Despite growing evidence about the significance of Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs, public investment has been relatively low, resulting in slower expansion of evidence-based ECD programs. This dissertation consists of three essays on conducting and using economic evaluation methods to scale up early childhood education and development…

This dissertation examined the strategic initiative for identifying the essential components for personalized learning projects (PLP) for implementation. This school initiative identified the individual traits of a PLP from current literature and current instructional pedagogy and then surveyed secondary aged students. The project led to…

This mixed methods study focused on the relationship between dropout prevention programs and graduation rates in one school district in Florida during the 2010-2011 school year. The dropout prevention program data analyzed included high school principals' perceptions in regard to perceived effectiveness, fidelity of implementation, cost efficacy,…

The enterprise resource planning (ERP) system industry accounts for $8.8 billion annually. Enterprise resource planning systems are not performing as expected due to implementation barriers, changes in job responsibilities, and access to information; 50% of all information technology failures are due to the implementation of ERP systems. Guided by…

The study investigated whether an upcoming class of health information technology (HIT) can be used to address currently outstanding issues in the quality and cost of healthcare delivery. Expert interviews and a literature review were used to describe the 2009 universe of in- and outpatient healthcare RFID applications and to identify those…

Passage of the Clinger-Cohen Act (CCA) of 1996 was in direct response to Congressional inquiry into the perceived lack of proper management and oversight of information technology (IT) in the federal agencies. This current qualitative phenomenological study explored the lived experiences and perceptions of 20 IT professionals to determine if the…

Health information exchange (HIE) is the process of electronically sharing patient-level information among different organizations with the objectives of quality and cost improvements. The adoption of HIE in the United States is not widespread, but numerous efforts at facilitating HIE exist and the incentives for electronic health record system…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of function-based interventions on the challenging behavior of three young boys with autism in rural Tennessee. Tennessee preschool teachers serve primarily rural communities, marked by high poverty rates and lack of access to ongoing teacher training and consultation. Positive Behavior…

This study explores two specific cases of institutional mergers in the field of higher education. The two cases took place in China in the 1990s. One of the cases might be labeled a vertical merger and the other a horizontal merger. The former simply implies a merger between higher education institutions with equal status and the same level of…