This dissertation examines the affective qualities of non-player character motion in a Virtual Reality (VR) cognitive training game, their impact on players' core affective experiences, game performance, and cognitive training outcomes. How do the movements of game characters in a VR environment affect players' experienced emotions, gameplay…

"Many kindergarteners struggle to master the foundational behaviors that enable them to successfully engage in classroom learning" (Cameron, et al., 2012, p 1229). As a school-based occupational therapist, there has been a noticeable rise in concerns from kindergarten teachers regarding the fine motor, visual motor, self-help, and…

This quantitative study extends previous research on the impact of one to one (1:1) laptop environments on student outcomes in English Language Arts (ELA) by focusing on students from various socio-economic backgrounds, while using a new technology-enhanced, state-administered assessment to measure performance. This study is significant because…

In the short history of online education research, researchers studying teacher experiences regularly relied on anecdotal examples or small samples. In this research, we sought to support and enhance previous findings concerning the best practices in online education by performing randomly sampled, nationwide survey of online and blended course…

Dealing with uncertainty is a critical part of human decision-making and confidence reflects one's belief about the relative likelihood that various outcomes occur when making decision under uncertainty. Unfortunately, confidence often deviates from the actual quality of the decision, leading to under- or over-confidence. Calibration, the…

While many studies examining the effectiveness of using dynamic geometry software exist, few studies exist at the elementary school level. An extensive data analysis of student performance on New York State Math Assessments revealed that students in the fifth grade may not have had a clear understanding of interior angles sums of polygons, more…

Using touch screens presents a number of usability and accessibility challenges for blind people. Most touch screen-based user interfaces are optimized for visual interaction, and are therefore difficult or impossible to use without vision. This dissertation presents an approach to redesigning gesture-based user interfaces to enable blind people…

This study examined the nature of communication experienced by ethnically diverse students who participated in an online distance education course. A quantitative survey research design was used to gather data from students enrolled in an online distance education course. The research examined whether the independent variables, (a) instructional…

Academic learning time (ALT) has long had the theoretical underpinnings sufficient to claim a causal relationship with academic achievement, but to this point empirical evidence has been lacking. This dearth of evidence has existed primarily due to difficulties associated with operationalizing ALT in traditional educational settings. Recent…

This dissertation explores study habits and interactions of students in an online first-year writing course. Much research has been conducted about online learning, but little has focused specifically on first-year writing students. First-year writing presents some unique challenges because of the age and preparedness level of traditional…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the mathematics anxiety treatment messages in a computer-based environment on ninth-grade students' mathematics anxiety and mathematics learning. The study also examined whether the impact of the treatment messages would be differentiated by learner's gender and by learner's prior…

Technology usage is increasing important for community college students, but whether nontraditional students differ from traditional students in technology usage and support was unclear. Further, it was not known whether Nontraditional and Traditional community college students feel equally connected to the college when using social networking…

Successful completion of online courses by community college students is an issue both at the national and local level. The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore community college student perceptions of online learning within the theoretical construct of the Community of Inquiry model, which describes the manner in…

Information systems benefits for individuals (ISBI) has been a key construct for the IS success model, which has evolved over the years to strengthen the theoretical foundation for the IS field. However, relatively little research has been done to explore, develop and validate the underlying theoretical dimensions for this crucial construct.…

The objective of this dissertation is to explore the socio-cultural contextualization of the digital divide in Japanese society. I undertake this task by developing a theoretical and methodological framework based on the notion of "culture as models," while explicating the cultural dimensions of the digital divide and the dynamics of…