One of the many impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the increasing prevalence and accessibility of online education. This trend has also introduced challenges for students, instructors, and institutions. This study examines factors affecting online course satisfaction, focusing on individual, instructor, and institutional level…

Informed by two theoretical models of homework effects, we extended a model of homework on mathematics achievement in a large sample of Chinese eighth graders. Our model incorporated six clusters of homework variables -- student background factors, homework characteristics, teacher variables, parent variables, student motivation, and homework…

International surveys of student achievement are becoming increasingly popular with governments around the world, as they try to measure the performance of their country's education system. The main reason for this trend is the shared opinion that countries will need to be able to compete in the "knowledge economy" to assure the economic…

Analyzing data that possess some form of nesting is often challenging for applied researchers or district staff who are involved in or in charge of conducting data analyses. This report provides a description of the challenges for analyzing nested data and provides a primer of how multilevel regression modeling may be used to resolve these…

This study illustrates why preschool children who are dual language learners (DLLs) are not a homogeneous group. An empirically developed model of preschool DLL subgroups, based on latent class analysis, was presented. The model reflects three separate subgroups of DLL children present in many classrooms where DLL children are served: Bilinguals,…

Using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1,364) and 2-level hierarchical linear models with site fixed effects, we examined between- and within-child associations between teacher-child relationship closeness and conflict and standardized measures of children's…

In the context of a national conversation about exclusionary discipline, we conducted a multilevel examination of the relative contributions of infraction, student, and school characteristics to rates of and racial disparities in out-of-school suspension and expulsion. Type of infraction; race, gender, and to a certain extent socioeconomic status…

Using the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2003 data, this study built mathematics achievement models of 8th graders in four countries: the USA, Russia, Singapore and South Africa. These 4 countries represent the full spectrum of mathematics achievement. In addition, they represent 4 continents, and they include 2 countries…

This exploratory study examined the associations between teacher-student relationship ratings and characteristics of students and teachers. A sample of fifth grade teachers (N = 115) and their students (N = 2070) were studied. Hierarchical linear modeling was employed to explore the associations between variables while taking both individual…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between student mathematics performance of 4th, 8th, and 11th grade students in Nebraska and the mode of test administration, online and paper-pencil. Schools were allowed to select the mode of test administration for their school with some exceptions for students needing…

This dissertation examines the relationship between an instructional style called Interactive-Engagement (IE) and gains on a measure of conceptual knowledge called the Calculus Concept Inventory (CCI). The data comes from two semesters of introductory calculus courses (Fall 2010 and Spring 2011), consisting of a total of 482 students from the…