Higher levels of student achievement are required to meet the needs of a changing workforce. The effect increases in education spending have on student learning gains among algebra students in Florida was unknown. Most research on per-pupil funding and student achievement is qualitative and measures opinions on the long-term effects of increased…

This dissertation investigates the inequitable distribution and causal impacts of mathematics teachers' content knowledge for teaching (CKT) on instructional quality and student learning outcomes. Using the rich information in the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project longitudinal database, the study addresses three core research questions:…

This dissertation consists of three independent chapters in applied microeconomics. In the first chapter, I study the causal effect impact of early life circumstances on adult psychological well-being using the property reform in China as a positive and policy driven change in economic resources in early life. Exploiting the staggered adoption of…

The most important information conveyed by language is often contained not in the utterance itself, but in the interaction between the utterance and the comprehender's knowledge of the world and the current situation. This dissertation uses psycholinguistic methods to explore the effects of a common type of inference--causal inference--on language…

Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee (2002) stated, "Leaders are made, not born" (p. 100). The quote is indicative of the shift in skills necessary to be a successful 21st-century learner. Instead of mere academic competencies, the 21st Century learner will need a different type of intelligence to be successful. Emotional intelligence may be…

Students enter secondary classrooms armed with attributions for their own successes or failures, informed by experiences in and out of school, but it is unclear to what degree these attributions affect achievement. Additionally, while the influence teacher expectations can have on student achievement is well documented, students' perceptions of…

This qualitative study compared the perceptions of self-identified victims and school authority figures in regards to adolescent relational aggression among female middle school students. Six significant aspects of this issue were explored, including causal conditions; contextual factors; definitions and descriptions of relationally aggressive…

Explanatory style, the ways in which people explain both good and bad events (Seligman, 1998), shares theoretical components with teachers' sense of efficacy (Tshannon-Moran & Woolfolk-Hoy, 2001), which is how capable teachers feel about teaching. According to Bandura (1994), efficacy informs explanatory style, but this assertion does not…

Urban high-school students' low average level of academic achievement is a national problem. A lack of academic progress is a factor that contributes to students failing to graduate. In response to these urban high school student problems, a growing number of urban charter high schools have opened as an alternative to the traditional public high…