The following profiles address the basic decisions and actions that state education policy-makers--in the state departments of education, unless otherwise noted--are taking to foster successful statewide implementation of the new standards and aligned assessments in 15 states. These profiles provide a descriptive overview of each state's…

The purpose of this study was to describe the meaning doctoral candidates ascribed to their persistence in doctoral programs despite challenges they experienced impeding a timely completion of their dissertations. Participants were six doctoral candidates (four women, two men) who had not yet completed a dissertation research proposal. This…

A good textbook must meet a number of pedagogical, psychological, scientific, esthetical, and other requirements. The presented research examines whether the mathematics textbooks in use in Hungarian primary schools in Romania meet those requirements. We used documentation, contents analysis and surveys as research methods. We examined the…

This study investigated instances of the term "systems thinking" among the websites of the Top 25 business schools as ranked by "U. S. News and World Report" in 2010. Since a greater number of instances of the term and its variants in a university's web documents may indicate an increased interest of the institution in the…

The purpose of this study was to explore the role that a collaborative teaching approach, referred to as a community of practice (CoP), had on a team of four second grade teachers' implementation of a science-based interdisciplinary curriculum. Data was collected in the form of extensive observation notes gathered over 10-weeks of twice weekly…

Most business communication classes teach students to use a writing process to compose effective documents. Students practice the process by applying it to various types of writing with various purposes-reports, presentations, bad news letters, persuasive memos, etc. However, unless students practice that process in other contexts outside of the…

Massive international response to humanitarian crises such as the South Asian Tsunami in 2004, the Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Haiti earthquake in 2010 highlights the importance of humanitarian inter-organizational collaboration networks, especially in information management and exchange. Despite more than a decade old call for more research…

During these unprecedented complicated times, there is an equally unprecedented need for an informed citizenry. Many of us watch democracy get played out on the 24-hour news networks. Still others bear witness to it in the social commentaries embedded in the entertainment provided by late night comedians like Jon Stewart. Humor provides a largely…

One of the objectives of any government is the establishment of an effective solution to significantly control crime. Identity fraud in Nigeria has generated global attention and negative publicity toward its citizens. The research problem addressed in this study was the lack of understanding of the dynamics that influenced the adoption and…

The Problem: This study was designed to analyze the evaluation criteria of the instruments used to evaluate superintendents, the job descriptions for those superintendents, and the goals written as part of their Individual Administrator Professional Development Plans (IAPDPs) to determine whether superintendents are being held accountable for…

The purpose of this study was to examine three e-learning technologies based on a pedagogical framework for virtual learning environments, and to explore how these technologies could be used to facilitate extended professional learning opportunities whereby K-12 educators could communicate, collaborate, and reflect on their practice. This…

The development of telerobotic systems has evolved from Single Operator Single Robot (SOSR) systems to Multiple Operator Multiple Robot (MOMR) systems. The relationship between human operators and robots follows the master-slave control architecture and the requests for controlling robot actuation are completely generated by human operators. …

Online learning is an important and rapidly growing area, and asynchronous discussions are a vital component of online courses. This doctoral study examined the influence of discussion moderator messages, specifically messages with direct instruction content, had on those discussions. This study obtained data from content analysis of course…

In recent years, tags have become a standard feature on a diverse range of sites on the Web, accompanying blog posts, photos, videos, and online news stories. Tags are descriptive terms attached to Internet resources. Despite the rapid adoption of tagging, how people use tags during the search process is not well understood. There is little…

When Americans from the eastern part of the United States began moving west in large numbers in the mid-nineteenth century, tensions escalated and conflicts erupted between and among settlers, railroad workers, ranchers, the United States military, and numerous Native American tribes. Incorporating balanced consideration of these diverse and…