In this work, we introduce a novel oversampling technique, the theory of inheritance and Gower distance-based oversampling (TIGO) method, designed to address class imbalance issues in mixed categorical and continuous variables data set. Drawing inspiration from genetic inheritance principles, TIGO synthesizes new minority class data,…

The purpose of this dissertation is to develop principles and strategies for and identify limitations of multisite cluster randomized trials in the context of partially and fully nested designs. In the first study, I develop principles of estimation, sampling variability, and inference for studies that leverage multisite designs within the context…

This dissertation developed a new learner corpus of Japanese and introduced an error and linguistic annotation scheme specifically designed for Japanese particles. The corpus contains texts written by learners who are in the first year to fourth year university level Japanese courses. The texts in the corpus were tagged with part-of-speech and…

The purpose of this sequential, explanatory mixed methods research study was to understand what factors influenced African American maternal intentions to get their daughters aged 9 years to 12 years vaccinated in Alabama. In the first, quantitative phase of the study, the research questions focused on identifying the predictive power of eleven…

Using data collected through classroom videotaping, student surveys, and the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), the present study explored associations between teacher-provided intellectual challenge, two types of support (instrumental and emotional), and students' momentary academic engagement in high school science classrooms. Results of 3-level…