Schools have several competing demands, and often suffer from inefficient access to needed resources. Thus, the addition of any program into an already overtaxed school system must be met with convincing evidence that 1) a need or problem exists and is relevant to the education of students, 2) the problem is amenable to change, and 3) addressing…

The recent rapid proliferation of distance education necessitates the need for strong levels of academic accountability. An important factor found to influence and predict student success is students' perceptions of their online courses. Understanding how learners perceive their online learning environment is paramount to effective course design…

High quality student engagement activities are essential if students are to be successful learners. Over the years, many instructional strategies and models have been devised to encourage teachers to develop student engagement activities that result in high achievement. The Reading First Model initiative was introduced as a part of the No Child…

This dissertation is a bounded case study that examines the attitudes and perceptions of Teaching Assistants (TAs) in Composition about their TA preparation in an independent writing program at a large public research university in California. Specifically, this study focuses on TAs who were pursuing Ph.D.s in either English Literature or…

The number of academic institutions offering courses online has increased with courses being offered across almost all academic disciplines. Faculty members are often confronted with the responsibility of converting a face-to-face course to an online course while simultaneously dealing with new technologies and the interrelationship between the…

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that impact the classroom management rating score of teachers at Concept Schools managed charter schools. Concept Schools, a non-profit management and consulting organization that manages charter schools in the Midwest, has adapted Charlotte Danielson's rubrics for "Enhancing Professional…

Most electronic communities have little crossover communication with each other, beyond specific linkages to other sites. So there is scant crossover among the world of academia, the "world of work," and the virtual world of social media. The objective of this research is to examine e-learning communities across academic disciplines to…

Independent scholars are a growing part of the academic landscape. They may have been jilted by the academic job market, or are uninterested in either being on the tenure track or in cobbling together full-time work as adjuncts. Like traditional professors, they perform research, secure grants, and publish books and papers. In some cases, their…

In the present study, we investigated the ability to assign moral responsibility and punishment in adults with high functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome (HFA/AS), using non-verbal cartoons depicting an aggression, an accidental harm or a mere coincidence. Participants were asked to evaluate the agent's causal and intentional roles, his…

Discipline in schools can be difficult, especially when dealing with students with disabilities. In fact, Clash (2006) reported that working with students with disabilities under stringent legal demands has become a source of stress for many principals. The typical principal has not received extensive preservice or inservice training in this area.…

Teacher quality is one of the most important school related variables associated with student achievement. Therefore, raising the quality of the U.S. public education teaching force is essential to ensure that every child has the opportunity to achieve academic success. In order to accomplish this, significant analytical inspection of teachers is…

Research in undergraduate statistics education often centers on the introductory course required for a large percentage of college students. While acknowledging the diverse setting, audience, and purpose of introductory courses, existing research assumes that courses offered by different disciplines share the same goals and teaching practices. The…

Student mobility is the process of describing how children move from one school to another for reasons other than promotion. Highly mobile students are defined as students who move six or more times during their school career. Schools that experience the constant flow of students moving in and out struggle with delivering consistent and effective…

Previous research has suggested the use of corporal punishment is widely endorsed in our society (Straus, 2000; Straus & Stewart, 1999). Furthermore, perceptions of what constitutes corporal punishment vary. The present study examined social dominance orientation (SDO) and age of child as potential factors that may influence perceptions of what is…

In this article, I draw mainly on an analysis of my research experiences in science and higher education. My aim is to construct a conceptual argument that will help explain some of the evident complexity of the higher education field and inform future developments. I propose that the study of higher education is an open-access discipline with the…