This Dissertation in Practice applied an improvement science approach to address an actionable problem of practice in higher education: lack of assessment of student satisfaction with academic advising. The study took place in a school within a public university in the Southeastern United States. A pre-intervention assessment of the current state…

Federal Head Start Program Performance Standards (HSPPS) were revised in 2016 to strengthen and improve the quality of all Head Start (HS) programs. The problem addressed in this basic qualitative study is that teachers in a local urban HS program in the southwestern region of Virginia have decreased levels of job satisfaction and cannot support…

This quantitative study utilized a causal-comparative design to explore if there was a predictive relationship between school counselors' supervision satisfaction and program implementation. The sample (N=77) included school counselors from the United States who are licensed/certified, currently employed full-time in a public-school setting, have…

Today's post-secondary institutions in the United States are seeing the continuous decline of enrollment. In Fall, 2020, there were 19 million students enrolled in college according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center in 2020, which is a decline of 4.4% from the prior year. While the decline can partially be attributed to the…

Improving instructor and student satisfaction with training in a global semiconductor company was the focus of this dissertation in practice. This study followed the Performance Improvement/Human Performance Technology (HPT) model as the overarching framework (Van Tiem et al., 2012). Fifty students and four instructors participated in this…

The purpose of the study is to address the teacher attrition affecting public schools in California, specifically with teachers with three or more years of classroom experience. A four-level leadership program, called the BICE model, created by Dr. Nolan in 2017, was used to examine the pre- and post-impact on experienced teacher satisfaction and…

The Family Expert Survey aims to provide school psychologists and other school-based mental health professionals with a research-based data collection tool that focuses on family perception of, and satisfaction with, the current IEP procedures that are in place. At its core, this survey's focus is to provide a low cost, valid way to collect data…

This study, a process evaluation, examined the inaugural, year-long leadership development program, Developing Collective Change Agents (DCCA), in a rural district in the southeastern United States. The evaluation described the program's organizational design within the context of a review of related literature for education leadership…

Mindfulness research is growing as educators and practitioners place emphasis on social emotional learning (SEL). Evidence supports mindfulness benefits are both physical and mental to include lowering blood pressure, decreased anxiety, increased executive functioning, and increased ability to pay attention. While the benefits of mindfulness…

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), schools have a unique opportunity to play a pivotal role in addressing mental health needs in their communities (Sawyer et al., 2021). The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the impact that the utilization of a system approach has on the success and sustainability of teacher…

Rationale: Few communication interventions for Latino Spanish-speaking (LSS) families with young children with language impairments and autism have been experimentally tested. "EMT en Espanol" is a culturally and linguistically adapted language intervention that has been effectively implemented by LSS caregivers of children with…

As school leaders continue to look for solutions to ongoing negative student behaviors, many schools have implemented the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports framework. The Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports framework supports educators and students using positive strategies for behavior, academic, social, emotional, and…

Even though students in the United States have varying access to an equitable education, education is commonly regarded as the greatest equalizer. The achievement gap impacts students such as African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities. Addressing the achievement gap in mathematics and other content areas has grown more crucial as the…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine how to effectively support novice teachers through comprehensive induction programming that ultimately leads to increased student learning and teacher job satisfaction. This phenomenological study examined the lived experiences of novice teachers and how they perceived that they benefited from…

This study implemented an information technology service management at a university and measured the effects that implementation had on customer satisfaction scores and key performance indicators (KPI). This project used industry best practices for ITSM processes, project management, and change management to implement the system. This project also…