Sexual assault is a pervasive problem that has devastating consequences for college students. California's legislation stipulates that public colleges and universities must define sexual misconduct and sexual consent as well as provide ongoing sexual assault prevention education on campus. Despite these efforts, little is known about how well…

Success in chemistry requires not only the ability to recruit prior knowledge but also the ability to establish strong connections between new and existing concepts to form knowledge clusters around core principles. How these knowledge structures are organized can be used to understand the relationships between concepts within a student's mind.…

The annual National Collegiate Soils Contest (NCSC) has long been anecdotally recognized as a beneficial event for participating students to practice soil profile descriptions and landscape interpretations. The objective of this study was to quantify student learning outcomes and to identify how students' perspectives shifted over the course of…

Despite widespread use of compulsory online prevention training, sexual harassment continues to occur at high rates. Most universities use online sexual harassment prevention (SHP) programs to meet state compliance requirements, but there is little research evaluating their effectiveness. The purpose of the current quantitative study was to…

Background and Context: Pair programming is used in classrooms to promote learning and engage a more diverse group of students in computing fields, but little is known about what it looks like in middle school. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine how programming pairs were interacting and about what. Method: Video, audio, and screen…

Objective: The current study aimed to examine (1) gender differences in college students' knowledge of sexual and reproductive health care (K-SRHC) service access points, and (2) the relationship between demographic and psychosocial factors and college students' overall K-SRHC service access points. Methods and Participants: Self-report online…

TechXcite is an engineering-focused, discovery-based after-school science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) program. The free curriculum is downloadable from http://techxcite.pratt.duke.edu/ and is comprised of eight Modules, each with four to five 45-minute activities that exercise the science and math learned in school by using…

Given the dearth of high-quality curriculum materials aligned with the new standards (NGSS and CCSS) and low student persistence in STEM fields, we sought to develop and test a STEM curriculum that would improve student knowledge, interest, and emotions. A cluster randomized control trial was conducted to assess the impact of Speedometry, a…

Although consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is associated with many negative health outcomes, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, the relationship between consumer nutritional knowledge and the amount consumed is poorly understood. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between knowledge of…

Problem solving is a highly valued skill in chemistry. Courses within this discipline place a substantial emphasis on problem-solving performance and tend to weigh such performance heavily in assessments of learning. Researchers have dedicated considerable effort investigating individual factors that influence problem-solving performance. The…

Historically, most efforts to improve public knowledge of science and technology have focused on improvements in K-12 schooling, although post-secondary education and informal education have also been mentioned as important factors. Currently, little empirical data exist to determine how or when to best leverage science and technology education…

The nutrition environment in schools can influence the risk for childhood overweight and obesity, which in turn can have life-long implications for risk of chronic disease. This dissertation aimed to examine the nutrition environment in primary public schools in California with regards to the amount of nutrition education provided in the…

Newly developed assessments of nutrition and exercise knowledge, attitudes, and behavior were administered to 383 eighth-graders. Evidence for the validity of assessment scores was evaluated with five findings. First, parent- and self-reported behaviors were similar and congruent for healthy eating and exercising but not for sedentary behaviors or…

Background: African-American and Latino children living in neighborhoods with a low-socioeconomic index are more at risk of obesity-associated metabolic disease than their higher socioeconomic index and/or white peers. Currently, consistent and reliable questionnaires to evaluate nutrition and physical activity knowledge in these children are…

Evidence-based programs for substance use and HIV prevention (SUHIP) were adapted for high-risk juveniles detained at 24-hour secure correctional facilities. In this pilot study, comparisons were made between adolescents who received the SUHIP intervention and a control group on changes in: (1) knowledge of HIV prevention behaviors, (2) attitudes…