Testlets bring several perks in the development and administration of tests, such as 1) the construction of meaningful test items, 2) the avoidance of non-relevant context exposure, 3) the improvement of testing efficiency, and 4) the progression of testlet items requiring higher thinking skills. Thus, the inclusion of testlets in educational…

This dissertation builds upon previous coaching research by providing an examination of a university success-coaching program that utilizes the Appreciative Advising Model framework. This dissertation examines what differences exist in the academic self-efficacy and academic motivation of students participating in success coaching. This…

Teachers in a rural southeastern state school district are not integrating technology in ways that provide students with engaging technology-based learning experiences. The purpose of this study was to explore teachers' current technology-based instructional practices based on the substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition (SAMR)…

Transformative learning pedagogy in higher education leads to increased student engagement. The problem with transformative learning in higher education is deficiencies in research on increased student engagement obtained with transformative learning pedagogy. This research study addressed unanswered questions in the literature by exploring…

This study examined how personal, behavioral and environmental factors influenced educational outcomes of Black collegians at predominately white institutions in the south. Specifically, 11 institutions are represented in this study from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. The purpose of this study…

A general conception of discussion and its relation to the development of reflective thinking is applied to philosophical inquiry in the classroom. Consideration of what makes a discussion philosophical is used to reveal the kind of thinking involved and then set within a model of discussion for the classroom designed to engage students in it. It…

This dissertation is published in the format a white paper series which tells the story about Butler Tech's Fifth Day Experience across six issues. FDE is a student-centered initiative that was launched in the spring of 2020, and aims to operationalize deeper learning by exploring student voice, teacher agency, equity, personalized learning and…

This dissertation is composed of three studies. The first and second examine the U.S. private tutoring industry which heretofore has gone largely undocumented by academic research. I show that not only has the industry grown precipitously within the last few decades, but that a disproportionate amount of that growth has taken place among areas…

This dissertation measured the impact of the integration of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and historical inquiry on 10 and 11 year old 5th grade charter school students. By using Q methodology, a mixed methodology research tool, this study examined three hypotheses. These include the outcomes of holistic learning, the effect of…

Latent growth modeling (LGM) is a popular and flexible technique that may be used when data are collected across several different measurement occasions. Modeling the appropriate growth trajectory has important implications with respect to the accurate interpretation of parameter estimates of interest in a latent growth model that may impact…

The role of soft skills at school is still debated, but they have emerged as important factors for students' academic achievement and life satisfaction. This study focuses on the combined influence of soft skills (in terms of adaptability, curiosity, leadership, initiative, perseverance, and social awareness), extracurricular activities,…

The forced-choice (FC) item formats used for noncognitive tests typically develop a set of response options that measure different traits and instruct respondents to make judgments among these options in terms of their preference to control the response biases that are commonly observed in normative tests. Diagnostic classification models (DCMs)…

Despite the increasing entry of Latinas into higher education, this group continues to be underrepresented at the level of leadership. Previous studies have indicated Latinas that have achieved academic administrative leadership roles can play an important role in helping others to aspire to and attain such positions by offering guidance based on…

The distinguishing feature of dynamic assessment (DA) is the dialectical integration of assessment and instruction. However, how to design the targeted instruction or mediation has been relatively underexplored. To address this gap, this study proposes the attribute-based mediation model (AMM), an English-as-a-foreign-language listening mediation…

Writing can be challenging to implement in upper elementary classrooms because teachers report needing additional support and students may struggle to meet the academic and developmental demands of emerging adolescence. This was true of one diverse, high-need, under-resourced school that had ambitious writing instruction goals. To meet these…