This study aimed to address a gap in understanding the enrollment decisions of both Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) students and hearing students in DHH-related fields, such as audiology, Deaf education, social work, and sign language interpretation, at Gallaudet University. Despite the growing demand for professionals in these areas, only 5% of…

Background/Context/Setting: In the wake of growing evidence regarding the negative impacts of suspension on student outcomes, states and school districts have implemented disciplinary reforms, restricting or eliminating the use of suspension for minor misbehaviors. Recent evaluations of these reforms suggest that they have the potential to…

This dissertation consists of three chapters that examine topics in the economics of education. Chapter 1 tests the impact of holding student loan debt on borrowers' post-schooling decisions, with a focus on how it changes the way they evaluate risks when choosing between jobs. Chapter 2 analyzes the impact of an expansion of public-school choice…

The Partnerships for Student Success grant program is designed to improve educational outcomes for students who are economically disadvantaged by funding grantees to establish and strengthen community partnerships among school districts, businesses, government, and non-profit agencies. The Utah State Board of Education awarded four grants during…

The Advanced Placement (AP) program is widely offered in American high schools and has been touted as a way to close racial and socioeconomic gaps in educational outcomes. Using administrative data from Michigan, I exploit variation within high schools across time in AP course offerings to identify the relationship between AP course availability,…

The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative study was to investigate the relationship between learned helplessness and academic baseline levels among adult students who dropped out of high school and have returned to a high school equivalency program to prepare to take the GED examination. The study controlled for the variables of the age of…

Current formulas for awarding federal student financial aid are based primarily on income and don't fully account for wealth inequality, especially by race. Students from low-income and low-wealth families--who are disproportionately Black and Latine--often have to take out more student loans to attend college. Inevitably, without family wealth to…

This guide will delve into the current landscape of state-funded STEM-focused internships and work-based learning opportunities available to high school students in Massachusetts. By examining these programs in detail, the aim is to highlight the specific learning opportunities they provide, the types of industry partnerships they promote, and the…

White-label programs in higher education, designed and supported by online program management (OPM) firms, pose unique challenges to current policy. In part this is because OPM firms and services are either exempt from policy or fall into a gray area that policy has not yet considered. Policymakers, however, do not need to develop entirely new…

Skills Bootcamps were introduced to support adults to upskill and retrain in priority high-growth sectors with skills shortages. Skills Bootcamps are short, flexible courses, that are co-designed with employers and run for up to 16 weeks. Most are equivalent to the National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) levels 3-5 in the national qualifications…

Currently 15 percent of U.S. students receive special education services, a widespread intensive intervention with variable effects on students. Spurred by changes in federal policy, many states and districts have begun adopting the Response to Intervention (RTI) approach to identifying students to receive special education services. RTI seeks to…

This paper presents how a playful and embodied pedagogical approach (fun-ing) (Huxley, 2023) was applied to an international online poetry workshop for young people, and in doing so, foregrounds qualities of learning experiences, rather than neo-liberal skills-based outcomes alone. The methodology of fun-ing is grounded in a reflexive and emplaced…

A balanced interrelation between theory and practice is still often missing out in many (language) teacher education programs (Esteve, 2018; Lantolf & Esteve, 2019). Hence the need to critically analyze teacher educators' professional practice and rethink it. This paper presents a deep reflection upon the difficulties and the possibilities of…

This case study is based on a program evaluation of a professional certificate program that trains early childhood care and education providers to build and support young children's emotional literacy. The research project described in the case study will address approaches to methodological combination, justifying research design and changes to…

At a time when institutions of higher education are exploring alternatives to traditional admissions testing, institutions are also seeking to better support students and prepare them for academic success. Under such an engaged model, one may seek to measure not just the accumulated knowledge and skills that students would bring to a new academic…