Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are purely online learning environments that are typically available for free for anyone with internet access. These courses have attracted hundreds of thousands, if not millions of learners around the world and the number of users has increased rapidly along with the growth of new platforms and a wide diversity…

Actionability is a critical issue in learning analytics for driving impact in learning, bridging the gap between insights and improvement. This dissertation places actionability at the forefront, integrating it throughout the learning analytics process to fully leverage its potential. The study involves designing, developing, and implementing…

One of the key challenges of Engineering Education is developing students' ability to navigate and solve problems that have multiple solution paths. In order to accomplish this, the process of solving these moderately- and ill-structured problems needs to be better understood. We used two approaches to achieve this. First, we performed problem…

Because the failure rate for college algebra is large and sometimes up to 50%, college algebra serves as a gatekeeper to STEM fields and degree completion. Therefore, it is critical to examine students who are at risk of dropping, withdrawing, and failing college algebra help-seeking behavior. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to focus…

This study explored how enrolled freshman college students, ages 18-21, described their experiences and user behaviors while actively using personal communication devices (PCD) and social networking sites (SNS) to complete course-related activities in their introductory psychology class at a four-year public university. Twenty semi-structured…

The problem for this study was the lack of research about what teachers consider to be the successes, the risks, and the potential dangers of working in a school prison setting. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate teacher perceptions about successes, risks, and potential dangers of teaching in a prison school setting. This…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to understand how middle school Career Technical Education (CTE) teachers and school site administrators in Riverside County perceived the structure and content of a CTE course's impact on student classroom behaviors. A second purpose was to explore what elements of a CTE course, teachers and administrators…

Online higher education has expanded over the last decade to meet workforce needs for job placement in areas such as healthcare. Collaborative activities are a method used in higher education to develop the higher-order skills that students need to succeed in today's workforce. However, instructors have continued to make the integration of online…

Physical literacy involves being physically active throughout the lifetime (Whitehead, 2010) and has been referred to as a journey (Green et al., 2018). Developing each of the four domains of physical literacy - daily behavior, self-efficacy, motivation, and knowledge - can provide the tools necessary to maintain physical activity (PA) throughout…

This study explored the science learning experiences of elementary English Language Learners (ELLs) in a fourth-grade mainstream science classroom in an urban setting. Informed by ethnographic research and case study design, this study interrogated the celebrated and marginalized practices within common classroom procedures and what…

Reading and writing are central to the conception of science and the work of scientists. While recent scholarship on science literacy suggests the benefits of integrating reading and writing in science teaching, less is known about the extent to which science teachers implement such integration. This naturalistic study examines two sixth-grade…

This study used a design research framework to teach secondary high school science students about environmental sustainability. A high school teacher and researcher collaborated to design a two week environmental science unit to help students make sense of complex environmental sustainability issues. This dissertation study sought to answer the…

Continuing Medical Education is a conceptual framework utilizing Edward Deming's plan-do-study-act as a means to measure CME activity outcomes, which is similar in nature to Ernest Stringer's action research think-look-act cycle that was used as the design of the action research study. This action research study incorporated Moore's Levels of…

Students with learning disabilities (LD's) in inclusion classrooms often face both academic and social difficulties (Alesi, Rappo, & Pepi, 2014; Clever, Bear, & Jovonen, 1992; Lavoie, 2005; Madge, Affleck, & Lowenbraun, 1990; McIntosh, Vaughn, Schumm, Haager, & Lee, 1993; Mercer & Pullen, 2009; Nowicki, 2003). Research on…

This is a multi-article format dissertation that explores emotional and cognitive engagement in higher education classrooms. Student engagement in higher education classrooms has been associated with desired outcomes such as academic achievement, retention, and graduation. Student engagement is a multi-faceted concept, consisting of behavioral,…