Educational technology has shown an increase in use over the years as a method of remediating student academic deficits. While educational technology demonstrates various benefits for students in schools, there is still limited research depicting what amount of intervention students should receive through educational technology. To ensure schools…

This dissertation focuses on three manuscripts all related to bolstering science achievement through recommendations from the National Research Council (NRC) regarding the teaching and learning of science. The manuscripts address meeting the NRC's call to incorporate curriculum and assessment that lead to more in-depth knowledge that can be…

The purpose of this study was to determine how the use of www.achieve3000.com, as a computer-based supplemental English Language Art (ELA) instructional tool, affected middle school students' ELA achievement. 455 middle school ELA students from the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades participated in this study. The collected student achievement that…

A challenge for the virtual reality (VR) industry is facing is that VR is not immersive enough to make people feel a genuine sense of presence: the low frame rate leads to dizziness and the lack of human body visualization limits the human-computer interaction. In this dissertation, I present our research on enhancing visual and gestural fidelity…

With the large demand for technology workers all around the world, more people are learning programming. Studies show that human tutoring is the most effective way to learn for novice programmers. However, problems such as the inaccessibility to physical classes, prohibitive costs, and the lack of educators may limit students' opportunities to…

This three-article dissertation explored tutors' perceptions of online writing tutoring. Article One is a literature review of writing programs, culmination with a discussion of online writing tutoring. Article Two is a qualitative case study that investigated how tutors perceive their work using both asynchronous and synchronous modes of tutoring…

Across three papers I study how differences in the quality and quantity of classroom instruction contribute to differences in what students learn in school. The first two papers focus on teachers--specifically what gives rise to differences between teachers in student learning. The third paper focuses on the quantity of instruction time students…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the relationship between a computer-based learning (CBL) method and academic performance, controlling for independent, non-academic and academic confounding, variables of high school GPA, college GPA, marital status, number of dependents, age, gender, race, level of education, and semester…

Previous research has found the use of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) to be effective in teaching skills to a variety of populations. Students with and without disabilities have been taught a variety of skills including social skills and core academic content using CAI. Students with moderate to severe disabilities (MSD) have been taught a…

Using touch screens presents a number of usability and accessibility challenges for blind people. Most touch screen-based user interfaces are optimized for visual interaction, and are therefore difficult or impossible to use without vision. This dissertation presents an approach to redesigning gesture-based user interfaces to enable blind people…

Community colleges are a key part of developmental education programs. Research shows that a large majority of first year students have to take one or more remedial or developmental courses. The failure rates of developmental students indicate there is a need for intervention. The purpose of this study was to compare the final exam scores of…

At present, a majority of one-to-one student laptop programs exist in schools that serve affluent communities, which denies low socioeconomic students the learning benefits of ubiquitous access to technology. Using a "Studying Up-Studying Down" paradigm, this multi-site case study collected mixed method data from program participants at five…

Under No Child Left Behind Act 2001, the Reading First initiative was a component geared toward strengthening literacy skills in schools that were in need of improvement. Despite the intervention attempts through this initiative, research shows that students continue to struggle in literacy, which widens the achievement gap in urban school…

As India aspires to become the information and communication technology (ICT) leader in the world, the education of its children is a primary concern. While India's policymakers expect ICT to usher in promising education changes, there is a limited understanding of how computers are used and negotiated in India's schools. This dissertation is an…

This study sought to ascertain and compare the attitudes and perceptions of PhD nursing students attending their coursework through synchronous and asynchronous means at two different universities. Many studies have been performed comparing both synchronous videoconferencing and asynchronous online education with the traditional classroom, but no…