What makes some sentences more difficult to process, and why? Memory- and expectation-based theories both attempt to explain sentence processing difficulties, and decades of sentence processing literature have found evidence in support of both theories. This dissertation further investigates these theories of sentence processing by exploring…

The purpose of this study was to engage veteran mentor teachers in a professional development experience through the use of stimulated video recall (SVR) sessions to explore and enhance mentor teacher learning processes and outcomes during a student teaching practicum in an elementary school context. The concept of "mentors as learners"…

Memory retrieval is well known to modify retention of not only retrieved material, but also related, non-retrieved material. This dissertation consists of two manuscripts that investigated retrieval phenomena in the learning of foreign language vocabulary and science education material. The testing effect--the retention benefit of practicing…

In this dissertation, I present the findings from the implementation of an informational text reading comprehension intervention. Using a single-case multiple baselines across participants' experimental design, I examined results from three small heterogeneous groups of three to four students during the literacy block in a suburban fourth-grade…

University students' smartphone usage in academic settings is commonplace. In this dissertation, I aim to explore different sides of smartphone usage among university students to address the gap in prior research and reach more accurate findings. I utilized various research methodologies to examine the research objective. I started by observing…

This dissertation explores the role of memory in language processing, and specifically how interference during lexical encoding can result in downstream interference during retrieval. The dissertation merges insights from both the sentence processing literature as well as the study of memory in non-sentential contexts and focuses on two factors…

Extensive evidence supports the effectiveness of retrieval practice as a powerful method for promoting long-term learning. For students to obtain the maximum benefit from retrieval practice they need to incorporate the strategy into their study routines as a learning tool that is used early and often. Unfortunately, many students avoid retrieval…

The purpose of this quantitative, quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group study was to determine if there is a difference in mathematical fact fluency among third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students with varying practice methods and spacing intervals while controlling for pre-test scores. The study filled the literature gap by examining the…

The purpose of this paper was to study the effectiveness of language acquisition using speaker instruction and listener instruction and examining the emergence of bidirectional intraverbals using a non-sense language. Current research suggests that speaker type instruction is more effective in aiding untrained relations (Contreras et al., 2020;…

In a previous study (here termed Study 1), we explored the effects of working memory loads on young children's recall of passive voice structures. We found that participants (n = 36) were more likely to use the passive voice in recall responses when holding an unrelated memory load but were more likely to use the active voice when not under load.…

Individuals with developmental disabilities demonstrate deficits in intellectual and adaptive functioning that can include difficulty describing past events; accurate recall may be improved by learning to engage in precurrent, or problem solving, behavior. Visual imagining is a problem-solving strategy that involves seeing in the absence of the…

The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study was to explore public school teachers' knowledge and use of student reflection as a pedagogical tool in a small public school district in the Southwestern United States. Reflection is reviewing and evaluating your own work or the work of others. The theoretical framework for this study is based on…

Retrieval practice has generally been shown to be an effective study strategy. The benefits of retrieval practice, however, have largely been compared to restudying, a passive and ineffective study strategy. Here, I investigated the memory and metamemory effects of practicing retrieval versus generating mnemonics, an active and effective study…

Computer Science (CS 1) offerings in most universities tend to be notoriously difficult. Over the past 60 years about a third of students either fail or drop out of the course. Past research has focused on improving teaching methods through small changes without changing the overall course structure. The premise of this research is that…

One of the notable language difficulties experienced by healthy older adults is word retrieval failure, specifically the tip-of-the-tongue state (TOT). A TOT occurs when one has a strong sense of knowing the word, such that the semantic content is accessed, but the entirety of the word's phonology is temporarily inaccessible. Such retrieval…