Humans excel at detecting patterns in information, abstracting rules, and making inferences. Underlying these skills is relational reasoning: the cognitive ability to identify and map abstract, generalizable relations between pieces of information. Though this powerful ability supports higher-order cognition, it can also be a processing bottleneck…

The brain must strike a balance between reliable information processing and adaptation to an ever-changing environment. At a gross anatomical level, the brain's wiring diagram is believed to be relatively set after development. Therefore, a fundamental question arises: how does stereotyped wiring lead to flexible dynamics, computation, and…

College students are asked to make critical decisions about which academic major to choose and subsequently to make specific career decisions. Students come to college with a myriad of different skill sets, backgrounds, developmental levels, cognitive processes, familial support, and levels of self-efficacy that may influence how they make these…

Latinx is the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. As a result, the demographic landscape of colleges across the nation is also changing to reflect this new reality. However, many Latinx students are still not finishing college at the same rate as other ethnic groups. One area of research that is lacking regarding Latinx students is…

The problem that this action research study addressed was the ineffective facilitation strategies used in professional development for teachers. The purpose of the study was to determine whether reflective practices impact teachers' instructional decisions. The study used Cognitive Coaching, a reflective coaching model, as its intervention. To…

The human brain is a flexible information processing system. Across a range of simple and complex tasks, such as walking across the street to playing basketball, the brain transforms sensory information from the environment into corresponding motor actions. This sensory input to motor output transformation likely requires a sequence of complex…

This research focuses on a dual mediation model designed to describe the learning process of sixth grade students practicing mathematics to improve Mathematics Operation Proficiency while experiencing different forms of feedback. The variables of interest in this study are the predictor variable feedback type, the mediating variables of Affective…

One of the fundamental questions in the field of language acquisition is a learnability problem, which considers how learners acquire certain aspects of language which are not directly provided in the input or whose referents are not readily observable. This dissertation investigates Japanese children's acquisition of various linguistic phenomena,…

This study reports the findings of a mixed-methods investigation into learning and cognition that has been theoretically and methodologically positioned as embodied. Embodied learning places pedagogical value on the biophysiologically dependent nature of learning on the development of the central nervous system. Rooted in empirical evidence of…

The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of curricular organization on student cognitive load and student performance in online learning environments. The findings of this study contribute to the development of usable instruction design principles for online education. This research study used the lens of cognitive load theory to…

"Statistical Learning" (SL) involves the extraction of organizing principles from a set of inputs. Recent advances in SL suggest that SL is a componential construct. To better characterize the componential nature of SL, a strategy may be to turn to literature regarding memory and learning. The current study sought to extend the…

A solid foundation in mathematics is beneficial not only for individuals' concurrent and later academic achievement, but also for future career success and financial stability. Rational number knowledge plays a pivotal role in mathematical success, yet it is often regarded as a challenging area to grasp comprehensively. The dissertation aims to…

Efforts taken to promote self-regulated learning (SRL) in elementary school have positive effects on learning outcomes. Few studies examine the role of motivation in relation to other SRL components, namely cognition and metacognition. Additionally, few SRL studies involving elementary students focus on motivational supports. Interventions that…

Technology is transforming higher education by removing geographic constraints for both students and instructors and increasing learning and cooperation with internet-based applications. Bloom's taxonomy continues to play a significant role in instructional design for both the classroom and online, but other theories that address the challenges of…

Over the last four decades, access to higher education for poor and working-class students has increased though social class disparities remain across many key higher education outcomes. To identify strategies and interventions that might support poor and working-class students, it is necessary to better understand the nature of poor and…