There remains a clear deficiency in recruiting middle school students in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine fields, especially for those students entering physiology from underrepresented backgrounds. A large part of this may be arising from a disconnect between how science is typically practiced at a collegiate and K-12…

Despite statistics learning becoming more important during this information explosion era, many students still deem the subject complex and challenging. Measures of dispersion, a critical component of statistical knowledge that students often struggle with, have received little attention in research on statistics education. The goal of this study…

Developing design concepts is crucial in architectural engineering education, yet helping students to develop these concepts is a challenging task. Despite previous research exploring design concepts, statistical analysis is scarce to evaluate their effectiveness. This study used the body movement methods from existing literature, combined with…

Research has shown that computational thinking and kindergarten mathematics instruction can be integrated; however, evidence of how specific mathematical knowledge relates to computational thinking remains scarce. Additionally, we do not know if and how children's mathematical knowledge co-occurs with computational thinking and how these…

In the modern era, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have revolutionized diverse fields yet a deficiency in geographical education lingers in the U.S. educational system. This dissertation offers a thorough analysis of this gap, focusing on the potential of the GIS as an innovative solution for enriching geographical education. The Geospatial…

At the highest level, this dissertation is a case study on how bias can become encoded into the tools used to measure a construct and into the very definition of the construct itself. In this case, the construct is spatial ability. This dissertation focuses on the validity and accuracy of spatial tests and illuminates gender bias that is…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe an educational virtual reality (VR) photo-based tour used in an online course and investigate the influence of immersive capability on the dimensions of spatial presence and their relationship with learning-related variables. Design/methodology/approach: The study employs a descriptive and an…

Two-tiered assessment structures with paired content and confidence items are frequently used within chemistry assessments to stimulate and measure students' metacognition. The confidence judgment is designed to promote students' reflection on their application of content knowledge and can be characterized as calibrated or miscalibrated based on…

For autistic students receiving special education services, little is known about their relative strengths, weaknesses, and enjoyment across different math content areas; their overall math interest and persistence are also not well-studied. Using the 2017 eighth-grade National Assessment of Education Progress data, this study finds, relative to…

Understanding fraction as a quantity has been identified as a key developmental understanding. In this study, students in Grades 5, 8, and 11 were asked to compare the areas of two halves of the same square--a rectangle and a right triangle. Findings from this study suggest that students who understand fraction as a quantity use reasoning related…

Middle school students are faced with many challenges. Puberty, social issues, and changes in the way that they learn can cause middle school to be a difficult time. An alarming number of students enter middle school with a reading deficiency--significantly below their grade level expectation. Students who are exceptional learners or are reluctant…

The American education system has consistently produced disparate outcomes for Black students in terms of graduation rates and college readiness. A deep exploration of this problem reveals that Black students are oftentimes placed in less rigorous courses with less qualified educators who lack the skills to manage student behavior and provide…

This study investigated the longitudinal relationship between children's domain-general cognitive constraints underlying phonological and sentence processing development in a big sample of typically developing children. 104 children were tested on non-linguistic processing speed, phonological skills (phonological short term memory, phonological…

Approximately 30% of school-aged individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are nonverbal (that is, they have little or no spontaneous spoken language). Most reading tests require verbalisation, which may under-estimate reading ability in this group. To determine decoding abilities of nonverbal children with ASD (with an age range of 72 to…

Identifying the cognitive capacities associated with the development of school readiness is indispensable to support children's successful school transition. It has been shown that executive function (EF) in preschoolers is associated with both concurrent preacademic and subsequent academic skills. However, most research has controlled for the…