Societies are increasingly aware of the need to connect and communicate globally. Thus, navigating diverse cultural contexts becomes critical, which necessitates intercultural competence--the skill of effective communication and understanding across cultures. As the digital age reshapes our interactions, online learning platforms have emerged as…

The present study investigated the experiences of educators who taught in the virtual world Second Life®. Second Life has shown promise in the field of higher education but identified gaps exist: the identification of a set of best practices, a foundational theory, and educators' experiences using Second Life in higher education. Using a single…

Contemporary education research seeks causal inferences in order to guide policy and practice. Often well-controlled quasi-experimental and experimental designs are used as they are very useful for supporting and contextualizing causal inferences. Nevertheless, individual studies, even high-quality, resource-intensive randomized controlled trials,…

Actionability is a critical issue in learning analytics for driving impact in learning, bridging the gap between insights and improvement. This dissertation places actionability at the forefront, integrating it throughout the learning analytics process to fully leverage its potential. The study involves designing, developing, and implementing…

This research endeavors to investigate the factors that influence satisfaction with online learning among secondary students in hybrid or blended environments in the United States. With a focus on social-emotional learning and digital citizenship, the study begins the exploration and the impact of teacher interactions, teaching presence,…

Organizations are dynamic, and employees must pursue continuing education to remain current on the most recent innovations, technological advances, and competencies in their respective career fields. However, employees often experience obstacles in completing continuing education, resulting in a lack of course material acquisition and, ultimately,…

The purpose of this study was to gather expert instructional designers' descriptions of their decision-making processes and procedures while designing and developing formative game-based activities for online courses in workplace environments. The question addressed by the study is "How do instructional designers describe their…

The field of autonomous language learning in second language acquisition has experienced significant growth since its introduction by Holec in the 1980s. Several studies have explored how to promote learning autonomy in various spaces, including online learning environments. However, research related to autonomous language learning in online…

Joint activity, or interaction, can be the basis for understanding how language use organizes both social activity as well as individual thought. These interactions can be a useful unit of analysis for studying how students use language to make sense of mathematical concepts and how students learn to appropriate specific mathematical language…

This study investigated classroom interaction in three novice-level Chinese language classrooms at middle and high schools in the US in the spring of 2021. Due to school responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, the participating teachers had shifted from teaching in a face-to-face, in-person classroom to fully online and partially online, hybrid…

This narrative inquiry study explored the transformational learning experiences of students who attended Christian colleges and universities in the United States. The problem addressed in this study is the need for Christian colleges and universities to identify what constitutes and contributes to the transformative experiences conveyed by…

This dissertation explores the utilization of a Knowledge Graph of "Micro-topics'' arranged into "Learning Pathways'' (KGMLP) through three learning activities: spaced retrieval, reading, and collaborative note-taking. The objective is to enhance four (out of six) levels of Bloom's digital taxonomy of cognitive processes: remembering,…

"Current research in the United States has found only a small percentage of adolescents have developed a sense of purpose. This dissertation investigates how a 2-year 11th and 12th-grade residential multicultural values-based experiential program influences adolescents' sense of purpose. The participants for this research included 2023…

This study employed qualitative research methods to conduct an in-depth learner needs analysis of the learning motivations, needs, and preferences of first-time fathers in the perinatal period. Occurring within the informed exploration phase of a Design-Based Research approach, the study aimed to understand the unique learning experiences of…

Play has been discussed by mathematicians and mathematics educators as essential to mathematical progress and has been widely acknowledged to have a role in learning. Yet, play is rarely acknowledged, leveraged, or studied for mathematics learners beyond early childhood. Moreover, there are theoretical and empirical challenges with designing for…