With tuition increasing at a faster rate than inflation, many college students depend on grants to access education. The largest of these, the federally funded Pell Grant, subsidizes over 30 billion a year worth of tuition for eligible students (Cardona, 2023) yet no longer meets its goal of covering 75% percent of tuition costs. While the…

This dissertation examines the connection between the English Language Arts Professional Learning Community, data analysis, and research-based instructional strategies to improve students reading levels, as measured by the Pennsylvania Literature Keystone Exam at an Urban High School. It is a mixed-method study. Data were collected from 9th -12th…

Given the theorized importance of college belonging for academic success, we conducted a scoping review of studies examining relationships between sense of belonging and academic achievement and persistence for postsecondary students. In our scoping review, we included 69 reports (78 unique samples) published between 2003 and 2023. We observed an…

Transfer students are a growing population at four-year higher education institutions, especially in STEM degree programs. Though much work has explored the broad transfer student experience, the experience of these students within specific courses is understudied. Furthermore, knowledge of how transfer students approach STEM courses and their…

Beginning the path to a bachelor's degree in community college has the potential to be a more cost-effective higher education option. Previous research on transfer students has focused broadly on curriculum alignment, articulation policies, and academic advising in efforts to reduce credit loss. Credit loss can significantly impact transfer…

In reckoning with anti-Blackness and white hegemony in STEM, this study recommits to critical feminist orientations and explores alternative engagements with STEM education that center "matters of care" where learners are encouraged to build upon their existing values of family and collectivism to reinvigorate rather than disrupt…

Characterizing who participates in and contributes to science communication efforts can extend our understanding of the science education ecosystem, including giving insight into what kinds of communication works for whom and under what conditions. We describe methods for characterizing an online, scientific affinity space using @TimeScavengers as…

The so-called 'short-cycle' tertiary education (level 5 of the International Standard Classification of Education ISCED 2011) is an area of education which has been inadequately researched, where a number of questions remain regarding its true definition and uneven social recognition across Europe. Although it has gain visibility in recent…

The main purpose of this study was to explore how engaging in lesson study improves secondary mathematics teachers' effective lesson implementation to support students' learning better. The research was conducted in Jimma City, Ethiopia, and employed design-based research with qualitative data collected from two secondary schools and 12…

Emerging Research Institutions (ERIs) are notably one of the most impactful organizations in a state system for addressing social mobility, workforce development, and economic growth of a region. Cultivating research at ERIs often requires the faculty to expand their skill sets beyond basic research to engage students and communities. Faculty…

An emerging body of corpus-based genre analysis studies has examined the connection between different types of formulaic language and rhetorical moves in various genres of academic writing. The current study extends this body of research into the understudied genre of narrative stories and the understudied phraseological unit of lexical…

Objective: The present study identified common motives for nonmedical use of prescription stimulants (NMUS) among community college (CC) students and examined behavioral and demographic correlates of certain motives. Participants: The survey was completed by 3,113 CC students (72.4% female; 81.7% White). Methods: Survey results from 10 CCs were…

The architecture of the virtual learning community via metaverse, or VLC via metaverse, to promote digital teacher's competency is related to the application of the concepts of virtual learning community integrated with virtual reality technology to promote the competency of teachers in the digital age. This is also to equip these teachers with…

Background: Research into befriending for people with intellectual disabilities is limited. This study aimed to explore the impact, mechanisms of change, and limitations of a befriending scheme for adults with intellectual disabilities and/or autism. Methods: Participants were recruited using convenience sampling. Thirteen individuals with…

School communities have been shut out of many of the more critical decision-making processes impacting local public schools. Decisions are mostly made as top-down actions from federal mandates, general assemblies, state departments, districts, and school level administration teams, isolating the school communities they are tasked to serve. To…