The purpose of this action research was to explore the information and communication technology (ICT) literacy skills of first-year minority students at Saint Augustine's University in order to develop a plan for an ICT professional development program. ICT skills are essential in our rapidly-changing and technology-driven society. While there is…

During the 2019 General Session, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 166, "School Readiness Amendments," to improve the coordination and alignment of preschool programming. This report is provided to the Education Interim Committee as a summary of an evaluation of and the efficacy of both the high-quality school readiness grant programs.…

Research that engages preservice teachers in critical reflective practices may reveal the level at which they understand and confront their own biases when addressing race within the institutions and societies they interact. This study was conducted to understand the depth in which elementary preservice teachers critically reflect on their own…

"The Handbook of Critical Literacies" aims to answer the timely question: what are the social responsibilities of critical literacy academics, researchers, and teachers in today's world? Critical literacies are classically understood as ways to interrogate texts and contexts to address injustices and they are an essential literacy…

There are gaps between those that are able to benefit from the internet and those who are not. There have been powerful global movements, including a series of intergovernmental summits, conducted to close the digital divide. The movements formulated solutions in public policy, technology design, finance and management that would allow all…

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced all institutions of higher education around the world to search for various new strategies to ensure the continuity of learning. This emergency eLearning situation created by the pandemic forced the faculty members of higher education to integrate information and communication technology in their teaching learning…

Digital media tasks are increasingly used in university settings to assess students' scientific knowledge. The use of such tasks has generated the need for principled analytical approaches to better understand how meaning-making operates in these artefacts. However, there has been a proliferation of approaches to multimodality in recent years and…

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine a theoretical framework and praxis for a cosmopolitan approach to literacy in a university children's literature course for undergraduate preservice teachers. This approach to literacy entails a reflexive consideration of personal convictions and an openness to learning from the perspectives of…

This dissertation is a component of a larger group project that examines the concept of legal literacy within the educational system. Research over the last fifty years has demonstrated concern that educators have gaps in their legal knowledge in many areas, including church-state relations, student record-keeping practices, discipline, rights of…

Empirical research within science education settings tells us that there is a need for new curricular approaches in the teaching of complex and contentious science-based issues, such as climate change. A lot of science educational research looks at a need to teach students "functional scientific literacy" in that we are not just learning…

This study looks at how a mentorship relationship between myself and thirteen graduates of an all-girls public academy developed over the course of six years. The study looked at how gender and race affected this mentorship, and finally, it looked at what alternative literacies were developed to help create and maintain this mentorship. The study…

This dissertation examined the term legal literacy as it applies to education, the state of legal literacy in educators today, and how that might be improved through lens self-efficacy. This dissertation is organized into four separate papers. Paper 1 is a review of the literature about legal literacy in both the field of education and in the…

With the increasing academic gap in public schools, it is important that students are exposed to education at an early age if possible. This causal-comparative research study sought to explore the impact of Pre-K attendance and foundational literacy on academic achievement at the end of the third-grade year. Student achievement was measured using…

An inequality in literacy rates exists between deaf children and their hearing peers. Research indicates that visual phonic interventions such as Visual Phonics used alongside a phonics program enhances grapheme-phoneme correspondence. That practice in turn improves overall literacy achievement. However, as rates deaf literacy continue to lag…

As colleges and universities adapt to an evolving workforce and changing sociopolitical landscape, the need for campuses to be responsive to the needs of students is imperative. For divisions of student affairs, the ability to clearly articulate the impact of their services on student learning and development will ensure future resources and a…