The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how adjunct faculty experienced transformative learning as a result of their efforts to teach information literacy for their classes at community colleges in New Jersey. Information literacy was defined as the ability to identify information needs and the skills to discover, evaluate, and…

This dissertation was a study of the efficacy of incorporating a creative writing-based curriculum into English Composition I courses. The goal of this study was to determine whether students learning with this style of curriculum could meet the student learning outcomes and master the core competencies for this course as effectively as students…

For students to be successful in future mathematics classes, mathematics teachers must be able to help students decipher content in Algebra I, the foundation of higher mathematics. Research on vocabulary in the math classroom shows there are multiple ways to represent vocabulary and reading comprehension. The research question, which focused on…

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) use has greatly expanded over the past 10 years. POCUS refers to the use of portable ultrasound at the bedside for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. POCUS offers an advantage to both healthcare providers and patients because it gives accurate and rapid information that can lead to diagnosis or to narrow the…

This instrumental case study utilized an ABR component to investigate music composition as a pedagogical tool in higher education. This was achieved through three facets: gaining an understanding of undergraduate students' compositional experiences, students' accounts of the pedagogy's impact upon their learning, and through the educator's…

The explosion of the Internet and prominence of social media platforms have created a dynamic online information ecosystem. The roles of traditional gatekeepers of credible information (e.g., news organizations) have been diminished, and individuals are often on their own in evaluating an abundance of information online coming from more sources…

There is a decrease in completion rates for students with learning disabilities enrolled at community colleges. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how community college faculty who taught at a small rural institution in southeastern Virginia perceived modifying course instruction for students with learning disabilities.…

The idea of freedom in education has its roots in the social justice movements of the 1950s and 60s. Civil rights groups coalesced independently of other marginalized groups and movements of its time. While similar in nature, environmentalism and civil rights issues rarely crossed paths. As environmentalism made its way into science education and…

Fitting wrongly specified models to observed data may lead to invalid inferences about the model parameters of interest. The current study investigated the performance of the posterior predictive model checking (PPMC) approach in detecting model-data misfit of the hierarchical rater model (HRM). The HRM is a rater-mediated model that incorporates…

Research indicates that too often the newest teachers do not receive the support and development they need to serve their students well, especially in the hardest-to-staff schools in the highest poverty communities. The purpose of this modified case study was to examine the perceptions of whether, what, and how early career teachers learned from…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological research study was to explore the perspectives of Arkansas secondary school administrators regarding the use of co-teaching to deliver special education (SPED) content instruction. Individual interviews and a focus group discussion was used to collect data from nine Arkansas secondary…

The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive study is to explore how teachers describe the process of creating lesson plans that use drama-based instruction (DBI) in the classroom to engage students as well as how they describe their experience using DBI in the classroom to engage students. Fourteen teachers located in the state of Florida…

This extended literature review is an overview of historical restrictions and current limitations of properly identifying African American students for special education. This review examines implications of overidentification and under-identification of African American students in predominately minority learning environments and predominately…

Many individuals with autism spectrum disorder do not demonstrate observational learning (OL), a skill that aids in learning during group instruction. Few studies have evaluated strategies for teaching individuals to engage in OL, and none have evaluated the effects of such strategies on individuals' learning during group instruction. In this…

When deriving the equation describing the transverse motion of a one-dimensional vibrating elastic string, introductory physics textbooks often assume constant tension and/or small amplitude vibrations. However, these simplifying assumptions are not only unnecessary, but they overlook the elastic nature of the tension and yield an inconsistent…