Intervention research often investigates the curriculum or methods used to support learners, while less attention is given to the model of those interventions. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of two models of reading intervention, and to better understand how they are serving middle school students. Working from a critical…

Advising is an important resource for students in higher education, helping them to select a major, find connection to university resources, and meet degree requirements. Contact with an academic adviser has also been found to improve students' academic performance. Recent research suggests that students approach academic advising for different…

Meta-analytic Structural Equation Modeling (MASEM) is the combination of meta-analysis (MA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). With new MASEM methodologies developed over the past few years, there is an opportunity to compare the past approaches with the new ones. The purpose of this dissertation is two-fold. First, the parameter estimates,…

One of the many impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the increasing prevalence and accessibility of online education. This trend has also introduced challenges for students, instructors, and institutions. This study examines factors affecting online course satisfaction, focusing on individual, instructor, and institutional level…

I use rich administrative data and several quasi-experiments in Texas to study which students benefit most from college grant aid and why. For "extensive-margin" students, grant aid causes enrollment in college, and therefore has potentially large benefits relative to these students' no-college counterfactual. In contrast,…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate college students' beliefs of their parents' role in influencing their character development, and of their own character in influencing their college academic achievement. Two research questions guided the study: (1) What are college students' beliefs about how parental role modeling…

School climate is one of the most important school level factors shaping children's developmental outcomes. More specifically, school climate has been found to contribute to school practices that promote or hinder students' academic achievement, academic engagement, and academic motivation with more positive reports of school climate improving…

In response to extant literature on college students' sense of belonging that analyzes the concept as a relatively siloed phenomenon, this study offers a mixed methods exploratory analysis of college students' sense of belonging that examines multiple domains of college life simultaneously. Quantitative results reveal that students fall within…

The transition to college is a transformative time in a student's life. The first year of college is especially critical as the transition from secondary education to college can determine whether a student succeeds or fails in in college (Gale & Parker, 2014; Taylor & Harris-Evans, 2018). Students with depression enter their first year of…

School climate is a well-studied issue in educational research. However, surveys of school climate tend to be analyzed using item-centered as opposed to person-centered methods. The current study evaluated the 2018 South Carolina School Climate Survey using advanced applications of mixture modeling in an attempt to identify latent profiles at the…

This quantitative study evaluated how teaching models for language acquisition--the Integrated, the Stand-Alone and the Mixed Model--and student characteristics--gender and disability status--relate to growth in language skills among ELL students. In this study, the New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test scores of the…

The student-athlete literature is rife with studies that examine the factors that appear to improve or inhibit academic or athletic performance. However, internal characteristics that may influence variations in performance have been understudied, and athletic performance tends to be examined separately from academic performance. This study…

The purpose of this thesis was to identify ACPE Educators' and Supervisory Education Students' (SES) characteristics and educational practices promoting effective teaching, learning, and movement through the Supervisory CPE and the ACPE Certification Processes. Ten SESs and their primary CPE Educators were interviewed. Participants reflected on…

Measurement errors attributable to cultural issues are complex and challenging for educational assessments. We need assessment tests sensitive to the cultural heterogeneity of populations, and psychometric methods appropriate to address fairness and equity concerns. Built on the research of culturally responsive assessment, this dissertation…

The purpose of the current study is to shed a light on institutional internationalization efforts and undergraduate students' global learning outcomes in four-year higher education institutions in the United States exploring the topic at the student, institutional, and academic-major levels. Specifically, three research questions lead the study:…