This dissertation is about designing learning environments that foreground students' epistemic agency as they "do science" in a science classroom. I build on the prior work that combines two important strands in learning sciences - agent-based modeling of complex systems and constructionism to design learning environments. I call such…

A high number of cyber breaches in organizations occur as a result of email phishing attempts. Research has shown that cyber education has a positive impact in user awareness of attack methods resulting in the reduction of compromises from email phishing attempts. However, in some instances, cyber education does not have a positive impact on the…

This dissertation examines how analog and digital history games complicate and challenge the dominant discourse of teaching American History through Texas state high school-focused texts and these texts complicity in suppressing non-normative histories. These histories are formed at the intersection of political, social, and cultural power…

As Computer Science course enrollments have increased over recent years, instructors have turned to automated grading systems to help relieve the burden of processing student assignments. However, the available autograding solutions have generally lacked support for traditionally difficult-to-grade advanced topics courses. In this thesis, I…

The rapid pivot to the online environment, necessitated by COVID-19, has resulted in some universities adopting online meeting platforms, such as Zoom, for exam invigilation. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness and reflect on the student experience of exams invigilated with an online meeting platform. In 2020, twenty-four subjects with…

Nontraditional students often enroll at institutions of higher learning without the technology skills needed to complete coursework and achieve academic success. The problem at a small community college in the Southern United States is that instructors are providing limited support for nontraditional students using technology, which may leave…

A strategic priority for university educators is to ensure graduates have developed a range of transferable skills. An important skill required by employers is the development of digital capabilities. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the move of courses into blended formats which provided an opportunity for educators to redesign their modules to…

This study experimentally investigated the effectiveness of feedback on learner refusals in a computer-simulated academic advising session. Ninety participants were assigned to one of three conditions: implicit feedback, explicit feedback, and comparison group. Oral and written discourse completion tasks (DCTs) were administered in a pretest…

Purpose: This study builds a new system for automatically assessing learners' speech elicited from an oral discourse completion task (DCT), and evaluates the prediction capability of the system with a view to better understanding factors deemed influential in predicting speaking proficiency scores and the pedagogical implications of the system.…

Drawing upon 15 semi-structured interviews with teachers at a Catholic school in the British city of Hull, we offer new qualitative insights on the effects of students' unequal access to digital tools when switching to distance learning in the context of COVID-19 school closures. During the 2020-2021 academic year, this school serving pupils from…

The number of learners seeking to acquire an L2 by means of apps is ever-increasing. This study examined the effectiveness of using the app "Mondly" for the acquisition of L2 English vocabulary while accounting for differences in the acquisition of receptive and productive aspects of word knowledge. Twelve Danish young learners (aged…

Artificial intelligence (AI) transforms the educational landscape by radically changing how lessons are taught and students are evaluated. In light of these facts, it is critical to consider learners' emotional and mental wellness as the building blocks of education. Given these facts, it is imperative to consider learners' emotional and mental…

Digital transformations within educational systems are recurrently justified by their promise to enhance learning activities and outcomes. We examine this claim in a study of pupils' perception and experiences with computer-based adaptive tests in higher classes in Danish public primary schools. The study relies on survey and interview data and…

The on-going implementation of the new curriculum of the new education system in Kenya includes the administration of technology in the classroom. In this study, this was achieved through the use of a gamified app in a local private school in Kenya, a gamified Swahili app. As Swahili is the language that is Kenya's national and one of two official…

The rapid development of mobile Internet has brought new development opportunities to college education and teaching. Taking university English teaching as the research object, this paper analyses the characteristics of mobile Internet in the classroom, WeChat platform, English learning app and other forms of teaching, the changes and influence of…