. Furthermore, returning…

American Sign Language (ASL) courses in U.S. higher education often inadequately incorporate multicultural content, with many educators lacking knowledge of multiculturalism and relevant cultural resources. The purpose of this study was the exploration of ASL educators' perspectives on the incorporation of multicultural content in ASL classrooms…

Statistics & data science are growing, rapidly evolving, and increasingly important for an informed citizenry in a data-saturated world. In this dissertation, I address two central questions: (1) who is taking statistics? and (2) what are statistics courses teaching? I estimate that 920,000 US students take statistics in high school each year,…

This convergent parallel mixed methods study explored barriers to teaching disability and accessibility awareness in the early elementary classroom and assessed the impact of an instructional video on educators' current perceptions and future teaching practices. Through one-on-one, semi-structured interviews on Zoom and a pretest, intervention,…

As part of their initial teacher education, most aspiring middle and high school science teachers take one or more semesters of coursework in the methods of teaching science. Surprisingly little is known about the curriculum of secondary science methods courses, however. This exploratory study aimed to better understand the goals and content of…

The purpose of this research was to investigate social responsibility in the apparel and textiles field through the lens of the faculty, including how they define social responsibility and incorporate it into the curriculum. This research explored how faculty who identify as teaching from a social responsibility perspective interpret the term,…

Business is the largest undergraduate major in the United States and continues to grow (National Center for Education Statistics, 2020). As a result, the mandate for universities to produce graduates who can operate effectively in globalized societies is clear and critical for future U.S. success (Bok, 2015; de Wit & Urias, 2012; Deardorff…

Nurses who care for clients in the 21st century must possess an understanding of the etiology, pathology, and therapies of a multitude of diseases. The preparation of pre-licensure nurses for a complex health care system is a fundamental requirement for colleges and universities of nursing. With the rapid pace of genetic discoveries from the 1990s…

Universal Design for Learning is a recommended framework to meet the needs of diverse college students. Using the framework leads faculty to use technology. The problem was a knowledge gap concerning the instructional materials faculty used when sharing learning content to facilitate the academic success of first-year students enrolled at a…