When conservatives believe American universities implement policies that limit their free speech rights and demean their social identities, their support for the institution can decline. Negative partisanship and political polarization push consumption of agreeable media and distrust of antagonistic media, which means conservative media and social…

Organizations advance and grow by solving problems one at a time, and management graduates should possess critical thinking and problem-solving capacities to be effective business managers and creative engineers. The problem was that critical thinking and creative problem solving are operationally ill-defined in engineering and management…

Computers infiltrate almost every aspect of our lives, including our homes and cars. For work, education, or personal fulfillment, computing has increased dramatically. The need for an educated workforce is expanding as technology devices become smaller, faster, and more powerful. We can teach students how to use math, logic, and computational…

One pedagogical technique that promotes conceptual understanding in mathematics learners is self-explanation integrated with worked examples (e.g., Rittle-Johnson et al., 2017). In this work, we implemented self-explanations with worked examples (correct and erroneous) in a software-based Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) for learning algebra. We…

This qualitative action research study sought to evaluate and improve an early childhood special education program designed to meet the needs of students presenting with social emotional and behavioral skill deficits that impact their ability to participate in the general education setting. Participants in the first cycle of research included…

Transforming curriculum by implementing Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in the college-level classroom helps students internalize the concepts of a course, improve their critical and reflective thinking skills, learn to problem-solve using questioning, and ultimately construct a better understanding of course concepts in a personally relevant way.…

The quest in the "Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Which Chiral Drug Is the Fairest of Them All?" escape room activity was to find an enantiomer drug that cures a "sleeping sickness". Based loosely on the story of Snow White, first-year pharmacy student pairs had 50 min to solve gamified stereochemistry quizzes (tasks 1-4), collect…

Acid-base titration concepts and experiments are ubiquitous, yet challenging, aspects of the general chemistry curriculum. Most general chemistry courses include at least one acid-base titration laboratory experiment, though the focus is often on determining the concentration, pK[subscript a], or molar mass of an analyte rather than on the details…

A high rate of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have impaired psychomotor development. To date, these children have had few opportunities to participate in extracurricular Physical Education programs. However, nowadays a number of intervention programs are arising with the aim of improving their motor performance. The objectives of…

The rapid growth of international students, particularly from Sub-Saharan Africa, in U.S. higher education institutions calls for more critical research to understand their nuanced experiences in these institutions. So often, international students are homogenized and put under one umbrella, which shadows their unique experiences, especially those…

Categorical data become increasingly ubiquitous in the modern big data era. In this dissertation, we propose novel statistical learning and inference methods for large-scale categorical data, focusing on latent variable models and their applications to psychometrics. In psychometric assessments, the subjects' underlying aptitude often cannot be…

Novice programmers need well-designed instruction and assessment informed by research and critical perspectives to conquer the historical challenges associated with completing introductory computer programming courses successfully. These issues include high dropout and failure rates, the struggle to acquire and retain basic programming knowledge,…

The attrition rate for novice principals is a critical issue for schools, districts, and the nation. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of novice principals and how they conceptualize the role of the principal. The novice principals in the study worked in the Washington…

We examine the transition to adulthood in a poor, white, rural community in Appalachia. Young adults come of age in a context of persistent poverty, economic decline, an ongoing opioid and addiction crisis, and strong community norms about family and work bolstered by religious institutions. For low- income young adults in this community, this…

A local professional organization for interior designers issued a student design competition for a community cultural center to celebrate and teach others about a specific culture of the student's choosing. Culture was broadly defined beyond race, nationality, religious, and social beliefs to include any group with shared interests. Students were…