The exponential growth of digital libraries and the proliferation of scholarly content in electronic formats have made data mining and information retrieval essential tools for effectively managing, organizing, and disseminating knowledge. This thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of the advancements and challenges in these fields, with a…

Non-evidence-based practices (NEBPs) are interventions that have not been indicated by research to be effective in treating the core deficits of autism or the related behavioral challenges across developmental domains. Under the umbrella of NEBPs are the interventions for autism that are physically and/or emotionally harmful, as well as those that…

This mixed methods study investigates the research on strategies for distance learning to identify best practices for distance teaching of secondary students. For this study, distance learning was defined as an organized educational experience that takes place either synchronously or asynchronously while the student is in a different physical…

As autistic individuals grow into adulthood, they are much more likely to experience a need for employment-related skills, with research on these skills lacking relative to child-focused research. Accordingly, this dissertation examined existing literature on employment-related skill development and based on community consultation, developed…

Formative assessments (FA), which can occur in or out of class, are a way for students to demonstrate their understanding of the material, to see progress, and to receive feedback from instructors related to their learning process. Examples of in-class FAs include clicker questions with peer discussion, while homework assignments are an example of…

This doctoral dissertation explores diverse facets of online research and comprehension among college students with English as a second or foreign language (L2 students). The research involves three distinct investigations within this overarching theme. Firstly, the study delves into the online reading and writing practices employed by Korean L2…

The gap between skilled workers needed and skilled workers available increased since the start of the fourth industrial revolution. Employees now need different knowledge, skills, and abilities to enter the workforce and stay current with new technologies than they did in the past. One way this knowledge gap and skilled worker shortage could be…

Online information is not regulated for quality of content or accuracy; therefore, content found online is not always complete, accurate, or unbiased. While media-literacy education exists, educators often only see the final result of students' online research in the form of the assignment or a works cited page. For teachers to address the media…

The research in this dissertation consists of two parts: An active learning algorithm for hierarchical labels and an embedding-based retrieval algorithm. In the first part, we present a new approach for learning hierarchically decomposable concepts. The approach learns a high-level classifier (e.g., location vs. non-location) by separately…

Careful lesson planning is essential in elementary STEM education because the crucial role of STEM education at the elementary level is to help students develop fundamental skills employed in real life as a foundation for future learning. This study examined how elementary STEM teachers curate digital resources for lesson planning and the relevant…