Faculty are central to higher education and workforce development. Recent significant disruptions including the pandemic, student demographic shifts, and technology advancements in artificial intelligence are challenging faculty member's status quo in their teaching and research practices. Faculty members will need to actively engage in…

Significant figures in a measurement are all the digits known plus one more digit that is uncertain or estimated. The problem addressed by this study is inconsistencies in the instruction of significant figures in high school chemistry. This study examined teacher experience as related to the teaching of significant figures. The individuals…

Pre-service science teachers develop their teaching practices within and across the university and school contexts of their teacher education programs. The practices and visions of teaching and learning emphasized in each context are often disjointed, a problem referred to as the "two-worlds pitfall." Responding to the call for teacher…

Dissertation objectives included investigating how environment and plant life history influence aspects of leaf vascular infrastructure that supports photosynthesis, as well as photoprotection of the photosynthetic process. Additionally, I aimed to engage students in science and plant biology through innovative teaching methods. In summer annual…

This study examined the early implementation stages of the Modeling Method of Instruction (MMI) in the science classroom to find the most valuable strategies for effective implementation. In this qualitative study, eleven teachers were interviewed to uncover effective implementation strategies. Interview data were analyzed using the constant…

Though job opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) continue to expand in the United States, people on Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) while in school are continually disadvantaged in future STEM-based career possibilities. Studies have shown that students on IEPs are far less likely to major in a STEM degree…

This study focuses on undergraduates' preparation for college level courses. In recent international PISA results United States students fall behind seventeen countries on the computer-based reading proficiency test. They have scored low for over a decade, in spite of spending more than one hundred-thousand dollars per student on education. This…

This thesis identifies and explains the gaps in prior and current applications of representational competence construct in chemistry. Representational competence (RC) describes a set of skills that chemistry researchers Kozma and Russell observed experts demonstrate when engaging with disciplinary representations (Kozma & Russell, 1997; Kozma…

In this dissertation, I use a critical transdisciplinary approach to examine how the coloniality of Western Science impacts science education teaching, learning, and research. Weaving together Black geographies, settler colonialism, and decolonial theory, I illustrate how the historical, symbiotic relationship between colonization and Western…

This study aimed to explore possible correlations between elementary inservice teachers' (n=138) perceptions of science teaching constraints and affordances as well as their demographic information and science teaching self-efficacy and beliefs through the use of inferential statistics (Field, 2018; Riggs & Enochs, 1990). It also sought to…

To remain competitive in an innovative world, American classrooms are promoting careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by utilizing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Students are engaged in inquiry by applying scientific practices like argumentation. However, science teachers are finding it difficult to…

This study advances the understanding of providing effective professional development for elementary teachers in the field as the Pennsylvania STEELS standards require inquiry-based learning as a component of the science classroom. I sought out elementary teacher perceptions surrounding professional development as it pertained to their ability to…

Physicists, physics students, and community members engage with each other through a variety of informal physics programs. These programs differ in format, such as after school programs, public lectures, planetariums, summer camps, and other non-formal classroom environments. These programs also differ in the physics topics they cover, activities,…

The aim of this qualitative multiple case study was to understand three Saudi kindergarten teachers 'attitudes toward enacting inquiry to teach science in the kindergarten classroom. This study was guided by two research questions: 1) What attitudes do Saudi kindergarten teachers hold about using inquiry to teach science in their classrooms? 2)…

The threat of climate change makes it increasingly important for biologists and the public to understand how organisms respond to temperature. The Metabolic Theory of Ecology (MTE) predicts that temperature should affect organism performance, with implications for species interactions and ecosystems that span disciplines including mathematics,…