Many students who enter a STEM track in college move out of that track before graduation (National Science Foundation, 2018). The purpose of this study was to assess whether there was a difference in STEM-related major persistence for population proportions of students actively involved in the Science Scholars program and those who were…

In everyday life, humans rely on working memory (WM) processes to make sense of relationships between linguistic elements that are not linearly adjacent. For example, to understand the sentence "The dog that the cat chased is cute," we encode the referent "the dog" into WM, maintain and retrieve it after reading the verb…

Apart from teachers, international school directors have the greatest impact on learning in their schools (Day et al., 2010), but they often find it difficult to engage in professional learning and support networks to continuously enhance their practice (Bailey & Gibson, 2020; Butler, 2020). The development of virtual professional learning…

Primary research questions: What stories do student parents at Maryland Community College (MCC) tell about their intersecting identities? How do student parents speak about the institutional context of MCC in these stories? What are the implications of these stories in supporting student parents at MCC? Nearly 3.8 million student parents are…

Mathematics is an important component of our everyday lives. It involves necessary skills, such as computation, problem solving, and critical thinking. In spite of this, a significant portion of our students are unable to demonstrate proficiency. These students are typically the underserved, marginalized students who are over represented in…

Citizenship education is the bedrock for the (re)making of future adult citizens in mono and multicultural democratic nations, and social studies is typically and optimally the premier discipline that primes students for engaged citizenry. Anti-immigrant sentiments towards fourth wave immigrants and the nearly absent research on and training for…

Research has demonstrated the efficacy and effectiveness of using high preferred stimuli as reinforcers to change individual behavior. However, these high preferred reinforcers are not always readily available or it may not be in the individual's best interest to use them (i.e., high calorie edibles). Previous research has demonstrated that…

An essential part of novice teachers' development of pedagogical and classroom management skills in a district is a supportive induction and mentoring program (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011). Novice teachers can combat the challenges that directly contribute to dissatisfaction with the teaching profession, attrition rates, and an overall teacher…

Two overlapping trends in the U.S. educational environment have given rise to this study: the changes in the demands placed on school principals over the past decade (Hess & Kelly, 2005; Davis, Darling-Hammond, LaPointe, & Meyerson, 2005; National Association of Secondary School Principals & National Association of Elementary School…

To ascertain variance and predictive measure between respondents' self-reported time of disclosure and disability identity development while mitigating for confounding variables: social desirability, transition planning experience, visibility, ethnicity, gender, veteran status, and age, research was conducted at a public two-year institution.…

Self-efficacy can determine how hard a student works, if they will persevere in the face of obstacles or succeed academically (Britner & Pajares, 2006). It has been suggested that practices in an inquiry-based science class can provide positive experiences needed to increase self-efficacy of middle school students (Britner & Pajares,…

This dissertation examines nine narrative non-fiction picturebooks about Black American female athletes. Contextualized within the history of children's literature and American sport as inequitable institutions, this project highlights texts that provide insights into the past and present dominant cultural perceptions of Black female athletes. I…

Many counseling programs use microskills training as their foundational training for counselors in training (CITs) learning basic counseling skills. Support for this training comes from the ACA Code of Ethics (2014) and developmental literature (Gibson, Dollarhide, & Moss, 2010; Hill, Sullivan, Knox, & Schlosser, 2007; Ronnestad &…

The concept of professional identity is deeply engrained into the beings of counselors-in-training, regardless of their specified track. Having a solid understanding of the roles, responsibilities, and the duties that bind us to our profession are tantamount to our actual skills practice and case conceptualization. Counselors-in-training learn the…

This dissertation entitled "Educational choice and educational space" aims to explore the confluence of constructed space and geographic space using a supply-side context for New Zealand's public school system of quasi-open enrollment. In Part I, New Zealand's state and state-integrated school system across four urban areas is analyzed…