Lowel Mason highlights the importance of integrating music learning into the curriculum alongside other fundamental skills such as reading, promoting his belief in the transformative power of music education and its impact on child development. Mason stated, "Children must be taught music as they are taught to read" (Pemberton, 1992).…

The current study employs a qualitative, exploratory case study method examining the classroom practices of three 5th grade science teachers from two intermediate campuses within a school district in the Southwest. The study explores opportunities and barriers to high level questioning by teachers leading to critical thinking. Qualitative data…

To guide antiracist curriculum reform in higher education and better support college writers from racially marginalized and traditionally underserved backgrounds, this dissertation emerged from a five-year ethnographic study of a slam and spoken-word poetry program housed in a DEI office at a large research university. Merging feminist…

Schools are pivoting to rebound from the negative effects the COVID-19 pandemic created for student development, academic achievement, and school culture. As all school constituencies collaborate to reinstitute normalcy, support student development, and maximize academic achievement, extracurricular activities may become more essential than ever.…

This dissertation studies how the work of academic advising in higher education is impacted by the advisor's lived experience and how that lived experience impacts their advising practice and self-efficacy. The core interest of the study is how the experience of being a professional academic advisor impacts advisors' ability to do their work…

The purpose of this Viewpoint is to push readers toward seeing OLPE as an essential ally instead of an existential enemy by outlining ways OLPE addresses barriers to quality PE programming and explaining how it can be used as a catalyst for program enhancement and advocacy, so students have opportunities to experience the full potential of their…

With close to a million Texas students attending rural schools, research on what influences student achievement is needed to guide policy, practice, and further research. Building on research relating student demographic variables and per student spending in rural schools to student achievement, through this dissertation research I used…

Organizational sociologists have long argued that informal and formal rules around emotional displays within the workplace seek to maximize employee effectiveness and productivity; however, these rules have also been observed to have negative consequences in the context of employee emotions. These feeling rules establish the workplace emotional…

The present study aimed to explain archival research and demonstrate its relevance as a distinct research method to include in sport management research methods course instruction. The current essay implicitly shows how archival research can complement other research methods and possibly improve upon their limitations. Furthermore, the study…

U.S. undergraduates often hold ill-informed and stereotypical perceptions about the Middle East. While theories of comparative politics can help undergraduates gain a more nuanced view of the region, these theories often strike students as extremely abstract and unrelated to actual experience. The use of novels from the Middle East can help…

This dissertation is comprised of research articles examining the strategies instructional designers' employ to transform both conflict with faculty in higher education and learners' attitudes through instruction. In the first study, we investigated instructional designers' perspectives on how conflict impacts their collaborative work with…

Student media leaders on higher education campuses typically do more than just run a media outlet. From teaching coursework, grading, committee work and mentoring of students' student media leaders find themselves many times overworked and underappreciated. If not handled properly by administration these feelings could lead to burnout of the…

This study was an investigation of three rural high schools in western North Carolina to examine the perceptions of community employers, principals, and career and technical education (CTE) directors as to the skill levels of graduates from CTE programs. The study also determined if the skills being taught in secondary schools meet the needs of…

This paper explores the effect of collaborative learning on academic motivation among students from 17 institutions throughout the United States. Even in the presence of a wide array of potential confounders, collaborative learning exerted a statistically significant and positive influence on students' academic motivation levels across four years…

Parent and community involvement has always been a part of the public education system; from its inception in the early American colonies, local community control was a hallmark of schools. Today, with mandates present in the No Child Left Behind Act, the Race to the Top legislation, and amidst more pressing international comparisons, educators…