COVID-19 impacted students due to the rapid shift to online learning. In response to health and safety concerns, schools faced disruptions to the learning environment and ultimately needed to close in-person learning opportunities. Some students lacked social and emotional skill development when learning online and when returning to in-person…

My dissertation examined the effect of adaptive prompts in virtual reality (VR) based social skills training on social skills of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In my dissertation, adaptive prompts refer to an instructional technique to enhance social skill performance of children with ASD considering their emotional states. Despite…

Operationalism, representationalism, and pragmatism are three major philosophies of measurement in psychology and education. These philosophies play important roles in designing and conducting measurements, as well as interpreting results. When measurement results are available, validity evidence plays important roles in supporting the…

Students who experience poverty often face barriers to school success. These barriers include emotional factors that affect learning, internal motivation, as well as social and cultural barriers. This multiple case study examines how a specific school intervention program, Jobs for America's Graduates (JAG), increases students' social well-being…

This mixed-method study examined the perceptions and lived experiences of pre-service teachers engaged in a specialized Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) program at a private university in the Pacific Northwest. Through a thorough investigation guided by two primary research questions, this research aimed to examine pre-service teachers'…

This study aimed to identify students self-reported growth after participating in a Social Skills Group program and explore what factors of the program students perceived as having the greatest and least impact on their social skills knowledge. As prevalence rates for ASD continue to rise, the Autism Tsunami of college students will soon be…

A large proportion of students with disabilities (SWD) have social skills deficits that make it difficult for them to succeed in school, work, and life. This quantitative, quasi-experimental, non-equivalent, pretest-posttest, control group study was designed to explore whether SWD can better transfer their learned social skills to natural…

The increase in diagnoses of autism for elementary aged students paired with schools increasingly moving towards inclusive classroom models creates a challenge for general education teachers. This quantitative quasi-experimental study was designed to investigate the efficacy of an after school, explicit social skills intervention, and the impact…

The purpose of this action research was to investigate social and emotional learning kernels/strategies that can be implemented by teachers at a U.S. elementary school to support students' social and emotional skills (SES) development. The implementation of school-wide social and emotional programs have demonstrated positive benefits for students.…

There has been a significant rise in mental health needs in adolescents, and the COVID-19 pandemic has severely disturbed everyday life, causing an increase in anxiety and social isolation amongst adolescents throughout the world (CDC, 2017; Yale Child Study Center, 2020). Effective Tier 1 social-emotional universal interventions to foster…

Younger and older preschool-age children are commonly placed together in mixed age classrooms. However, both theory and empirical evidence conflict over whether mixed age classrooms are the best environment for developing children. A factor that may play a role in the is peer skill as children may benefit from being around more skilled peers. The…

The prevalence of Autism is increasing each year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2018) report 1 in 59 children have a disability of Autism. The main purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to determine in what ways social skills transfer was evident in the general education setting and the home environment. The second…

This research study is the result of an investigation into the lived experiences of ten teachers' commitment to working with students diagnosed with dyslexia. The methodology used to collect and analyze the data was Corbin and Strauss' (2008) grounded theory. The data was collected through face-to-face, semi-structured interviews that were…

The last two years of primary school in Trinidad and Tobago are marked by preparation for national standardized tests. The focus on preparing for these tests impacts teaching and learning strategies, as there is a shift to teacher centered classrooms and teaching strategies that depend on rote learning and memorization. This study explored how…

For various reasons, many students with emotional disturbances are unable to succeed in traditional classroom environments. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the perceptions of administrators, teachers, paraprofessionals, parents, and related service providers towards therapeutic intervention classrooms for students…