Non-certified personnel in K-12 education in Pennsylvania represent approximately one-third of all public education employees. Although there has been large-scale reform in the evaluation of certified staff, the non-certified population may not be evaluated at all. The lack of consistency in evaluating this large segment of K-12 education…

The present qualitative action research study was conducted to gain further understanding of administrator and teacher perceptions about grading systems in elementary schools, administrators' and teachers' ability to ensure consistent and fair practices and any correlation that grades may have to students' social, emotional, and/or academic…

This study addressed the impact that undergraduate teacher education programs have on preservice educators, and upon the quality of education that urban-minority school communities receive. The problem is that variances exist among the standards used for undergraduate teacher education programs with specific regard to culturally responsive…

A significant gap has been identified in research-based findings and classroom instructional practices of hearing ASL teachers in high schools in the U.S. (Rosen, 2015). Research has shown the absence of standardized ASL instructional guidelines, rules, and procedures has created a significant gap in teaching and learning practices at the high…

Introductory physics lab instruction is undergoing a transformation, with increasing emphasis on developing experimentation and critical thinking skills. These changes present a need for standardized assessment instruments to determine the degree to which students develop these skills through instructional labs. In the first part of this thesis,…

Large, multi-business unit firms are decentralizing their overall corporate structures. At the same time, the structures of their IT organizations are becoming more centralized. This is contrary to current wisdom that the IT organization structure will mimic the structure of the corporation, all else being equal. Because the general business…

This study examined the digital and social media communication practices of nine urban universities including UMSL and compared those to known corporate best practices. The purpose of this study was to (1) research how these universities are using social/digital communications to engage with students and prospective students; (2) compare the…

The purpose of this modified Delphi research study was to investigate instructional designers' beliefs about the instructional strategies and activities to be included in a universal framework for designing quality, self-directed, multimedia, open educational resources (OERs). With the rapid growth of availability and use of OERs by a widely…

When Item Response Theory (IRT) is operationally applied for large scale assessments, unidimensionality is typically assumed. This assumption requires that the test measures a single latent trait. Furthermore, when tests are vertically scaled using IRT, the assumption of unidimensionality would require that the battery of tests across grades…

In response to the rapid development of digital libraries over the past decade, researchers have focused on the use of metadata as an effective means to support resource discovery within online repositories. With the increasing involvement of libraries in digitization projects and the growing number of institutional repositories, it is anticipated…

This dissertation collects three independent but interrelated studies exploring how school intra-organizational mechanism may mediate the impact of external interventions on improving teaching and learning. This first study examines how high-quality professional development (PD) can promote the diffusion of effective teaching strategies among…

Purpose. The purpose of this research was to further an understanding of how the federal government is addressing the challenges of interoperability for emergency response or crisis management (FEMA, 2009) by informing the development of standards through the review of current congressional law, commissions, studies, executive orders, and…

In today's difficult economic times, it behooves every program to be prepared to defend its worth. In the higher education arena, evidence of the attainment of our goals for student learning and development are best attained through the assessment of learning and development. Advising is a useful learning, development and retention tool that many…

The role of international regulatory standards within the current global environment has become of the most importance. The age of the global system and free market capitalism carried us into the unprecedented age of regulations, and standard setting. Regulations are now becoming the emerging mode of global governance. This study focuses on…

Multiple factors have influenced testing agencies to more carefully consider the manner and frequency in which pretest item data are collected and analyzed. One potentially promising development is judges' estimates of item difficulty. Accurate estimates of item difficulty may be used to reduce pretest samples sizes, supplement insufficient…