With social-emotional learning's (SEL) significant impact on academic, emotional, behavioral, social, and lifelong success, it is necessary to ensure its continued adoption, implementation, and effectiveness within schools. While SEL is at its highest levels of awareness and implementation, it still faces significant barriers to effectiveness.…

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore educators' perceptions of the implementation of CTE in preparing students with the knowledge and skills necessary to seamlessly transition from high school to the workforce or higher education post-graduation. Framework: The California Career Technical Standards for Grades Seven…

In higher education today, there are various programs aimed at improving student retention and graduation success. These programs include both academic and non-academic initiatives aimed at increasing student engagement. One such high impact practice is undergraduate research. There has been an increase in the number of undergraduate research…

Introduction: Influenza affected an estimated 9 to 41 million individuals from 2018 to 2023 (CDC, 2023). Despite vaccination being highly effective, rates remain low on college campuses. This project evaluated a new vaccination delivery model at a university in Northeast Florida. The Student Health Center collaborated with undergraduate nursing…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how young adult participants, who completed the Inspire-High School Program offered through a parochial school, describe the influences that their internal and external environments had on their ability to complete the program in the southern United States. This study used…

The problem addressed in this study was that many students in DE have a decrease in academic success and, as a result, never make it to college-level courses nor complete a program and earn a degree, leading to a decrease in academic success. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to provide insight on historically black colleges…

This paper presents a comprehensive research project aimed at investigating the transitional supports necessary for nontraditional students both prior to and following their entry into higher education. The overarching research question guiding this study is, in which states does the YouthBuild Program appear to be most effective? This research…

The Human-focused Facilitation (HFF) program was evaluated to provide evidence of the effectiveness of the processes used to build facilitator knowledge, skills, and dispositions. This study used an explanatory sequential, mixed-methods design to analyze data from Human-focused Facilitation participants and a focus group that did not participate…

This dissertation conducts an evaluative case study on a community college's Career-Technical Education (CTE) Cultural Resource Management (CRM) technical certificate program to bridge the CRM workforce gap. The study assesses the program's design and development quality by aligning the program theory with stakeholders' needs, including…

This dissertation explores the implementation of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and WIDA frameworks by elementary education teacher candidates during their internships in classrooms characterized by the presence of Multilingual Learners (MLLs). This embedded case study focuses on the Spring and Fall cohorts of 2023, particularly focusing on…

The state of Delaware has a Dual Language Immersion program serving students from different backgrounds and varying socioeconomic statuses with a wide range of diverse needs. The state has ever-increasing difficulty finding qualified teachers who also speak the target language of the program, in this case, Spanish. As a result, districts within…

Higher education institutions have been grappling with significant enrollment declines and have urgently implemented retention strategies to sustain their student populations amid shifting demographics and economic challenges (American Association of Community Colleges, 2023; Hanover Research, 2021). However, these programs often neglect the…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to learn from the perspectives of adult secondary learners (ASLs) and transition navigators (TNs) regarding how K--12 adult education programs serve ASLs as they prepare to transition to community college. In this study, ASLs are defined as adult students working towards their high school diploma or…

Summer school programs have been a part of national, state, and local education systems' instructional programming for decades. These programs exist in varying forms and rarely have a prescribed way in which they should be implemented. There is little to no research about teacher and administrator perceptions about these summer programs. The…

This dissertation is a multi-method study that engaged youth in a digital learning ecology called Literacy Scholars for Justice and focused on critical aesthetic textual interpretation. I employ a queer methodology as the dissertation study's overarching methodological framework. I collected data in a virtual learning ecology during a two-year…