The purpose of this three-manuscript dissertation was to examine the construct and predictive validity of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework (i.e., teaching, cognitive and social presence) through a confirmatory factor analysis, meta-analysis, and qualitative synthesis. The first paper was a confirmatory factor analysis study that…

Although temporal issues affecting organizations and leaders have been researched, time orientation (preference for one or more of the present, past, and future time frames) and visioning ability of change agents within organizations remain open for additional investigation. This exploratory survey study compared self-reported time orientation…

The primary purpose of this study was to collect evidence on the construct validity of grit using convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity principles. To accomplish this purpose and extend previous research on grit, college students from two schools completed an instrument comprised of a cognitive ability test, and a questionnaire. The…

The primary goal of this dissertation is to develop and provide preliminary validation for a new measure of culturally responsive practice. This instrument, which is called the Culturally Responsive Practice Scale (CRPS), includes items that reflect ways that teachers teach multicultural students in their classrooms. To accomplish the goal, three…

Children today are surrounded by and immersed in media such that it pervades almost every aspect of their daily lives. The potential effects of media content are of particular interest for elementary school children, who are old enough to use media alone, but too young to fully understand everything they see. One way of enhancing the benefits and…

Metacognition is widely studied for its influence on the effectiveness of learning. With Exploratory Computer-Based Learning Environments (ECBLE), metacognition is found to be especially important because these environments require adaptive metacognitive control by the learners due to their open-ended structure that allows for multiple learning…

This primary purpose of the study was to expand the work of Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, and Yoon (2001) by creating and psychometrically testing an instrument designed to measure teachers' perceptions of characteristics of professional development. Elementary teachers (n = 406) from five school districts in Washington State participating in a…

The purpose of this survey based study was to examine whether the characteristics (i.e., flexibility and cohesion) of expatriate families in a multinational corporation as measured by the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale can predict cross-cultural adjustment of the expatriate (individual level of analysis) and his/her family…