The purpose of this study was to determine perceptions of importance and the knowledge of skill levels required to develop and deliver distance learning successfully by the Louisiana Technical College (LTC) instructors as related to professional development needs. The study sample consisted of a group of approximately 200 instructors/teachers…

This study was an investigation of mathematics instruction and professional development at a rural elementary school. The Department of Education in a southern U.S. state implemented a new curriculum in 2007 that required major changes in mathematics instruction. The problems were that teachers engaged in different levels of training and many…

The two-fold purpose of the study was to determine whether or not the Arkansas Leadership Academy's Master Principal Institute's (MPI) five curriculum content standards were aligned with the literature of effective educational leadership practices, and to ascertain if there were significant relationships among the principals' leadership practices…

The purpose of this qualitative, comparative case study was to determine the extent to which learning and improvement cultures were perceived to be linked to the traditional and non-traditional accreditation and Program Outcomes Assessment paradigms in use in two university hospitality programs. The findings of this study revealed that the…

This study explored 78 elementary school principals' perceptions of classroom mathematics instruction in an effort to build understanding of the professional vision (Goodwin, 1994) of elementary school principals as it relates to mathematics instruction. This study also tested the theory of Leadership Content Knowledge (Stein & Nelson, 2003) which…

Participation and achievement in science by students of color and girls remains inequitable despite decades of initiatives aimed at leveling the playing field. Science in out-of-school-time is a strategy that emphasizes the role of informal education, however, robust descriptions of learning environments which effectively recruit and retain…

This dissertation is comprised of two manuscripts that resulted from a single study that tested the efficacy of teaching parents how to infuse comprehension strategy instruction into read alouds with their preschool-aged children. Twenty dyads, each composed of an incoming kindergartener and one of his or her parents, participated in this study.…

In the last few years, there has been a growing problem with the prevalence of being overweight. This is becoming an accepted lifestyle in the African American community, and has begun to impact not just adults, but also adolescents and young children. There are problems associated with being overweight or obese that could have lifetime…

In this study, the effectiveness of worked examples that emphasizes problem features (data type, number of groups, purpose of analysis) associated with specific problem types (t-test, chi-square, correlation) were examined on students' construction of problem schemata compared to traditional solution-only worked examples. A sample of 96 students…

In an effort to understand the viability of inner-city adolescents' career choice goals, the purpose of this study was to predict relationships among person factors, environmental factors, career maturity, career decision-making self-efficacy, vocational outcome expectations, and viable career choice goals within this population. I predicted that…

The purpose of this study is to explore the decision making processes of public two-year college presidents. This research examines the factors that influence a public two-year college president's decision to respond or not respond to external stakeholders that request new or improved programming/services from the college. The researcher…

In this dissertation, I present my attempts at designing an elementary mathematics methods course to support prospective teachers in developing an understanding of how to teach all students in learning powerful mathematics. To do this, I introduced them to teaching mathematics for equity and social justice by discussing ways to support students'…

Today the issue of how young children with and without special needs play and learn together is getting more and more attention and support from a variety of sources. Although many educators and parents realize the importance of having effective early childhood programs that serve children with all abilities and their families, less clear are data…

A current trend in education is that small teacher groups, called professional learning communities (PLC), are being advocated as a tool to help teachers reach struggling students. Educators planning to use PLC as an intervention strategy can benefit from research-based information about PLC best practices. This multiple case study addressed the…

The purpose of this case study was to (a) examine the main and interaction effects of gender, race and class-type on mathematics achievement, mathematics attitudes and sources of mathematics self-efficacy, (b) investigate teacher-student interactions in the single-sex mathematics classes and (c) investigate perspectives about single-sex…