Students in Master of Business Administration programs enroll in this type of degree program intending to develop or learn skills ranging from financial modeling to crafting and communicating a new business proposal. Associated with a career switch or progression, frequently MBA students arrive in their new, post-graduation roles with a skill gap…

Non-formal STEM education programs can expose youth to STEM concepts outside the formal school environment. These programs employ education techniques such as hands-on learning, problem-solving, and connection to authentic science experiences. Youth participating in non-formal STEM programs are more likely to consider themselves science people and…

This dissertation investigates work-based learning as a method to prepare students for agricultural careers through three interconnected studies. The first two studies investigate secondary education programs in the United States, while the third study explores postsecondary education in Rwanda. In Study 1, a philosophical research approach…

Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) is a term for various methods by which universities accredit student experiential learning. One such method is the academic portfolio, a written reflective process in which students demonstrate that their personal or professional learning fulfills university outcomes. Proponents of academic portfolios claim that…

Low achievement in literacy for children entering kindergarten exists despite district-sponsored professional development (PD) in literacy pedagogy for prekindergarten teachers. PD has been shown to be important in improving teachers' instruction, so low achievement of children is unexplained. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to…

Limited research exists on the factors that contribute to community college students' development of self-efficacy (SE) while serving as preservice teachers (PSTs) during their early childhood education (ECE) practicum. This lack of research is concerning because educators who have high SE enhance the educational well-being of all children. The…

In 2005, Dale Dougherty and O'Reilly Media founded "Make Magazine," and coined the term Makerspace, which is broadly defined as a community workspace where people come together to solve problems using materials and tools they might otherwise not have access to (Dougherty, 2012). Recently, schools have allocated funding and resources into…

Formal leadership courses and self-directed learning are not adequately addressing the leadership gap in medical education. There is a realization that learning leadership skills is beyond classroom teaching and requires leaders to engage in experiential learning, take up challenging tasks at the workplace, and participate in communities of…

The emergence of the pandemic, which saw the worldwide spread of the COVID-19 virus, temporarily disrupted teaching with traditional education models changing the way Health Science instruction and training are presented. Secondary and postsecondary schools were unprepared to follow health mandates that restricted group gatherings and…

This qualitative case study sought to describe a single organization and examined how their learning experience affected students' creativity as they developed a solution to a challenging social problem. Creative problem solving and the investment theory of creativity acted as theoretical frameworks. Three research questions guided this study: (1)…

The prominence of virtual reality (VR) in the educational field has grown in recent years due to increased availability and lower costs. I conducted a global study regarding how pioneering K-12 teachers use VR to engage students in learning activities. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to identify how and why teachers used VR for…

In an effort to interest more students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics classes (STEM), more school systems have implemented maker education in the formal school setting. However, many teachers assigned to implement the maker curricula met difficulties due to their unfamiliarity with the maker mindset and lack of the…

This study examined laboratory experiments and traditional lecturing as an introductory teaching method in physics. In this participatory action research study, a qualitative and quantitative method were used to examine the level of achievement and the levels of engagement of high school students in introductory physics. The qualitative data was…

Teachers routinely report they are under-prepared for the classroom management challenges of the modern classroom and pre-service training programs are an important point of intervention. However, few studies have investigated classroom management training at the pre-service level. The present study compares two different training approaches…

This exploratory and descriptive research intended to examine ways to engage a vulnerable young adult population in environmental and ecological education and in community planning and public participation processes. A goal was to understand how to be more inclusive in the decision-making process at the community level based on ethical principles…