The prevalence of adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is growing worldwide. There is a lack of services to support adolescents and adults with ASD in different areas including social-communication intervention. To fill these research gaps in the literature, the three studies in this dissertation extended the literature on…

Much research has shown that discussion boards (DBs) in online learning can be as useful as any physical discussion (Prenksy, 2003; Ransdell, 2013). Prenksy was one of the first researchers to emphasize that online learning had to be motivating, just like any other type of learning. Students will only do what they believe will help them learn.…

This study explores the use of backchannels, real-time online conversations taking place simultaneously with spoken discussions (the front channel), as one approach to meaning-making through discussion. Using transcripts of front and backchannel discussions, we examine how undergraduate preservice teachers utilize backchannels to talk about…

Schools have a duty of care to all students and to directly prevent and intervene with bullying amongst children and adolescents. The emergence of cyberbullying escalates this responsibility as the strategies that have become appropriate at national levels for bullying do not always parallel over to online environments. The impact on mental health…

This study investigated the influence of campus climate dimensions, namely newcomer adjustment and feelings of well-being on the tendency for victims of cyberbullying to become aggressors, and how cultural issues could influence students' involvement in situations of cyberbullying. Participants included 979 Portuguese and Brazilian university…

This research study was designed to examine manifestation of online and offline political participation of educated Pakistani youth. The second objective of the study was to locate variation in political participation of the students on the basis of sociodemographic variables and the membership of Facebook pages of the users. The population of the…

Difficulties with planning, such as negotiating task understandings and goals, can have a profound effect on regulation and task performance when students work collaboratively (Miller and Hadwin, "Computers in Human Behaviour", 52, 573-588, 2015a). Despite planning being a common challenge, teams often fail to identify strategies for…

Latecomers to science are students who take non-traditional routes into postsecondary science because they are initially missing prerequisites. Latecomers have a lower rate of persistence than traditional science students. This critical discourse analysis of an online forum thread uses Gee's toolkit to explore how latecomers, who have histories of…

Understanding online user engagement is a key challenge for social platforms that support the communal creation or transfer of knowledge and information. Engagement is not only a function of individual attributes but also the result of the social context that derives from platform choices. This dissertation presents several empirical examples of…

This dissertation explores the relationship between how teams form and what they need to perform. It adopts the perspective that technology is fundamental to organizing in modern workplaces and examines how technology may both enhance and constrain teamwork. By adopting this perspective, two questions naturally follow. First, how do teams organize…

As Internet technologies have grown, virtual employees have become a large part of many sectors of business. The problem is that virtual team members may have lower job satisfaction than counterparts in traditional roles and virtual workers may suffer from turnover. Transformational leadership is associated with higher employee job satisfaction…

Cyberbullying is a psychologically devastating form of social cruelty that has become a matter of life or death. This study investigated the extent that teachers can identify cyberbullying and examined their use of prevention strategies that aid in decreasing this crisis. The variables addressed include teachers' general attitudes regarding…

It is the position of the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) that the registered professional school nurse (hereinafter referred to as school nurse) is a crucial member of the team participating in the prevention of bullying in schools. The school nurse role includes efforts to prevent bullying and the identification of students who are…

The pandemic has made adjustments to the process of organizing teaching, and ways of organizing pedagogical interaction. In the distance educational process, an increasing place is taken by the organization of interactive communication between teachers and students. The purpose of this research is to study the features of the organization of…

In this study, we work towards a strategy to measure and enhance the quality of interactions in discussion forums at scale. We present a machine learning (ML) model which identifies the phase of cognitive presence exhibited by a student's post and suggest future applications of such a model to help online students develop higher-order thinking. We…