While extensive research has been conducted on academic advising at four-year colleges, there is a noticeable gap in studies addressing academic advisors within support programs at two-year colleges. This creates an opportunity to investigate the roles, practices, challenges, and experiences of academic advisors in this often-overlooked…

This action research study emerged in response to students' struggle to understand what critical thinking is and teachers' corresponding struggle to develop students' critical thinking skills. In my role as an instructional designer, I studied student and teacher reactions to interdisciplinary course design that used disciplinary inquiry,…

Learning engagement and career-relevant skills are both important elements in learning. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research related to learning engagement in massive open online courses (MOOCs) from MOOC instructors' point of view. Research is also needed on MOOC instructors' strategies to provide career-relevant content to the learners. In…

Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) is a term for various methods by which universities accredit student experiential learning. One such method is the academic portfolio, a written reflective process in which students demonstrate that their personal or professional learning fulfills university outcomes. Proponents of academic portfolios claim that…

Distributed self-assessments and reflections empower learners to take the lead on their knowledge gaining evaluation. Both provide essential elements for practice and self-regulation in learning settings. Nowadays, many sources for practice opportunities are made available to the learners, especially in the Computer Science (CS) and programming…

Limited research exists on the factors that contribute to community college students' development of self-efficacy (SE) while serving as preservice teachers (PSTs) during their early childhood education (ECE) practicum. This lack of research is concerning because educators who have high SE enhance the educational well-being of all children. The…

Emerging adulthood, a developmental stage typically bound by the ages between 18-25 years, is a period characterized by new autonomy and decision-making responsibilities, as well as the introduction of a number of weight-related risks, including physical inactivity. Given that behavior plays a key role in the prevention of many chronic health…

Carl Jung introduced using creative expression (active imagination (AI)) to connect with contents of ourselves of which we are not aware (the unconscious mind). AI is a powerful technique in psychology and education. Approaches in American education are proving inadequate in several ways. This study applied AI to mathematics classrooms by…

This research investigates the responses of three individuals engaging with the Super Mario World (SMW) platform videogame glitches, and how they learned to solve the problem without formal help. This investigation was chosen because it explores connections between media literacy, critical thinking, and play in adults in the context of responding…

Accounting professionals have consistently called for educators to develop curriculum designed to encourage students to develop intellectual skills. The purpose of this action research study was to develop and implement an instructional method that requires intermediate financial accounting (IFA) students to consistently practice higher order…

Orientation programs on college campuses across the United States exist to serve the needs of new students to transition and thrive in their new setting. Some students may arrive on campus for even more specialized programs beyond traditional orientation programs, such as athletic practice, that focus on academic courses or involve a wilderness…

The 21st Century workforce must be flexible, adaptable, and innovative to stay competitive in today's fast-paced, ever-changing job market. Organizations play an important role in supporting the professional growth of its employees by offering various kinds of formal and informal professional development opportunities. While formal learning may be…

With traditional teaching methods pervasive in the U.S., it is crucial that mathematics teacher educators and professional development leaders understand what methods result in authentic changes in classroom instruction. Lesson study presents a promising approach to developing reform-oriented instruction, as it is situated within the classroom,…

The purpose of this dissertation study was to explore the experiences of high school physics students who were solving complex, ill-structured problems, in an effort to better understand how self-regulatory behavior mediated the project experience. Consistent with Voss, Green, Post, and Penner's (1983) conception of an ill-structured problem in…

The use of mathematics performance tasks can provide a window into how a student is applying mathematics to various situations, how they are reasoning mathematically and how they are applying conceptual knowledge through problem solving and critical thinking. The purpose of this study was to investigate, according to the elementary mathematics…