Contemporary education research seeks causal inferences in order to guide policy and practice. Often well-controlled quasi-experimental and experimental designs are used as they are very useful for supporting and contextualizing causal inferences. Nevertheless, individual studies, even high-quality, resource-intensive randomized controlled trials,…

The purpose of this study is to design and test a children worship service that may facilitate active participation and learning with limited resources. This study is focused on finding elements to design a children worship service with and applying them into it in a small church in contrast of large churches with more resources in space, budget,…

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…

This action research dissertation provides an overview of inquiry based learning in online general chemistry course. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many science course have been converted to an online format. In order to increase student learning and attitudes in online chemistry class, two inquiry based learning activities were developed and…

My thesis work is focused on conceptual and epistemic learning and characterizing the environments in which this learning takes place. Earlier studies conducted by the Stowe group explored how instructional practices, instructional emphasis, and assessment emphasis relate to student outcomes in general and organic chemistry courses. Student…

The present study investigated the experiences of educators who taught in the virtual world Second Life®. Second Life has shown promise in the field of higher education but identified gaps exist: the identification of a set of best practices, a foundational theory, and educators' experiences using Second Life in higher education. Using a single…

This qualitative, descriptive, naturalistic study investigated literacy activities, instructional assistance, and pre-service teacher's learning engagement within a project-based learning program. The study lasted six months and totaled 100 minutes (about one and a half hours) a week for two credit hours in the fourth semester of the Early…

Technological advancements continue to present a variety of learning opportunities for students. The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) study is to seek an understanding about students' experiences with a virtual reality (VR) activity in an Advanced Placement English course. Analyzing the observations and interactions…

Achieving an in-depth understanding of unfamiliar science concepts has been found to be difficult when learners can not index science language to relevant sensorimotor experiences. Ongoing research in embodied cognition highlights the importance of relevant sensorimotor experiences in understanding and learning new information. Aiming to foster…

This dissertation describes a practitioner's design-based development of a prototype chatbot to guide students in learning biological concepts of genetic mutations and protein synthesis. This chatbot's architecture provides learning activities, feedback, and support throughout a series of short, connected lessons. The chatbot is designed to…

Professional learning continues to be one of the most widely used methods for raising student achievement and teacher development, yet school districts continue to use antiquated models that often dismiss the core features needed to be effective (Desimone, 2009). These core features include being content focused, active learning opportunities,…

The purpose of this study was to examine how small groups of students in an introductory undergraduate chemistry course construct CERs and the influence of race, gender, and perceived status during this construction. The small groups of students engaged in three chemistry activities that required them to generate a claim, evidence, and reasoning…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to understand how middle school Career Technical Education (CTE) teachers and school site administrators in Riverside County perceived the structure and content of a CTE course's impact on student classroom behaviors. A second purpose was to explore what elements of a CTE course, teachers and administrators…

This mixed methods study aims to describe and explain the effects of co-regulation on students' self-regulation, which is hypothesized to lead to better learning. Students (N = 42) in six online undergraduate and graduate courses worked in dyads for six weeks on shared activities. Variables of interest included students' self-regulated learning,…

The purpose of this case study was to examine student technology choices when given the freedom to choose technology devices to complete a project-based learning activity in a content area of study. The study also analyzed factors affecting technology choice as well as how technology proficiency scores aligned to technology choices. Patterns and…