This mixed methods sequential explanatory study was designed to investigate students' persistence in an online Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) Program by researching the implications of goal orientation and other academic, institutional, and student-related factors of non-traditional students enrolled in such a program at the University of St.…

Policy mandates to increase the time dedicated to the teaching of reading and mathematics has left little time for arts instruction. Recent research has indicated a positive relationship between improvement in reading comprehension and the integration of arts into instruction. Teaching students to use mental imagery as a reading strategy is one…

As more females enter administrative positions in the field of education, the significance of females assuming presidency positions increases. With many administrators nearing retirement in the community college system, leadership opportunities for females will become more readily available. The purpose of this qualitative study was to share the…

The definition of plagiarism that is used in university handbooks is a simple one, and policies along with tiers of disciplinary strategies are used by faculty members in higher education to deter students from committing a plagiarism infraction based on this simple definition. However, plagiarism still occurs on college campuses, and this may be…

New technologies and Internet resources are becoming more and more integral to 21st century writing. To write well in the 21st century requires the coordination of new technologies, new skills, and new information. The central challenge to coordinate these new elements of contemporary writing is the deictic influence they have on writing.…

This study classified students into different cognitive load (CL) groups by means of cluster analysis based on their experienced CL in a gene technology outreach lab which has instructionally been designed with regard to CL theory. The relationships of the identified student CL clusters to learner characteristics, laboratory variables, and…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of undergraduate college students attending a public and a private university in the State of Kuwait to understand how they develop their understanding and valuing of information literacy and information literacy standards. Data from student and faculty interviews and student…

With the pervasiveness of digital technology, elementary students almost instinctively begin inquiry-based instruction with a bias. Visual information from digital devices competes with elementary science inquiry. To counteract this effect, teachers can use advance organizers. The advance organizer is a tool or a mental learning aid to help…

Effective instruction is multifaceted, dependent largely on the context and, consequently, on numerous variables. Although "effective instruction" is difficult to define, in the author's experience--and as the work of mathematics education specialists and researchers indicates--three key features of quality instruction stand out: (1) Teaching…

One of the rumors making the rounds of K-12 educators goes something like this: The Common Core State Standards do not allow "prereading"--the pedagogical practice meant to help students better understand a text they are about to read--or for that matter any classroom activities that contextualize a text through outside sources. The interesting…

The purpose of this dissertation is to study students' competencies in generating scientific explanations within the domain of complex systems, an interdisciplinary area in which students tend to have difficulties. While considering students' developing explanations of how complex systems work, I investigate the role of prior knowledge…

One widespread solution suggested for improving underperforming schools is to assign leadership coaches to school principals to help principals learn to maximize the strength of the educational staff and lead the improvement of student performance. Yet, there is limited literature on what leadership coaches know and do when attempting to improve…

The Common Core State Standards represent an ambitious effort to improve teaching and learning at an unprecedented scale. Adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia, these standards are an attempt to dramatically change what students and teachers do in school, by redefining high-level, thought-provoking instruction as the norm for all…

A major challenge in contemporary research is how to connect medical education and cognitive neuroscience and achieve synergy between these domains. Based on this starting point we discuss how this may result in a common language about learning, more educationally focused scientific inquiry, and multidisciplinary research projects. As the topic of…

New undergraduate students arriving to study physics at the University of Bristol from 1975 onwards have all taken the same test of their knowledge and understanding of physics and mathematics. Many of the questions test knowledge of material that has been in the A-level syllabus for maths or physics throughout this period. The ability of incoming…