Despite enrollment increases in institutions of higher education, Black/African Americans still hold one of the lowest rates of doctoral degree attainment compared to other racial and ethnic groups. Doctoral education provides an opportunity for pioneering ideas and breakthroughs in a variety of fields as the core purpose of doctoral education is…

This dissertation consists of three independent chapters in applied microeconomics. In the first chapter, I study the causal effect impact of early life circumstances on adult psychological well-being using the property reform in China as a positive and policy driven change in economic resources in early life. Exploiting the staggered adoption of…

Analyzing attribution in cases involving children with disabilities means determining what parents attribute as the cognitive explanations for their children's diagnosis of disabilities. This field of research is important as attributions and individual perceptions will, once developed, act as an underlying psychological cue to influence and even…

Data in the United States shows that perceptions of student well-being are low, childhood mental health disorders are rising, and performance on high-stakes tests in reading is stagnant across the early grades. Substantial effort, time, and money have been invested in school improvement policies, high-stakes school climates, and literacy…

A large proportion of American students are not psychologically connected or engaged to what is occurring in their classes; in addition, they fail to take school seriously, have lost interest in school, and do not value or seek out success (Steinberg, Brown, & Dornbusch, 1996). In addition, the relationship in a mathematics classroom between…