The purpose of this study was to examine of stereotype vulnerability, sense of belonging and campus climate for African American college students at a Predominately White Institution (PWI) in the Southeast. This research used a sociocultural model to explore African American student perceptions at a PWI in the southeast of the United States. This…

Grounded in the theoretical framework of Moore's Theory of Transactional Distance and the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Theory, this dissertation sought to (a) examine the relationship between the three components of teaching presence and student satisfaction, (b) determine which component of teaching presence is most closely associated with student…

We develop a new measure of relative debt transparency by comparing the amount of state debt reported in the annual Census survey and the amount reported in the statistical section of the state Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). GASB 44 requires states to start reporting their total debt in the CAFR statistical section in FY 2006.…

The main purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of developmental mathematics courses at a suburban community college. A review of current literature provided a number of appropriate and commonly used measures of effectiveness, such as size and scope of the program, as well as completion rates and success rates of students in the…

Engineering play is a new perspective on preschool education that views constructive play as an engineering design process that parallels the way engineers think and work when they develop engineered solutions to human problems (Bairaktarova, Evangelou, Bagiati, & Brophy, 2011). Early research from this perspective supports its use in framing…

In education, sample characteristics can be complex due to the nested structure of students, teachers, classrooms, schools, and districts. In the past, not many considerations were given to such complex sampling schemes in statistical power analysis. More recently in the past two decades, however, education scholars have developed tools to conduct…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) is an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which was established under the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002. It is an important part of IES's strategy to use rigorous and relevant research, evaluation, and statistics to improve the nation's education system.…

Educational data mining (EDM) has been a rapidly growing research field over the last decade and enabled researchers to discover patterns and trends in education with more sophisticated methods. EDM offers promising solutions to complex educational problems. Given the rapid increase in the availability of big data in education and software…

Federal education policies gave political and financial support for state education agencies to turnaround low-performing schools on an unprecedented scale. North Carolina's ambitious program turned around over half of all schools nationwide that underwent turnaround funded by Race to the Top. Exploiting the assignment to turnaround based on…

Though numerous studies have identified factors associated with academic misconduct, few have proposed conceptual models that could make sense of multiple factors. In this study, we used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test a conceptual model of five factors using data from a relatively large sample of 2,503 college students. The results…

One of the greatest challenges faced by school leaders across the United States is the recruitment of high-quality educators, and many programs have been developed to address this problem. This study evaluates one such program. We evaluate the Arkansas Teacher Corps (ATC), an alternative teacher certification program that places teachers in…

This study seeks to update past studies of rural youth by examining college attendance and choice decisions for students who graduated from rural high schools, while also conducting an examination of how the effects of socioeconomic status manifest differently by locale. Logistic regression is used to study the postsecondary attendance and…

Background: To compare the mental health status of children of immigrant (COI) and non-immigrant (NI) parents and to determine whether differences in mental health status between COI and NI vary across 4 racial/ethnic groups. Methods: We conducted universal mental health screening of 2374 sixth graders in an urban public school district. To…

Purpose: Bilingual children whose phonological skills are evaluated using measures designed for monolingual English speakers are at risk for misdiagnosis of speech sound disorders (De Lamo White & Jin, 2011). Method: Forty-four children participated in this study: 15 typically developing monolingual English speakers, 7 monolingual English…

Background: In examining associations of sexual orientation, school connectedness (SC), and depression, no studies have used a continuum of sexual orientation. Additionally, no study has examined whether individuals with higher SC within subgroups of the continuum of sexual orientation are protected from symptoms of depression when compared to…