The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate the implementation of a researcher-created numberless word problem instructional unit designed to introduce second-grade students to word problems in the semantic category of "compare with the word more, smaller unknown." The 10-day instructional unit incorporated three elements:…

Many students enter high school with persistent algebraic misconceptions that limit their success in mathematics and, by extension, limit potential educational attainment and future earnings. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a warm conceptual change based intervention on remediating algebraic misconceptions held by…

Educational video games have the potential to be used as assessments of student understanding of complex concepts. However, the interpretation of the rich stream of complex data that results from the tracking of in-game actions is so difficult that it is one of the most serious blockades to the use of educational video games or simulations to…

This dissertation investigated the effects of technological mediation on second language (L2) learning, focusing, as a case study, on gains in listening perception of the subtle but important feature of pitch placement in Japanese. Pitch accent can be difficult to perceive for non-native speakers whose first language (L1) does not rely on pitch or…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of the combination of word prediction and text-to-speech software on the writing process of translating. Participants for this study included 10 elementary and middle school students who had a diagnosis of disorder of written expression. A modified multiple case series was used to collect data…

This study evaluated the effects of a short-term professional development session. Forty volunteer high school biology teachers were randomly assigned to one of two professional development conditions: (a) developing deep content knowledge (i.e., control condition) or (b) evaluating student errors and understanding in writing samples (i.e.,…

This dissertation tests a grammatical structure, differential object marking (DOM), which is particularly difficult for L2 learners to acquire. DOM is a phenomenon in which some direct objects are morphologically marked to distinguish them from subjects (Comrie, 1979). In Spanish, animate and specific direct objects are marked with the preposition…

Although it is widely acknowledged that collocations play an important part in second language learning, especially at intermediate-advanced levels, learners' difficulties with collocations have not been investigated in much detail so far. The present study examines ESL learners' use of verb-noun collocations, such as "take notes," "place an…