The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to examine the lived experiences of newly hired social studies educators currently employed in varying high schools throughout the State of Illinois. Specifically, this study sought to explore newly hired social studies teachers' perceptions of their teacher preparation program, and how…

Social media as a medium to facilitate and foster learning and engagement in education has received increased attention in recent years. Researchers have highlighted the affordances and drawbacks of social media use in educational contexts. There is a gap in the relevant literature on the social media learning and engagement experiences of…

Career readiness has become an expected outcome of earning a college degree, but employers and much of the public believe that graduates lack the skills necessary to be effective in the workplace. However, undergraduates, and especially those involved in cocurricular activities, routinely describe themselves competent in their abilities prior to…

Pearson's Learning Foundations describe the optimal conditions for learning and reflect the learner experience Pearson hopes their products will create. Pearson does this by incorporating the Learning Design Principles. Each of the Learning Design Principles goes into detail about a key principle, supporting product design and marketing by…

This study explored how a poverty simulation experience influenced educators' social empathy levels and educational practices. More specifically, twenty-nine educators' levels of social empathy were measured using the Social Empathy Index (Segal, Wagaman, & Gerdes, 2012) in a pre/posttest design. Influences on educational practices were…

The importance of post-traditional women's persistence in earning credentials at a community college cannot be understated. The literature addresses the issue of non-completion within the community college; however, it does not address why or how some students complete, in this instance, post-traditional women. Deficiencies exist in the…

The hidden curriculum has been theorized and researched as imposing messaging that students learn but are not explicitly taught. However, few studies considered the hidden curriculum as an integrated and embodied function of students' lived experiences, or students' role in their encounters with the hidden curriculum. This study investigated how…

Educators working toward creating inclusive learning environments for diverse student populations need to consider the educational landscape in which colleges and universities operate. Using racialized space and the Culturally Engagement Campus Environments (CECE) model, this study examines students' navigation of racialized spaces on campus.…

Background: Problematic trends have been identified with student travel that perpetuate hierarchies of power in outdoor recreation. Little research has examined the impact of bias, racism, or political national meta-narratives regarding immigration and people crossing the border on students who enter areas where cultural differences exist.…

Research on African American postsecondary academic achievement is well documented in the United States. Unfortunately, much of this research has centered around the lack of attainment of African American students in graduating with their baccalaureate degree. Researchers have also highlighted African American graduation rates particularly when…

African American women have been underrepresented in top leadership positions in colleges and universities, facing social challenges and systems of oppression related to race, class, gender, and marginalization as they strived to advance to top leadership positions. This basic qualitative study, investigating the perceptions of 12 African American…

Numerous studies have demonstrated a strong link between participation in pre-K programs and both short-term student achievement and positive later-life outcomes. Existing evidence primarily stems from experimental studies of small-scale, high-quality programs conducted in the 1960s and 1970s and analyses of the federal Head Start program.…

College students' interactions with campus leaders are a crucial element of their success and satisfaction in higher education; however, little is understood about students' identification, perceptions, or expectations of campus leaders. To help fill this gap in the literature, I led two exploratory studies in collaboration with my committee chair…

This study explored and examined students' perceptions of teacher confirmation, those behaviors that teachers engage in that make students feel confirmed as valuable, significant individuals, as experienced in online courses. With over 450 students' written descriptions of experiences in online classes across three different universities, this…

Disruptions caused by the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) during the spring 2020 semester has magnified the need to understand student experiences during pandemics, especially as research on social work students' experiences during pandemics is limited. Forty-two undergraduate social work students at a large public state university in Pennsylvania…