Students, faculty, staff, and surrounding communities form the environment, which knit the culture's fabric of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Institutional culture and environment influence student engagement (Astin, 1984/1999); however, research rarely has focused on the engagement of student-athletes within HBCUs. I…

This dissertation studied the adjustment of international students at two private comprehensive institutions. This basic qualitative inquiry study used as its theoretical framework the International Student Identity Model (Kim, 2012) and investigated the primary features of the Enclosure phase of Kim's Model which is characterized by poor English…

With the development of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) in recent years, discussion forums there have become one of the most important components for both students and instructors to widely exchange ideas. And actually MOOC forums play the role of social learning media for knowledge propagation. In order to further understand the emerging…

Data in many growing fields has an underlying network structure that can be taken advantage of. In this dissertation we apply data and network science to problems in the domains of systems biology and healthcare. Data challenges in these fields include noisy, heterogeneous data, and a lack of ground truth. The primary thesis of this work is that…

Virtual social networks nowadays play a very important role in getting and receiving daily news. Therefore, it is necessary to know the extent and reasons for users to use this tool and compare it with other media. Therefore, it is essential to know the extent and reasons for users to utilize this tool and compare it with other media. This study…

The increasing importance of continuingly complex Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) challenges and encourages universities worldwide to organize up-to-date CPS oriented educational programs. The Erasmus+ project "CybPhys" aims to support CPS oriented educational programs in Belarus and Ukraine. We put forward a hypothesis that the educational…

Previous studies have investigated how second language (L2) readers construct memory for narrative texts according to causal relations between the events described. This study aims to extend their findings by including semantic text relations (similarity of meaning) as another variable, which are theoretically expected to play an additional role…

Focusing through the lens of the (COVID-19) lockdown which was enforced on the 30th of March 2020, it became apparent that students from rural resource-constrained educational institutions had to adapt to sustainable online learning platforms from traditional content delivery. WhatsApp a social networking app, but due to its low data consumption,…

Transitioning to university can be anxiety-provoking for all students. The relationship between social anxiety, autistic traits and students' social network structure, and perceived support is poorly understood. This study used a group-matched design where autistic students (n = 28) and typically developing students (n = 28) were matched on sex,…

This work attempts to examine instructional leadership from a peer influence perspective within a districtwide network of educational leaders. This approach to instructional leadership supplements a conventional understanding of technical core of professional collaboration. We argue from a social network perspective that individual perception is…

Within the framework of the CaixaProinfancia programme, networks have been developed in 18 regions of Spain which promote intersectoral cooperation to combat the social and educational exclusion of children. Their emerging nature and simultaneous development have enabled a comparative study to be made of their organisation, the supporting and…

This study examines the use of a virtual internship (an epistemic game) for developing preservice teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). TPACK aims to capture the essential qualities of teacher knowledge that are needed for integrating technology into teaching. Virtual internships are computer-based professional practicum…

National efforts to improve equitable teaching practices in biology education have led to an increase in research on the barriers to student participation and performance, as well as solutions for overcoming these barriers. Fewer studies have examined the extent to which the resulting data trends and effective strategies are generalizable across…

This study investigates how students and researchers shape their knowledge and perception of educational topics. The mindset or forma mentis of 159 Italian high school students and of 59 international researchers in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) are reconstructed through forma mentis networks, i.e., cognitive networks of…

Fast development of technologies, changing needs of digital learners and other aspects of the digital era have had a major impact on universities and their learning management procedures. Access to information online, possibilities of open online learning and need to manage one's time lead to the changed profile of today's students and their need…