As the socio-linguistic make-up of the United States shifts from an English monolingual country to a multilingual society, it becomes imperative that a pool of linguistically, knowledgeable, competent nurses are in the pipeline to the nursing workforce to meet the needs of a diverse lingual patient population. The continued lack of…

Propensity score analysis has been used to minimize the selection bias in observational studies to identify causal relationships. A propensity score is an estimate of an individual's probability of being placed in a treatment group given a set of covariates. Propensity score analysis aims to use the estimate to create balanced groups, akin to a…

This dissertation is composed of three distinct chapters, each of which addresses issues of estimating treatment effects. The first chapter empirically tests the Value-Added (VA) model using school lotteries. The second chapter, co-authored with Michael Wood, considers properties of inverse probability weighting (IPW) in simple treatment effect…

The purpose of this study was to determine if participation in science dual enrollment courses influenced African American high school students' post-secondary aspirations that will lead to college attendance. The investigation examined the relationship between African American students' learning experiences and how their self-efficacy and outcome…

The number of English language learners (ELLs) within the school system in one Western U.S. state continues to rise; writing scores of ELLs lag well behind those of their English speaking peers. The purpose of this ex post facto quantitative causal comparative study was to examine the writing achievement of fourth grade ELLs instructed within a…

While withdrawal from higher education may be the result of many reasons both within and beyond the control of the student or the institution, the intent of not returning to higher education indicates the acceptance of a permanent disassociation with the pursuit of the higher education endeavor. It is of paramount importance in understanding the…

In a time of growth in secondary education online programs, there have been few studies directed at understanding secondary online programs and the students they serve. That is particularly true for large, inner-city public school districts with a diverse student body. This is a mixed methods case study which identified that students' primary…