In the United States, the student body is increasingly more diverse in ethnicity, family structure, and race; yet oftentimes libraries are not representative of these students. This dissertation aims to develop and provide a framework to help educators select books that reflect the lives of diverse students. In addition to diverse literature…

Higher education faculty who teach online can face numerous challenges in providing optimal experiences for their students. Besides their potentially limited instructional design expertise and understanding of how to optimize technology to support learning, faculty may have difficulties in finding ways to make themselves be perceived as real…

The importance of selecting one's own texts to read has been well documented as it relates to student reading motivation, reading volume, and overall reading attitude. However, elementary students state that having trouble selecting a book is the number one reason they do not read more. The lack of students' ability to effectively implement text…

Few studies on teachers' social networks have extended their scopes from schools to online, leaving gaps and the potential to study how school and district colleagues as well as online-only peers can exert a network influence on teachers' online resource curation activities. These studies have underused the relational-event social-influence model…

The proliferation of educational technology currently marketed by textbook publishers reflects the neoliberal influence in higher education that emphasizes automated, standardized delivery and skills-based curriculum. Inclusive access programs are publisher developed digital packages that include access to digital course materials at a lower cost…

The purpose of this study was to assess the importance of music selection criteria for middle school band directors and preservice band directors. Middle school band directors and preservice band directors (N = 101) were surveyed to discover how important each group viewed music selection criteria. Participation was limited to middle school…

Elementary social studies resources have faced criticism for well over 30 years. Text that is too complex (Beck et al., 1989; Beck & McKeown, 1991), contains questionable content (Chu, 2017; Wade, 2012), and is boring to students (Kelley, 2021; Schug, 1982) and teachers (Zhao & Hoge, 2010). More recent studies have found that teachers are…

This mixed methods study examined how preservice teachers developed awareness and beliefs about design features and academic language features when choosing and evaluating digital math games for English language learners. The overarching research question for this study was, "How do preservice teachers develop awareness and beliefs about…

Common elements amongst all educational institutions are varying processes of selecting educational materials ("Choosing Blindly Instructional Materials", 2016). Whether they be textbooks, curriculum, access to internet-based platforms or other ancillary materials every educational institution participates in some manner of cyclic…

Effective instruction for students with intellectual disability (ID) requires thoughtful planning and careful selection of instructional materials. One of the most popular websites for educators is Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT), an online marketplace that allows users to buy or sell a range of instructional materials for use in the classroom. The…

Technology is beneficial to language learners when applied within well-design lessons. This study investigated the appropriateness and effectiveness of technology integration in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) teacher preparation programs across the United States. It also examined faculty use of technology in TESOL…

This study explored factors thought to affect college students' selection and experience of instructional materials by utilizing general procedures of Giorgi's (2012) descriptive phenomenological psychological method and Spradley's (1979) approach to interpretation. Twenty-five undergraduate students were asked to study finite mathematics…

With the proliferation of communication media and technologies available, it is important for teams to understand the influence of these media on the performance of their communications. Additionally, it is important for researchers to understand how teams choose and use media. Literature on communication media impacts and communication…

Instructional designers must design and develop online learning environments that present the content in a way that learners will find important and useful. Faculty and novice designers are being tasked to design and develop online learning environments without having the necessary knowledge or experience in instructional design in order to select…

Higher education institutions have been noted to be lacking in increasing the utilization of technology for student achievement. The lack of motivation by individual faculty members to optimize their use of technology has been identified as one of the main problems affecting appropriate technology use. The purpose of this research was to determine…