This collection explores a variety of perspectives on the student voice in UK higher education. Featuring reflections from a vice-chancellor, student representatives and interviews with the Office for Students' Student Panel, as well as sections considering disabled students, international students and mature students, the thirteen essays each…

The federally funded Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) is designed to "increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education" (U.S. Department of Education, 2021). Despite this stated purpose, the majority of research on GEAR UP program…

The objective of this study is to investigate prevalence and risk factors associated with school and cyberbullying among a sample of middle and high school students in Rhode Island (RI) (N = 22,294), using a social ecological framework. Binomial logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between school bullying victimization and…

The problem addressed in the study is the significant numbers of elementary school students who fail to demonstrate proficiency in reading/language arts as determined by the Georgia Milestones English Language Arts Test. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to investigate teachers' perceptions of effective research-based parental…

Young people identifying as Black, Latino/a/x, Hispanic, Asian, and other races and ethnicities that are minoritized and marginalized have constrained opportunities for positive development in the United States due to oppression grounded in white supremacy (NASEM, 2019). Importantly, youth of color engage in critical consciousness: interrogating…

This qualitative case study explored if and how a first-generation focused student success program fostered sense of belonging amongst first-generation college students. Utilizing the theoretical framework of sense of belonging (Strayhorn, 2012), the following research questions guided this study: (1) How do first-generation students experience a…

COVID-19 forced schools to look at education differently within a matter of days. Some schools were prepared, and education flowed continuously, while others were left scrambling. Numerous initiatives have encouraged distance learning during the quarantine period to help students continue in their education. Utilizing a mixed-methods design, this…

Partnership models have been effective across many areas of higher education such as involving students as teaching and learning consultants, in course design and redesign, and as co-instructors. However, there are few systems-level (i.e., entire programs or institutions) examples of partnership work and virtually none in systems-level assessment.…

The purpose of this Dissertation in Practice (DiP) is to discover how educators serving students with significant learning challenges describe the impact of participation in an appreciative leadership development program on their work and professional growth as leaders. This scholar-practitioner DiP achieves this goal through the scholarly pursuit…

This mixed-methods dissertation investigates the complicated relationship between the quality of formal educational attainment and political participation in the United States. Numerous federal-level education reforms, influenced by the Corporate Education Reform (CER) movement, have impacted the quality of educational attainment, and the formal…

This dissertation consists of three essays in the economics of education. The first essay considers the impact of charter school openings on student achievement, behavior, and demographics in the traditional public sector. Using longitudinal school- and student-level data, I estimate the effect of charter school openings on traditional public…

As early as 1954, families of children who had been segregated into separate spaces fought and succeeded in having their concerns heard in the landmark Supreme Court case, "Brown v. Board of Education." In 1975, P.L. 94-142, "Education for the Handicapped Children Act" (EAHCA) was important because it exposed the history of…

Although calls for a more diverse workforce in biomedical fields have been widespread, racial and ethnic gaps in biomedical degree attainment remain. Contextualist perspectives seek to understand persistent STEM inequities by examining person-in-context experiences and how systemic factors filter into students' proximal contexts shaping their…

The burgeoning research on contemporary educator movements provides insight into what activist educators know and believe, what they learn through their collective organizing and activism, and how they conduct inquiry to generate new knowledge for praxis. Yet, although this work suggests that these educators engage, generate, circulate, and…

Willingness to Communicate (WTC) plays a crucial role in developing students' speaking proficiency in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning. This study investigates whether students' in-class WTC can be enhanced through an AI-supported program and explores their perceptions of using the AI for future academic speaking development. A…