This dissertation examined Culturally Responsive School Leadership (CRSL) within California's educational system using a quantitative approach with qualitative insights (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The study, guided by two research questions, investigated the impacts of school leaders' demographics (race, gender, and experience) on their…

Mental health struggles in college students have been steadily increasing in recent years. In an effort to slow the trend, scholars have searched for methods and tools to help students manage their mental health. One such tool that has shown to be correlated with less stress, anxiety, and symptoms associated with depression is mental toughness.…

Given the chronic stress that families experienced during the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic accompanied by school closures, many parents were vulnerable to parental burnout as they supervised their children's remote learning in addition to other roles. According to self-determination theory (SDT), when parents' basic needs are met, they…

This study examined relations between student engagement and drug use using data obtained from the statewide biennial California Healthy Kids Survey. Latent variable modeling with confirmatory factor analysis indicated four conceptually distinct and psychometrically sound factors capturing academic motivation, school connectedness, caring…

This cross-sectional study examined if there was a positive correlation between students' critical consciousness (CC) levels and their entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The study was conducted via a survey that had four parts, including the Critical Consciousness Inventory (CCI), the Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy Survey, open classroom (OC)…

Objective: Racial/ethnic minorities experience disproportionately greater risk to cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). This study examined racial/ethnic discrimination--as a psychosocial stressor--in a path model and its associations with CVD health risk factors among undergraduate students of color (SoC). Participants: The sample included 404 SoC…

Purpose. The purpose of this quantitative correlational research study was to examine whether a relationship exists between academic advisors' leadership style as servant leaders and student satisfaction with academic advising at a 4-year private nonprofit university in Southern California. Additionally, gender, race, and first-generation college…

The purpose of the study was to examine if a relationship exists between productive giftedness and social justice leadership in leaders of high-poverty schools. The following research question guided this study: Is there a relationship between productive giftedness and social justice leadership in leaders of high-poverty schools? In the study, 113…

This study details the research practices that were developed to operationalize the guiding principles of the transformative mixed methods design. A transformative, explanatory-sequential mixed methods design was utilized to examine the workplace experiences of academic migrants and findings from the study supported better work conditions for the…

Additional to the lack of gender and ethnic diversity, the attrition rate among Physics and Engineering undergraduates is as high as 40%. Considering the impact of STEM gateway course on students' choice of major, we investigated the association between students' Expectancy-Value beliefs at the beginning of the class with their intent to persist…

The extant literature on the use of autonomy support during caregiver-child conversations has focused primarily on conversations about fun, shared experiences, with limited consideration of unshared experiences or attention toward the role of conversation context. The present study examined how autonomy support, conversation context, and child age…

Rumination about anger experiences prolongs anger arousal and increases the likelihood of aggression. School violence perpetrators have ruminated angrily. Research measures and personal accounts of anger rumination often contain revenge-planning as a subtheme, the relevance of which has received insufficient attention in accounting for aggressive…

Understanding achievement and discipline trajectories of Latinx students is critical given disproportionate dropout/pushout rates of Latinx students from schools across the U.S. Using a Critical Race Theory framework, the current study examined longitudinal associations amongst a sample of (N = 1672) Latinx youths' school readiness at kindergarten…

Objective: This cross-sectional study examined correlations between physical activity and anthropometrics as well as sleep quality and anthropometrics. Participants College students (n = 85) with average age 25.6 ± 5.4 years. Methods Participants received full-body dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry scans and completed validated surveys: Habitual…

Previous research has shown that adolescent peer groups play a role in maintaining and exacerbating demographic differences in achievement. However, there is still limited knowledge about the malleable factors that contribute to these achievement disparities. This short-term longitudinal study examined one such malleable factor--namely, perceived…