Retention, persistence, and academic achievement for first-generation students have become increasingly prevalent with increasing access to higher education. Beyond access, the most discernible challenge relates to their identity as a first-generation college student and the lack of mentorship from their parents in navigating the college…

This study sought to better understand present-day relationships between institutional and programmatic characteristics and their impact on student outcomes at postsecondary career and technical schools. This is critical given: (a) the existence of a significant middle-skills gap impacting the U.S. economy; (b) a lack of research and guidance for…

Charter schools exist under the umbrella of public education, but are not subject to the same level of public oversight or accountability measures as traditional public schools in North Carolina and many other states (BiFulco and Ladd, 2006, Bettinger, 2004). There is a lack of easily accessible efficiency data on charter schools. The primary aim…

This study analyzed the meta-data collected from a honeypot that was run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for a period of 5 years. This analysis compared the use of existing industry methods and tools, such as Intrusion Detection System alerts, network traffic flow and system log traffic, within the Open Source Security Information Manager…

Career Technology Education (CTE) program evaluations have been mostly completed for compliance and monitoring purposes. Hence, they have limited use in establishing program effectiveness or for program improvement. Moreover, engaging in program evaluations can be time consuming and costly, especially for programs that have not been evaluated in…

The demographic composition of America's population has changed significantly over the past several decades which is reflected in classrooms that are culturally and linguistically more diverse. In particular, the rapidly growing population of non-native English speaking students has highlighted the need for language instruction programs to…

Community colleges have a greater portion of students at-risk for college completion than four-year schools and faculty at these institutions are overwhelmingly and increasingly part-time. Learning communities have been identified as a high-impact practice with numerous benefits documented for community college instructors and students: a primary…

"For valid disability determination to occur, a diagnostic team needs to be able to determine that a student has received appropriate instruction in the general education classroom" (Johnson, Mellard, Fuchs, & McKnight, 2006, p. 4.2). The purpose of the study was to determine whether a middle school Response to Intervention (RTI)…

This study examined the effects of the recently implemented North Carolina Educator Evaluator System (NCEES) on teaching practices and teacher leadership in a mostly rural county in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. NCEES is designed to improve teaching practices and teacher leadership through performance-based standards. This…

This study used exploratory data analysis (EDA) to examine the use of a biofeedback intervention in the treatment of anxiety for college students diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) (n = 10) and in a typical college population (n = 37). The use of EDA allowed for trends to emerge from the data and provided a foundation for future…

This study strived to determine the effectiveness of the AR phonics program relative to the effectiveness of the scripted phonics program for developing the letter identification, sound verbalization, and blending abilities of kindergarten students considered at-risk based on state assessments. The researcher was interested in pretest and posttest…

A problem that has been the focus of much recent research in privacy preserving data-mining is the frequent itemset hiding (FIH) problem. Identifying itemsets that appear together frequently in customer transactions is a common task in association rule mining. Organizations that share data with business partners may consider some of the frequent…

Professional development courses that focus on increasing knowledge and improving skill sets are an integral part of a medical imager's career. This study was a qualitative formative evaluation with purposeful sampling of participants in a professional development webinar course offered to medical imaging professionals in 35 Latin American and…

Educators and researchers have long considered parental involvement an integral part in the success of students and researchers have concluded that there is a connection between parental involvement and the retention rates of students who are involved in regular education curriculum. However, much less information is available regarding the…

Effective partnerships for education reform "require that schools view parents and communities not simply as customers or clients but as partners in the educational process" (Sanders, 2009, p. 1695). In 2012, seven Seattle area school districts and the Puget Sound Educational Service District (the PSESD) were awarded funding for the Road…