Research strongly supports the use of mentoring programs and induction practices for assisting and retaining quality teachers and easing beginning teachers' transition into their full time roles as professional educators. Much evidence and research have proven that mentoring new teachers is good practice with regard to retention within the field…

The literature on student academic success of law students is limited to mostly single institution studies, and as such, a nationwide, multi-institutional empirical study of the factors that predict student academic success is greatly needed by higher education scholars, law school admission officers, faculty, and administrators. This dissertation…

Educators have observed reluctance in middle school students to vocally engage in small group learning tasks, the result of which could be a decrease in student learning. The same students have been observed collaborating with peers outside of the classroom when using technology. The purpose of this study is to determine if technology provides a…

High quality teachers are an essential piece of the agricultural education model and directly influence the quality of the total program. However, there has been a steady consolidation and elimination of agricultural education teacher preparation programs in New England. In order to understand how this trend affected agricultural education in this…

The dynamic act of knowledge transfer, or the connection of a student's prior knowledge to features of a new problem, could be considered one of the primary goals of education. Yet studies highlight more instances of failure than success. This dissertation focuses on how knowledge transfer takes place during individual problem solving, in…

Leveraging the knowledge of an organization is an ongoing challenge that has given rise to the field of knowledge management. Yet, despite spending enormous sums of organizational resources on Information Technology (IT) systems, executives recognize there is much more knowledge to harvest. Prediction markets are emerging as one tool to help…

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between school leadership and implementation of school-wide reforms. I chose the case of Response to Intervention (RTI), which had been adopted throughout my district. In order to explore the relationship between leadership and implementation, I sought two sets of data. First, I wanted to…

Due to the absence of a Georgia Educator Certificate in instructional technology, and the lack of state-wide staffing guidelines or requirements for instructional technology specialists, there is a lack of consistency in the qualifications and staffing of P-12 instructional technology specialists in Georgia public schools. The result is a lack of…

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of music perception in predicting phonological awareness in five- and six-year-old children. This study was based on the hypothesis that music perception and phonological awareness appear to have parallel auditory perceptual mechanisms. Previous research investigating the relationship between these…

The current study examined Korean college students' L2 writing development and performance, motivation, and strategies while taking ESL writing classes. The present study expands the literature by examining the effects of various learner characteristics on L2 writing development. The selection and the expected effects of learner variables were…

This work describes the design and construction of an open source, entity resolution system that enables users to assign and maintain persistent identifiers for master data items. Two key features of this system that are not available in current ER systems and that make persistent identification possible are (1) The capture and management of…

Research has shown that simply linking learners from different countries using technology does not automatically bring about learning benefits; instead it frequently ends in tensions that, if not addressed, could potentially hinder learning. Using the lens of Vygotsky-inspired sociocultural theory, activity theory, and Engestrom's activity systems…

This study examined the dynamic interaction of heavy alcohol use and depressive symptoms at three points over a time period of 11 years from adolescence to adulthood using a subset of data from the nationally representative, multi-year, longitudinal data source, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Results revealed…

The purpose of this study was to examine the variables which influence a high school student to enroll in an engineering discipline versus a physical science discipline. Data was collected utilizing the High School Activities, Characteristics, and Influences Survey, which was administered to students who were freshmen in an engineering or physical…

With the rapid growth of multimedia in education, the importance of investigating the effect of redundancy, repeating instructional messages to enhance conceptualization in instructional material design, is becoming more important. Various studies have been conducted recently regarding the effects of different forms of redundancy. A multimedia…