This study follows a cohort of early career teachers who graduated from the same teacher education program into their second year of teaching to analyze how their professional identity (hereafter PI) developed after entering the profession. In a previous phase of this research, graduates were interviewed as they completed the degree; those…

The need to understand the differences in the self-efficacy of K-12 mathematics teachers based on teachers' characteristics and school factors is imperative because research has shown teachers' self-efficacy to be a mediating factor on students' academic achievement. As such, education policymakers and school administrators need to understand…

Limited research examines writing tutors' self-efficacy, or how tutors believe "in their abilities to produce given attainments" (Bandura, 2006, p. 307). This qualitative constant comparative study explored self-efficacy's impact on tutoring strategies writing tutors use in recorded digital tutoring conferences with community college…

By the end of this decade, the U.S. economy will annually create hundreds of thousands of new jobs requiring a bachelor's degree in STEM fields, particularly computer science. This increasing need for computer scientists, coupled with an inconsistent agenda for managing dramatic shifts in the demographic landscape of higher education, compromises…

The COVID-19 pandemic created a social-educational problem in understanding how novice teachers developed self-efficacy through technology amidst distance learning. Exploring the social-educational problem of novice teachers' liminality and construction of self-efficacy during coronavirus-related school closures is an emerging issue that justifies…

It is tantamount for our education system to support novice teachers to become highly skilled, knowledgeable, and well-rounded in order to prepare students for a successful future in a highly competitive, technological, and global economy. Many studies highly recommend mentoring programs as an effective means of supporting novice teachers,…

Self-esteem, self-efficacy, and locus of control are important variables in understanding and appreciating educators. Teachers' beliefs in their own self-worth, ability to excel in specific areas, and acumen to control their environment are critical constructs in today's classrooms. The purpose of this study was to better understand education…

Using qualitative research methods, this phenomenological study examined the impact of instructional coaching on teachers' perceptions of teacher self-efficacy, stress and anxiety, and instruction. Kindergarten, first, and second grade classroom teachers from a small suburban school district who worked with an instructional coach in a coaching…

Biology is a key course in a student's learning path. It provides important information about the living world and creates foundational knowledge that will be used in other science courses as the student progresses through his or her secondary and post-secondary education. However, there is a pattern of low student achievement in this required…

The purpose of this qualitative narrative study was to explore educators' perceptions of the conditions that might generate collective teacher efficacy within teacher teams so that educational leaders and teachers can attend to and foster these conditions within their buildings. This study explored teacher perceptions regarding certain conditions,…

The dissertation includes two independent chapters which investigated the experiences of individuals with disabilities in connection with societal attitudes regarding disability. The first article is a systematized review which analyzes and synthesizes the existing literature on implicit and explicit disability attitudes across multiple domains…

Student persistence, retention, and completion are continued concerns in higher education. While external influences contribute to persistence and retention, the focus of this research study was to determine the academic self-efficacy and self-regulated factors that influence the academic achievement of first-time first-year students who persist…

Rural elementary teachers faced challenges to professional development which differed from their urban or suburban peers. With the increasing popularity of social media at the time of this study, rural elementary teachers had the opportunity to use social media to find and engage in professional development which might otherwise be unavailable to…

This study examined sexual assertiveness among female undergraduate students at an institution of higher education in the southeastern United States from the context of the social-ecological model. An online survey instrument examined sexual assertiveness, sexual communication self-efficacy, campus climate, and sexual scripts. Structural equation…

The purpose of this study was to examine if a relationship existed between the self-efficacy and grit of selected principals; the differences in self-efficacy and grit among the principals who did and did not participate in a principal development program; and the differences in self-efficacy, grit, and persistence in the job role of the selected…