This dissertation consists of a theoretical essay and two empirical studies exploring the associations between students' perspectives on knowledge, the processes they use to negotiate dissonance, and their subsequent service-learning outcomes. The overarching goal of this research is to better understand why some students productively negotiate…

Of the many narratives to which educators subscribe, one of the most prevalent for the past three decades is the idea that students' success is strongly predicated on their ability to read on grade level by the end of third grade. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of half-day versus full-day kindergarten on students' growth in…

The concept of direction dependence has attracted growing attention due to its potential to help decide which of two competing linear regression models (X ? Y or Y ? X) is more likely to reflect the correct causal flow. Several tests have been proposed to evaluate hypotheses compatible with direction dependence. In this issue, Thoemmes (2015)…

Based on survey data on college students from 20 higher education institutions in Jiangsu Province, the effects of family capital on the academic performances of college students is analyzed. The study finds that family capital, place of origin, and birthplace clearly affect the academic performance, the chances of being appointed student cadres,…

There has been growing interest in the business of international education. It is often assumed that universities seek international students as a means of generating revenue. The broad purpose of this study was to understand the effects of increased international student enrollment on net tuition revenue. Informed by resource dependency and…

This article proposes a novel approach to detect differential item functioning (DIF) among dichotomously scored items. Unlike standard DIF methods that perform an item-by-item analysis, we propose the "LR lasso DIF method": logistic regression (LR) model is formulated for all item responses. The model contains item-specific intercepts,…

In this study, we examined the impact of covariate measurement error (ME) on the estimation of quantile regression and student growth percentiles (SGPs), and find that SGPs tend to be overestimated among students with higher prior achievement and underestimated among those with lower prior achievement, a problem we describe as ME endogeneity in…

The current study investigated the associations between teacher personality and pupil control ideology and the way in which these variables impact the methods used by Midwestern teachers (n = 123) to respond to and intervene in hypothetical instances of relational aggression, presented via vignette. Regression analyses indicated that aspects of…

The current research examined the psychometric properties and utility of a measure of college classroom environment in predicting goal-related outcomes rooted in goal contents and achievement goal theories. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses in Studies 1 and 2, respectively, yielded support for two distinct and gender-invariant classroom…

Despite decades of research on racial disproportionality in special education, the underrepresentation of Asian Americans in services tends to be overlooked in policy and practice. Underrepresentation, however, raises the possibility of similar concerns about misidentification, bias, and racial inequality within schools as overrepresentation. Yet,…

Reader expectations form across hierarchical scales of discourse (e.g., from coarse to fine: genre, narrative, syntax). Cross-scale interactivity produces word reading times (RTs) with multifractal structure. After introducing multifractals, we test two hypotheses regarding their relevance to reader expectations: (1) multifractal evidence of…

Analytical chemistry has often been a difficult subject to teach in a classroom or lecture-based context. Numerous strategies for overcoming the inherently practical-based difficulties have been suggested, each with differing pedagogical theories. Here, we present a combined approach to tackling the problem of teaching analytical chemistry, with…

Background: Creating greater stability in the teacher labor force and improving teacher quality is an important education policy priority in the United States. While there is a robust literature on the external, environmental reasons teachers stay in or leave the occupation, little is known about the role internal, person-level factors play in…

This study investigates the knowledge of binding in 21 English-speaking children with SLI, aged 6;08-16;05, compared to 21 children with WS, language- and age-matched, and 21 language-matched control children, aged 4-7;10. Our results demonstrate no difficulties in the interpretation of reflexive or personal pronouns in SLI, revealing an intact…

Drawing on data from the 2011 Australian National Church Life Survey (NCLS), this study was designed to assess peer and parental influence on frequency of church attendance, attitude toward church, and attitude toward Christianity among a sample of 6256 young churchgoers between the ages of eight and 14 years, attending a range of denominations,…