Based on the 2018-2019 Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) results, nearly half (47%) of all entering kindergarten children in Maryland displayed the foundational skills indicating they are fully ready for kindergarten. A third (33%) are approaching readiness. Twenty percent of children are assessed with emerging readiness skills. The school…

Research in the past decades has investigated the time course of the acquisition of physical knowledge in early development in much detail. However, few is known about the motives that actually lead infants to interact with the objects of their physical world. The research presented here investigated in two experiments if 11-month-old infants'…

The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) has been focused since 2005 on advocating for states to build robust state longitudinal data systems (SLDS). While states have made great progress in their data infrastructure, and should continue to emphasize this work, data systems alone will not improve outcomes. It is time for both DQC and states to focus on…

The recent technological advancements have led to the availability of a plethora of heterogenous datasets, e.g., images tagged with geo-location and descriptive keywords. An object in these datasets is described by a set of high-dimensional feature vectors. For example, a keyword-tagged image is represented by a color-histogram and a…

The goal of this study was to examine the reciprocal relationship between statistical investigation and motivation of college students in a Mathematical Reasoning course (Math 1). Unlike previous studies in which students' projects or statistical investigations have been examined as the final product that shows evidence of statistical…

This study explored how designers "perceived" and "used" narrative during the creation of an educational video game. A qualitative, ethnographic, single case study approach was used to collect and analyze data pertaining to the narrative design trajectory of the game design team as well as Citizen Science, the game artifact…

This dissertation addresses the use and modeling of spatio-temporal data for the purposes of providing applications for location based services. One of the major issues in dealing with spatio-temporal data for location based services is the availability and sparseness of such data. Other than the hardware costs associated with collecting movement…

This dissertation addresses the research challenge of developing efficient new methods for discovering useful patterns and knowledge in large volumes of electronically collected spatiotemporal activity data. I propose to analyze three types of such spatiotemporal activity data in a methodological framework that integrates spatial analysis, data…

Although students' difficulties in developing and understanding proofs in mathematics is well documented, less is known about how students' example use may support their proof practices, particularly at the middle school level. Research on example use suggests that strategic thinking with examples could play an important role in exploring…

Background: The term "speech usage" refers to what people want or need to do with their speech to fulfil the communication demands in their life roles. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) need to know about clients' speech usage to plan appropriate interventions to meet their life participation goals. The Levels of Speech Usage is a…

State child welfare risk and safety assessment data were analyzed to determine three levels of in-home service that correspond to the Child Welfare League of America's (CWLA) national caseload standards and to evaluate the number of staff needed to provide services at each level. The analysis revealed that 50% additional case-carrying in-home…

Re-parameterized regression models may enable tests of crucial theoretical predictions involving interactive effects of predictors that cannot be tested directly using standard approaches. First, we present a re-parameterized regression model for the Linear x Linear interaction of 2 quantitative predictors that yields point and interval estimates…

This article reports on a review of empirical research published in selected higher education journals in 2008, which was focused on examining how often theories are developed through research. This review found relatively little evidence of theory development. Drawing on the notions of internal and external languages of description, it is argued…

Structural priming paradigms have been influential in shaping theories of adult sentence processing and theories of syntactic development. However, until recently there have been few attempts to provide an integrated account that explains both adult and developmental data. The aim of the present paper was to begin the process of integration by…

We developed an exercise for a university-level ecology class that teaches hypothesis testing by examining acorn preferences and caching behavior of tree squirrels (Sciurus spp.). This exercise is easily modified to teach concepts of behavioral ecology for earlier grades, particularly high school, and provides students with a theoretical basis for…