School climate is increasingly recognized by scholars and policymakers as a crucial factor associated with students' educational experiences. Hence, practitioners endeavor to equitably measure and improve school climate to promote favorable student academic and behavior outcomes. Unfortunately, school climate research is fragmented, and a…

Underachievement in postsecondary education has been a growing concern for educators and researchers. Higher education institutions have implemented early alert systems to identify students performing below standards. This early warning system has major limitations that confine it to an identification only approach. The current study aimed to…

The purpose of this three-manuscript dissertation was to examine the construct and predictive validity of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework (i.e., teaching, cognitive and social presence) through a confirmatory factor analysis, meta-analysis, and qualitative synthesis. The first paper was a confirmatory factor analysis study that…

The primary purpose of this study was to collect evidence on the construct validity of grit using convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity principles. To accomplish this purpose and extend previous research on grit, college students from two schools completed an instrument comprised of a cognitive ability test, and a questionnaire. The…

The primary goal of this dissertation is to develop and provide preliminary validation for a new measure of culturally responsive practice. This instrument, which is called the Culturally Responsive Practice Scale (CRPS), includes items that reflect ways that teachers teach multicultural students in their classrooms. To accomplish the goal, three…

Measures of teacher effectiveness have become a major research and policy issue due to the increased focus on teacher accountability during the past decade. Growing concerns about the variability in the quality of teaching and traditional approaches to measuring teacher effectiveness led to federal and state policies calling for more rigorous…

Using a social cognitive theory framework, this single-subject, correlational study examined to what extent writing self-regulation, writing efficacy, hope, and writing hope predicted first-year college students' writing abilities. Past research reveals that a large part of teaching students to be successful in completing writing tasks is related…

This primary purpose of the study was to expand the work of Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, and Yoon (2001) by creating and psychometrically testing an instrument designed to measure teachers' perceptions of characteristics of professional development. Elementary teachers (n = 406) from five school districts in Washington State participating in a…