The goal of this study was to further evaluate the impact of IXL on learning outcomes in math and ELA. Using a quasi-experimental design with matched treatment and control groups, we analyzed data from 296 public schools in Colorado during the 2018-2019 school year. The analysis of IXL Math included 186 schools (93 treatment, 93 control), and the…

Purpose: Personas are lifelike characters that are driven by potential or real users' personal goals and experiences when interacting with a product. Personas support user-centered design by focusing on real users' needs. However, the use of personas in educational research and design requires certain adjustments from its original use in…

We report on mixed methods research that explored pre-service teachers' pedagogical content knowledge in basic musical methods for teaching and learning of basic fractions within the framework of Vygotsky's Theory of Scaffolding. Vygotsky's use of scaffolding opines that knowledge, skills and prior experiences, create the foundation for potential…

Similar content has tremendous utility in classroom and online learning environments. For example, similar content can be used to combat cheating, track students' learning over time, and model students' latent knowledge. These different use cases for similar content all rely on different notions of similarity, which make it difficult to determine…

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first sociolinguistic matched-guise experiment that examined Chinese students' attitudes toward African American English in both its standard and vernacular variants. This pilot study explored Chinese students' implicit bias--if any--toward African American English compared to white American English. For…

Do Americans hold a consistent set of opinions about their public schools and how to improve them? From 2013 to 2018, over 5,000 unique respondents participated in more than one consecutive iteration of the annual, nationally representative "Education Next" poll, offering an opportunity to examine individual-level attitude stability on…

The topic of instructional communication skills of educators is relevant to the learning process, yet the problem exists where many educators are not sufficiently trained in effective instructional communication skills. The outcomes of effective instructional communication skills of educators can enhance communicative cognitive processing,…

States collectively invest over $12 billion a year to support over 4.5 million students through financial aid programs. This interactive 50-State Comparison provides a look at the specific criteria employed in the top two largest aid programs by state. This interactive resource includes details about which state programs are linked to measuring…

This dissertation presents three studies that examined issues related to the production and the perception of pitch in a tone language. The first study examined linguistic contexts that may modulate consonant-induced pitch perturbations (CF0) in a tone language. Previous studies have produced mixed findings regarding the role of linguistic…

This study examines the language use patterns of students in a math class that is part of a Spanish-English two-way, secondary continuation program. Audio recordings from five class periods were analyzed in order to quantify the opportunities provided for minority language by the teacher, as well as student uptake of those opportunities. This is…

Middle school teachers frequently struggle with positively managing student behavior. However, praise-to-reprimands ratios (PRRs) have received little research attention. PRRs studied in elementary school have been associated positively with improvements in on-task and prosocial behavior, but limited research has been conducted on optimal PRRs in…

This dissertation examines the term legal literacy as it applies to the education field and looks at the legal literacy of educators across the country. The dissertation is organized into three separate papers. Paper 1 is a review of the research literature on the legal literacy of educators in the United States and how educators develop legal…

Studies comparing writing media typically compare different modes of writing (e.g., keyboard typing vs. writing, smartphone tapping vs. writing, etc.). The current study sought to investigate the cognitive outcomes of a more direct comparison: tablet- versus paper-based writing. Thirty-two speakers of L1 English were tasked with memorizing 20…

The relatively unfamiliar pedagogy of Soka (value creating) education is analysed for its capacity to promote well-being and social justice, using the well-known Capability Approach (CA) as a comparator. Various aspects of Soka education correspond favourably with the CA, indicating its potential as a credible and constructive approach for…

Purpose: One aspect of morphosyntax, finiteness marking, was compared in children with fragile X syndrome (FXS), specific language impairment (SLI), and typical development matched on mean length of utterance (MLU). Method: Nineteen children with typical development (mean age = 3.3 years), 20 children with SLI (mean age = 4.9 years), and 17 boys…