Previous research shows that infants of parents who are more likely to engage in socially contingent interactions with them tend to have larger vocabularies. An open question is "how" social contingency facilitates vocabulary growth. One possibility is that parents who speak in response to their infants more often produce larger…

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model of contextual influences on musical engagement in a person's life. I developed this domain-specific conceptual model based on Bronfenbrenner's (2001) bioecological theory of human development. The model accounts for multiple, interacting contexts that may influence an adolescent's musical…

The purpose of this study was to explore how teachers' perceptions and professional development experiences influenced their sense of efficacy regarding their impact on student learning with diverse populations of students. Data collection for this study was conducted with a mixed methods approach. The Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale was the…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to "understand" how secondary teachers describe the curriculum change processes of unfreezing, change, and refreezing in the southwestern school districts of the United States. The research questions were as follows: RQ1: How do secondary teachers describe the curriculum change…

The purpose of this dissertation-in-practice was to explore the dimensions of support for assistant principals in one southeast Texas mid-sized suburban public school district in conjunction with improving the overall efficacy of campus leaders while also bolstering the organizational leadership pipeline. Sixteen current or former assistant…

Engineering education research can benefit from comprehensive tools for assessing student self-concept and its relationship to identity development. This research addresses this gap by introducing a novel framework for evaluating engineering self-concept and exploring its influence on identity status transitions among first-year students. Key…

This work explores the use of learning theories in curriculum development and gathers evidence for what good practice in this area looks like. By exploring the academic literature in this area, the authors hope to find information that curriculum documents do not provide. The following research questions were proposed: (1) Is there evidence of…

While considerable research exists on school availability, education deserts, and school choice, "geography of opportunity" emerges as a theoretical framework to support new solutions towards equality. Intersections between Freirean theory and discourse analysis surface in existing evidence-base, as "availability" emerges as…

As a result of inequitable early education access, state and federal policies have changed in an effort to improve access and better serve diverse families. This study uses a multidimensional conceptualization of access, which includes reasonable effort, affordability, child development, and parent needs, to classify early education centers into…

This study examines correlations between the prosody of infant-directed speech (IDS) and children's vocabulary size. We collected longitudinal speech data and vocabulary information from Dutch mother-child dyads with children aged 18 (N = 49) and 24 (N = 27) months old. We took speech context into consideration and distinguished between prosody…

Calls for evidence-based practice are pervasive. In response, extensive scholarship has employed four categories of research use--instrumental, symbolic, conceptual, and imposed--to examine how research is used in schools and districts. We draw on sociocultural learning theory and empirical data from one school district to newly theorize latent…

Vietnam is firmly committed to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals articulated in the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Goal 4 concerns quality education, and target 4.3 refers to ensuring access by all men and women to quality and affordable technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university education. In…

Focus on teacher retention has grown as retention rates have decreased in recent years, especially in the wake of the COVID pandemic. OnRamps, the signature dual-enrollment program at the University of Texas at Austin, incorporates many professional learning and networking strategies that can potentially impact teacher retention. This study…

This article is an excerpt from the "ZERO TO THREE Critical Competencies for Infant-Toddler Educators"[TM] Course Curriculum, module SE-6: Promoting Children's Sense of Self and Belonging. The course supports development of the essential skills educators need to optimize the social-emotional, cognitive, and language and literacy…

Purpose: This paper aims to discuss how educators can teach sustainability-oriented capabilities (SOCs) using an active learning approach. Design/methodology/approach: Using a case study methodology centered on a Brazilian business school, this research combines qualitative analysis of content, such as teacher notes and student work, with…