Self-directed learning readiness is the level of ability and willingness to manage one's own learning. Research has been conducted on the self-directed learning readiness of both student nurses and professional nurses. However, research has not expanded to focus on the self-directed learning readiness of new graduate Registered Nurses entering the…

Although approximately 20% of American college students are on academic probation, relatively little is known about how community college students perceived academic probation's role in assisting them throughout their entire college journey. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of community college students who experienced…

The gap between the number of available STEM workers and employers' needs in the workforce is projected to be about two million by 2025. One way to reduce the magnitude of this gap is to increase the number of entry-level STEM workers joining the workforce, however the attrition rate for college STEM majors is about 33%. Research has indicated…

The development of online program options in higher education has prompted the discussion of how well the modality fits the nature of social work education and the Council on Social Work Accreditation (CSWE) educational standards. To examine the relationship between online education and social work education, this research study focused on…

The purpose of this case study was to understand the perspectives of school administrators in Ontario on policies and practices addressing disproportionality in student discipline and suspension rates for minority students. The problem is that minority students get school suspension at significantly higher rates than non-minority students. The…

This dissertation investigated the performance of Florida's workforce development programs over a ten-year period. The state's system for coordinated training and employment services consists of programs operating and reporting according to the federal workforce initiative standards. They served as the focus of this performance analysis. A…

In this thesis, we hypothesize that data visualization users are subject to systematic errors, or cognitive biases, in decision-making under uncertainty. Based on research from psychology, behavioral economics, and cognitive science, we design five experiments to measure the role of anchoring bias, confirmation bias, belief bias, and myopic loss…

The purpose of this mixed methods action research was to implement and evaluate the use of virtual interactive notebooks with gifted students in a 4th grade social studies classroom. Specifically, this study focused on two overarching research questions: (a) how does the implementation of virtual interactive notebooks in an inquiry based,…

Alcohol use peaks in early adulthood and rates are significantly higher among college students than their non-college attending peers. Negative alcohol-related outcomes are common among college drinkers. This longitudinal study aimed to reduce negative alcohol-related outcomes, indirectly, by promoting the salience of first-year students' academic…

This research study investigates the effects cultural mentoring programs have on African American male college graduates. The objective of the holistic qualitative narrative research study was to understand how participants in the Southwest Youth Leadership Institute (SYLI) (pseudonym), understood their cultural mentoring experiences and describe…

Given the well-documented relation between executive functioning (EF) and math skills in preschool, there is a surprising lack of evidence on early intervention approaches that have successfully, and consistently, impacted both EF and math skills. To confront this gap in the literature, Study 1 explored why an established EF intervention impacted…

Universities rely on the enrollment of international students who typically pay full tuition. Chinese international students make up the largest population of international students attending universities in the United States. At a midsize public college in the Northeast, the demand for career counseling support from international students is…

In 2009 the Texas legislature created the National Research University Fund (NRUF), intended to encourage a select group of public doctoral universities in the state, known as emerging research universities (ERUs), to increase their institutional status related to academic research by awarding supplemental financial support for meeting specific…

This purpose of this study was to determine how students perceive and experience critical thinking in an undergraduate business curriculum and whether or not those perceptions and experiences are influenced by gender and academic discipline. This was a qualitative study that used focus groups and individual interviews to explore student…

Exploring the longitudinal development of second language (L2) lexical use has been one of the important topics in L2 vocabulary research. One approach to examining longitudinal changes in L2 lexical use is to capture changes in lexical features as found in learner production, such as L2 writing, over time. To further facilitate this approach, the…