This dissertation compares the performance of equivalence test (EQT) and null hypothesis test (NHT) procedures for identifying invariant and noninvariant factor loadings under a range of experimental manipulations. EQT is the statistically appropriate approach when the research goal is to find evidence of group similarity rather than group…

Dialogue act (DA) classification plays an important role in understanding, interpreting and modeling dialogue. Dialogue acts (DAs) represent the intended meaning of an utterance, which is associated with the illocutionary force (or the speaker's intention), such as greetings, questions, requests, statements, and agreements. In natural language…

Data-driven learning uncontroversially plays a role in human language acquisition--how large a role is a matter of much debate. The success of artificial neural networks in NLP in recent years calls for a re-evaluation of our understanding of the possibilities for learning grammar from data alone. This dissertation argues the case for using…

Prominent student engagement theorist Nora (2011) cited the assertion that models of student engagement "such as those underlying the National Study of Student Engagement and the Community College Study of Student Engagement, are misspecified due to the lack of incorporation of culturally relevant variables" (p.127). The purpose of this…

With the development of PC, internet as well as mobile devices, we are facing a data exploding era. On one hand, more and more features can be collected to describe the data, making the size of the data descriptor larger and larger. On the other hand, the number of data itself explodes and can be collected from multiple resources. When the data…

Competition for philanthropic dollars has escalated in recent years, particularly in higher education. A new type of charitable giving--venture philanthropy--has emerged and is impacting both educational policy and practice. Venture philanthropy involves donors using business models, championed practices of venture capitalists, and decision making…

Reading instruction at the K-2 grade levels is of utmost importance for a student's education. The foundational skills acquired during this time period will serve a student throughout their life. Elementary teachers often feel unprepared for the demands of the struggling, proficient and advanced readers within their classrooms. The professional…

The fundamental problem faced by automatic text understanding in Natural Language Processing (NLP) is to identify semantically related pieces of text and integrate them together to compute the meaning of the whole text. However, the principle of compositionality runs into trouble very quickly when real language is examined with its frequent…

Knowledge of scientific models and their uses is a concept that has become a key benchmark in many of the science standards of the past 30 years, including the proposed Next Generation Science Standards. Knowledge of models is linked to other important nature of science concepts such as theory change which are also rising in prominence in newer…

The purpose of this study is to develop a costing model for maintenance and operations expenditures among 16 single-campus California community college districts and assess the impact of a variety of variables including size of student enrollment, physical plant age, acreage, gross square footage, and general obligation facility bonds on district…

The three-tiered reading model is a widely practiced instructional scheme that moves students in and out of reading intervention groups during the school year. Though designed to treat students who need extra help learning to read, this interruption of reading interventions may hinder some students' progress. The purpose of this study was to…

Given the proper focus, professional learning communities (PLCs) are the most effective form of professional development. Current literature shows no other mode hitting as close to the mark of entrusting teachers to manage what they are teaching, how they are teaching, where they are intervening, where they are challenging, and why all this is all…

This applied dissertation was designed to ascertain information about the quality of the e-learning program at a local community college as measured against a set of best practices established by the Commission on Institutions for Higher Education (CIHE). The problem was that, although the subject college's administrators mandated that the…

This study examines if and how holistic, person-centered academic advising, based on an integrative framework of educational psychology (Bronfenbrenner), sociology (Weber), and counseling (Rogers) theories, can be fostered, implemented, and assessed at a research university. The study design uses the coding of qualitative data and its translation…