I conducted a set of four studies to catalogue and examine course elements, including active learning strategies and evidence-based teaching practices, and their influence on student experiences and performance in college biology classes. In the first study, I defined the term "active learning" and catalogued the 300[plus] strategies…

There is concern over international students' low academic achievement at the college level. Due to language challenges and cultural differences, international students' academic achievement is not satisfactory that resulting in a decrease in the retention rate. Note-taking strategies such as the concept-mapping method may enhance international…

The Detection of surgical adverse events has become increasingly important with the growing demand for quality improvement and public health surveillance with surgery. Event reporting is one of the key steps in determining the impact of postoperative complications from a variety of perspectives and is an integral component of improving…

The purpose of this study was to provide quantitative data about the effectiveness of the traditional lecture method of teaching in a college science course in contrast with an interactive case study method of teaching and learning. The study investigated one professor's teaching an Advanced Human Anatomy and Physiology course at Nebraska Wesleyan…

At the start of the 21st century large scale educational initiatives reshaped the landscape of general education setting rigorous academic expectations to all students. Despite the legal efforts to improve K-12 education, an abundance of research indicates that students entering college often lack basic learning and study skills. For adolescents…

Text analysis has become an important research activity in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Statistical text mining and natural language processing have been shown to be very effective for extracting useful information from medical documents. However, neither of these techniques is effective at extracting the information stored in…

High school biology classes traditionally follow a lecture format to disseminate content and new terminology. With the inclusive practices of No Child Left Behind, the Common Core State Standards, and end-of-course exam requirement for high school diplomas, classes include a large range of achievement levels and abilities. Teachers assume, often…

Recent scholarship on secondary reading calls for a shift from teaching generic literacy strategies to teaching discipline-specific language and literacy practices (Fang & Schleppegrell, 2008; Moje, 2008; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012). This call for disciplinary literacy instruction (DLI) reflects the growing recognition that literacy…

New products continue to launch quickly but many of them are converged products. The "new product" is not a completely new thing to consumers and the basic features stay the same. As a result, the added functions or fancy design can't explain why consumers adopt the new media. Past studies have examined perceptions of innovations or user…

The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to understand how everyday cross-cultural interactions affected the adjustment of undergraduate international students attending a private research university in the northeastern United States. To fulfill this purpose, three research questions were formulated as a foundation for this investigation:…

Student math achievement continues to be a national, state, and local concern. Research suggests that note taking can improve academic achievement, but current research has failed to report how low achievers might benefit from using note taking during math classes. The purpose of this study was to determine if teaching students structured note…

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of structured note-taking compared to traditional note-taking on the acquisition of scientific knowledge for students with and without learning disabilities (LD) and students with reading difficulties (RD). An additional purpose was to examine whether the two note-taking methods…

The purpose of this study was to examine students' understanding of argumentation when talk and writing were provided as learning tools, as well as to explore how talk and writing can best support students' construction of scientific knowledge. Most current studies have examined discourse patterns over a short interval of only a few class periods…

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of federal probation officers' perceived value of different distance education formats, the learning strategies they used to facilitate their learning, and the degree to which learner autonomy varied among the probation officers. This comparative case study sought to answer the following three…