This report highlights significant investments made by both Republican and Democratic policymakers in state-funded pre-k programs for the fourth year in a row. In the 2015-16 budget year, 32 states and the District of Columbia raised funding levels of pre-k programs. This increased support for preschool funding came from both sides of the…

The increasing use of educational technologies in classrooms is producing vast amounts of process data that capture rich information about learning as it unfolds. The field of educational data mining has made great progress in using log data to build models that improve instruction and advance the science of learning. Thus far, however, the…

This research explored the knowledge, skills, and strategies early childhood teachers possess related to implementing curriculum and authentic assessment. Research suggests that early educators rate their knowledge of curriculum and authentic assessment and their implementation of both as excellent. Despite these self-reported, high levels of…

This dissertation examines the role of conceptions of data's value in data practices. Based on a study of three small teams of scientists carrying out ecological research at a biological station, my study addresses the following main question: How do scientists conceive of the value of their data, and how do scientists enact conceptions of value…

The methods of geospatial data processing are being continually innovated, and universities that are focused on educating experts in Environmental Science should reflect this reality with an elaborate and purpose-built modernization of the education process, education content, as well as learning conditions. Geographic Information Systems (GIS)…

This study used the eye-tracking method to explore how the level of expertise influences reading, and solving, two written patient cases on cardiac failure and pulmonary embolus. Eye-tracking is a fairly commonly used method in medical education research, but it has been primarily applied to studies analyzing the processing of visualizations, such…

This article offers a reflective analysis on how the author came to a deeper understanding of transformative learning while collaborating on a research project with Patricia Cranton from 2012- 2014, resulting in "A Novel Idea: Researching Transformative Learning in Fiction," published by Sense Publishers in 2015. They read six…

With the increased capability of learning analytics in higher education, more institutions are developing or implementing student dashboards. Despite the emergence of dashboards as an easy way to present data to students, students have had limited involvement in the dashboard development process. As part of a larger program of research examining…

Learning analytic implementations are increasingly being included in learning management systems in higher education. We lay out some concerns with the way learning analytics--both data and algorithms--are often presented within an unproblematized Big Data discourse. We describe some potential problems with the often implicit assumptions about…

A myriad of personal and contextual factors are important in understanding how preservice teachers learn to teach and why they adopt or reject certain teaching practices. Activity theory was used a framework in understand preservice teachers' experiences teaching writing during a field experience at a juvenile detention facility. The purposes of…

The overall objective of the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) is to collect the information necessary for a comprehensive picture of elementary and secondary education in the United States. The abundance of data collected permits detailed analyses of the characteristics of schools, principals, teachers, school libraries, and public school…

Single subject design (SSD) research is a quantitative approach used to investigate basic and applied research questions. It has been used for decades to examine issues of social importance such as those related to general and special education strategies, therapeutic approaches in mental health, community health practices, safety, and business…

Learning probabilistic classification and prediction models that generate accurate probabilities is essential in many prediction and decision-making tasks in machine learning and data mining. One way to achieve this goal is to post-process the output of classification models to obtain more accurate probabilities. These post-processing methods are…

The purpose of this article is to move the field of intellectual and closely related developmental disabilities (IDD) towards a better understanding of evidence and evidence-based practices. To that end, we discuss (a) different perspectives on and levels of evidence, (b) commonly used evidence-gathering strategies, (c) standards to evaluate…

Background: Both observed studies and experimental studies have identified programs, practices, and treatments that are considered effective, ineffective, or harmful for juvenile offenders. Objective: Identify which dispositions were best and worse for each offense in the La Porte County, Indiana, juvenile justice database of over 8500 juvenile…