"Tell Your Story: Teaching Students to Become World-Changing Thinkers and Writers" explores how to help students see themselves as writers and storytellers who are developing the skills and techniques to communicate in ways that resonate with various audiences. When students make that shift and see themselves as active and valued…

Research-based multi-text strategies (MTC) comprised of two-step verification, discrepancy-induced, cognitive-affective engagement, and reading as problem-solving models may assist students in furthering their reading comprehension in this Internet-based society. The purpose of this statewide quantitative study of principals in Title I elementary…

Humanity is dependent on the natural world for its resources and for human health and well-being. A growing population and unsustainable human activity, though, are having adverse impacts on Earth systems. Research shows that meaningful, systemic environmental education (EE) programs are essential for public schools to ensure that all learners…

The effectiveness of the student conduct approaches of the mixed method model, a mixture of restorative justice and traditional sanctioning, and traditional sanctioning, known as the "model code," in student learning at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) has been largely unexamined in existing literature. This…

My dissertation elucidates how art practice can be a useful and helpful model for learning, teaching, and conducting research for HCI and the broader STEM fields. It focuses on "improvisation", a fundamental strategy and skill often used in the broader genres of arts, including cool jazz and the avant-garde. To achieve this goal, this…

Bayesian approach is becoming increasingly important as it provides many advantages in dealing with complex data. However, there is no well-defined model selection criterion or index in a Bayesian context. To address the challenges, new indices are needed. The goal of this study is to propose new model selection indices and to investigate their…

Fitting wrongly specified models to observed data may lead to invalid inferences about the model parameters of interest. The current study investigated the performance of the posterior predictive model checking (PPMC) approach in detecting model-data misfit of the hierarchical rater model (HRM). The HRM is a rater-mediated model that incorporates…

This case study was conducted to develop a proposal comprised of best practices for institution-wide implementation of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in higher education. The analysis of data collected from interviews with individuals from institutions endorsed by the Center for Special Technology (CAST), the founding organization of UDL,…

We used an iterative process to design the Tiered Coaching Model (TCM) to support preschool teachers' implementation of the Pyramid Model. In the TCM, teachers are matched to one of three coaching tiers based on their observed classroom practices, individual characteristics, and preferences. Coaching tiers included self-guided coaching, small…

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a widely used technique for studies involving latent constructs. While covariance-based SEM (CB-SEM) permits estimating the regression relationship among latent constructs, the parameters governing this relationship do not apply to that among the scored values of the constructs, which are needed for…

In today's complex workplace, organizations have implemented mentoring programs to serve the needs of employees by providing career development and personal support. Mentoring relationships provide a variety of vocational, psychosocial and role modeling functions to proteges. Previous educational psychology research has examined the role of…

Although virtual reality (VR) is commonly used in science classes, for example, to enable students to do simulated human dissections and other medical procedures, research on the use of VR as a learning tool in the humanities, more specifically the literature classroom, are few. This grounded theory study sought to understand better the use of VR…

Fifth-grade students applied quantitative reasoning in exploring the flow times of three simulated lavas of different viscosities down the slope of a hand-made volcano. After modeling the lava flow times for 6 km down the volcano slope, students used their quantitative models to predict the evacuation times for villagers living 10 km down.…

A version of the classic rotationally resolved infrared (IR) spectrum of a diatomic molecule experiment has been developed using the POGIL framework to more fully engage students in the collection, modeling, analysis, and interpretation of the data. An analysis of the experimental protocol reveals that the POGIL approach actively engages students…

Randomized A/B tests allow causal estimation without confounding but are often under-powered. This paper uses a new dataset, including over 250 randomized comparisons conducted in an online learning platform, to illustrate a method combining data from A/B tests with log data from users who were not in the experiment. Inference remains exact and…