Environmental sustainability is one of the most pressing concerns of the twenty-first century, and working toward sustainability will require broad lifestyle and cultural shifts, particularly in industrialized societies. Yet despite a growing recognition of the importance of issues such as climate change, food security, transportation, and…

With the ever growing cultural and linguistic diversity at institutions of higher education, local and institutional language planning is becoming increasingly important. By examining university policies and planning processes, ESL professionals can more appropriately advocate for their students, as well as create and implement language policies…

This study identifies essential program elements for Whatcom Discovery Center, a Northwest Educational Service District cooperative program providing academic and social/emotional development services to students who are challenged with severe social/emotional and/or chronic mental health disorders. The seven (7) Superintendents and seven (7)…

The purpose of this study was to develop an IRT model that would enable the estimation of decision indices based on composite scores. The composite scores, defined as a combination of unidimensional test scores, were either a total raw score or an average scale score. Additionally, estimation methods for the normal and compound multinomial models…

A significant body of research has shown that effective leadership is an essential element of successful efforts to improve student performance in primary and secondary schools. Emotional intelligence is an important component of effective leadership. This study--involving elementary school principals in a Kentucky school district--suggests there…

The Focused Practice Instructional Approach (FPIA) was based on the Environmental Mode of instruction established by George Hillocks' 1986 meta-analysis for writing instruction. The purpose of this study was to clearly define the FPIA approach using the original studies and test if it was significantly effective in fourth grade classrooms using…

This study was designed to research the difference in parental training in phonemic awareness on the achievements of their children who had been identified as struggling readers. Subjects were children from ten kindergarten and first grade classrooms residing in federally subsidized housing. An experimental group (the phonemic awareness trained…

Scholastic Aptitude Test, called SAT, has an immense influence in Chinese education. Most Chinese students choose to attend tutoring programs outside of the school curriculum to help them prepare. This study explores the tutoring programs both in China and the United States to assess variables that affect the quality of their preparation.…

Declared the year of YouTube, 2007 was hailed as bringing a technological revolution in relation to pedagogy, one that may provide more convenient access to materials for language input, such as auditory, visual, and other types of authentic resources in order to promote advancement in all four language learning skills--listening, speaking,…

Distance education programs are becoming more available than ever before, enabling increasing numbers of adult learners to pursue their educational goals. The purpose of this study was to examine whether web-based tutorials would be effective support tools to replace the face-to-face interaction present in traditional classes. The web-based…

A universal problem to our society is the dramatic increase in the number of security threats, risks, and vulnerabilities to our nation's computer systems, data, and infrastructure. Our future success depends upon the problem-solving and thinking abilities of professionals entering the Information Assurance and Security (IAS) field. These…

This dissertation is a first look at English-speaking children's acquisition of the syntax of the partitive. It presents four experiments that contrast three types of structures and examines how they interact with adjectival modification: the partitive, the pseudopartitive and complex nouns with prepositional adjuncts. The experimentation…

Introduction. Missing data is a common problem in research and can produce severely misleading analyses, including biased estimates of statistical parameters, and erroneous conclusions. In its 1999 report, the APA Task Force on Statistical Inference encouraged authors to report complications such as missing data and discouraged the use of…

This study examines effective ways for teachers to interact with students when they are working collaboratively. Through prolonged daily engagement with one class of students working in groups, the nature and experience of one teacher's interventions are documented using practitioner action research. Specifically, small-group dynamics and teacher…

The problem. This study was designed to investigate emotional human, E, technology awareness, T, and knowledge management, K, competences or dimensions of Latin American public post-secondary educational institution departments; specifically how these ETK competences or dimensions affect faculty satisfaction. Method. Three-hundred and…