The attrition rate of early career teachers is high. In fact, the government spends $2 billion annually to replace teachers in the first five years of their tenure (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2005). The purpose of this dissertation is two-fold: 1) to test the relationship between purpose, psychological well-being, and affective commitment…

Youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have high rates of co-occurring mental health needs that necessitate mental health interventions. Given the unique clinical characteristics of youth with ASD, there have been significant efforts to adapt and test mental health interventions for this population. Yet, characterization of the nature and types…

Educators are many things to many children going well beyond the teaching of academics. School administrators are responsible for ensuring that they have practices and personnel to support all learners' diverse needs. Children come to school each year with more and more burdens on their shoulders in the forms of abuse, trauma, or mental health…

Using telehealth in early intervention has the potential to increase family and child outcomes as well as to increase access to family-centered services. Yet, little is known about families' perspectives, including concerns, prior to using telehealth in early intervention. The purpose of this study was to explore families' perceptions and…

This dissertation conducted two studies that examined two methods of instructional planning to effectively match students to a whole number computation intervention that would best meet their needs. Study 1 was a systematic synthesis of all studies that used brief experimental analysis (BEA) to determine an effective mathematics intervention for…

One of the main challenges in intervention research today is understanding who benefits from universal school programs. Partly, this challenge involves capturing the diversity of experiences, needs, and traits in across students that may explain "who benefits" from interventions. Here, we studied "motivation profiles" (i.e.,…

Assessment data from the Department of Education shows that reading performance continues to be a concern for many Colorado students after the third grade. Thus, students continue to struggle with reading after the third grade despite the implementation of READ Plans. The purpose of this cross-sectional, qualitative study was to explore teachers'…

One of the most substantial challenges facing colleges and universities today remains the creation of a healthy campus environment. With more than one-third of college students classified as overweight or obese by body-mass index (BMI) and the known negative health consequences associated with obesity, campuses have a deliberate responsibility to…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) seeks to provide practitioners information about "what works in education." One challenge in understanding "what works" to practitioners is that effect sizes--the degree to which an intervention produces positive (or negative) outcomes--are not comparable across different interventions, in…

Background: The salience of economic evaluation in education -- cost analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, and benefit-cost analysis -- has been on the rise in recent years. In contexts when resources are especially scarce, research to support decision-making to maximize benefits to students is especially valuable. Economic evaluation can help to…

Past research has shown that intergroup contact can be a promising intervention to improve intergroup relations and that contact-based interventions might be most effective during adolescence. In postconflict Northern Ireland, widespread residential segregation and a largely separate school system limit opportunities for intergroup contact between…

There have been significant efforts to develop, adapt, and test interventions targeting the co-occurring mental health conditions common among autistic youth, with several extant narrative and systematic reviews demonstrating the efficacy of these interventions. Yet, a methodological analysis of the literature testing these interventions,…

The purpose of this study was to examine the benefits of a treatment approach for adults who stutter that focuses on core communication competencies rather than attempt to modify speech fluency. Eleven adults who stutter completed a 12-week treatment program at The Arthur M. Blank Center for Stuttering Education and Research. Pre- and…

We conducted a pilot study using intentional teaching strategies with specially designed materials to improve accuracy and production of targeted English morphosyntax structures with six deaf and hard-of-hearing students (kindergarten to first grade). A multiple baseline single-case research design (SCRD) consisting of 20-minute sessions four…

A controlled intervention study supported the effectiveness of teachers implementing an integrated intervention ("Better Start Literacy Approach"; "BSLA") to accelerate foundational literacy skills for children in Year 1 with low levels of oral language ability in a community with significant challenges to effective teaching…