The purpose of this study was to examine a proposed motivational model of science achievement based on self-determination theory. The study relied on U.S. eighth-grade science data from the 2007 Third International Mathematics and Science Study to examine a structural model that hypothesized how perceived autonomy support, perceived competence in…

Researchers have well documented how campus climate has affected students. The campus climate has affected a student's ability to persist through college and ultimately has impacted his or her entire life. Many campus climate studies have been conducted at universities, and most of these studies have focused on racial climate implications. The…

Given the perils of today's dynamic and resource-constrained environment, intellectual capital has become a source of competitive advantage for public sector organizations. Composed of three elements--organizational knowledge, innovative capability, and organizational commitment--intellectual capital is an asset that cannot simply be bought or…

An avatar is a representation of an identity in an online virtual world. Most virtual environments provide options for avatar customization. This means that a person can either create an avatar from an existing selection of body parts and apparel or design an even more personalized image. Second Life, the investigative site for this study, is a…

This study used a convergent parallel mixed methods design to examine teachers' environmental attitudes and concerns about an outdoor educational field trip. Converging both quantitative data (Environmental Attitudes Scale and teacher demographics) and qualitative data (Open-Ended Statements of Concern and interviews) facilitated interpretation.…

In this thesis, we establish a novel probabilistic framework for the data clustering problem from the perspective of Bayesian decision theory. The Bayesian decision theory view justifies the important questions: what is a cluster and what a clustering algorithm should optimize. We prove that the spectral clustering (to be specific, the…

Scope and method of study. This quantitative survey study examined teachers' understanding of assessment, their practices in assessing student learning and their use of assessment data to guide their teaching. Specifically, this study sought to determine if level of training had an impact on teachers' understanding of assessment, teachers'…

This thesis investigates the implications of binding phenomena for the development of a reductionist theory of grammatical dependencies. The starting point is the analysis of binding and control in Hornstein (2001, 2009). A number of revisions are made to this framework in order to develop a simpler and empirically more successful account of…

The purpose of this study was to examine how and why elementary teachers select books for the read-aloud. A phenomenological approach was used to conduct a fourteen week descriptive study. Three participants were purposefully selected to provide an in-depth examination of teachers' book selection processes. Data was collected through observations,…

The purpose of this study was to examine the current practices and pre-service preparation of recent graduates of North Carolina Birth-Kindergarten (B-K) teacher licensure programs related to individualizing curriculum and instruction for children. Participants were 142 individuals who graduated from B-K licensure programs in four-year…

Educational attainment is increasingly necessary for individual mobility and national economic development at the same time that the racial and ethnic makeup of the population continues to diversify, signaling a need to improve degree attainments across racial/ethnic groups. Latinos are the largest minority group in the country and the group with…

This qualitative study shares the complex stories of two low-income business students who attend a flagship, public university as out-of-state students with the purpose of understanding, describing, giving voice to, and discovering insight from their experiences. Throughout U.S. Higher Education history, there is a pattern of limited participation…

This dissertation examined how the executive leadership model influenced the leadership and governance of intercollegiate athletics. The focus centered on understanding the role of Athletic Directors who concurrently serve as institutional Vice Presidents using the Social Constructivist framework. Qualitative analysis was utilized to achieve the…

Along with the greater productivity that CAD automation provides nowadays, the product data of engineering applications needs to be shared and managed efficiently to gain a competitive edge for the engineering product design. However, exchanging and sharing the heterogeneous product data is still challenging. This dissertation first presents a…

The purpose of this study was to provide insight into the caring student-teacher relationships between students with disabilities and their teachers. Specifically, this study examined two different, yet related ideas. The first research question addresses how middle school students with emotional disabilities and their teachers described and…