Instructional designers (IDs) wear many hats, one of which is to be an effective collaborator with subject matter experts (SMEs). The SMEs and IDs share the common goal of providing efficient and excellent instruction to students that meets stated outcomes. Despite this shared goal, consultation and the subsequent working relationship between IDs…

Paraeducators deliver the bulk of special education services, and it is expected that the number of paraeducators employed in the United States will continue to increase. As paraeducators become a more common component of special education, it becomes more important to fully understand their experiences. The purpose of the study was to better…

This study focused on discovering what instructors' experiences help elementary school students develop not only academically but also socially. This qualitative multiple case study method was guided by Yin, and the purpose of the study was to investigate effective instruction strategies from the perspective of instructors who worked in an…

Context: Visualization as a multi-modal process is widely explored in curriculum studies. I examined a facet of how people learn to participate in visualization practices that remains under-studied in preschool and post-secondary settings: moment-to-moment agency while in unfamiliar socio-cultural realms. I conducted a thirteen-month ethnography…

This critical narrative inquiry was guided by two overarching research questions. First, this study examined how white undergraduates interpreted and gave meaning to their white racial identities. This line of inquiry sought to understand how participants made sense of their white racial selves, the self in relation to people of color, and the…

The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to understand how faculty perceive and experience students' use of coercive power in faculty-student relationships. Interviews were used to gather data from faculty members who had experienced students' use of coercive power. Data reveal that students' use of coercive power can negatively impact…

Despite more than thirty years of the underrepresentation of women in engineering being a persistent concern, research on the cause of the problem has not been successful in reversing the trend. A plethora of theories as to why females are not entering engineering exist, yet they only address issues on the surface and do not attend to a…

The world's first school-based one-to-one iPad initiative was implemented in a British school in 2010. Every year since, more iPad initiatives have been implemented in British schools, with school leaders citing various reasons for introducing them. However, results of iPad initiatives have not always matched expectations. British schools are also…

This study utilized symbolic interaction theory and a phenomenological methodology to explore the meanings and perceptions of special education by parents whose children have special needs (i.e., disabilities) and their experiences working with school professionals. Parents who accepted Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) services and parents…

The influx of information communication technologies (ICTs) into the modern family household can create tension between teens' right to access and autonomy and parents' right to mediate their ICT activities that needs to be accommodated within the everyday routines of the family. As a part of their everyday lives teens' must negotiate the…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain insight into the experiences of North American teachers working in international schools and why they chose to leave within the first year. The findings offer insights into the following questions: (1) How do these teachers experience relationships with leadership and students? (2) What role, if…

One pressing issue in libraries today is the censorship of information. This study applies Kurt Lewin's gatekeeping theory to examine the decision-makers as well as the different pressures and constraints that are at issue in decisions regarding challenges and censorship attempts that occur in public libraries. Through an in-depth case study of…

This project examines the worth, experience, and process of post-secondary faculty service work. Service represents a third of the trifurcated, traditional understanding of a professor's work; however, universities and faculty frequently value service less than teaching and research. After examining commonly held attitudes towards service and…

I present an ethnographic study of thirteen nine-year-old, U.S.-born Latino children in rural New Mexico. I employ in-depth individual and group interviews, participant observation, and sand play (a method borrowed from clinical psychology in which children "make a world" in a box of sand) to explore how play interactions represent,…

This dissertation used qualitative, interpretive methods to explore African American and Latino/a community college students' use of autoethnographic writing to express experiences of marginalization and sense of belonging on their college campus. Using postmodernism and critical race theory as theoretical frameworks, I investigated how students…