STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education is becoming an integral part of modern agricultural education. If the integration of STEM into agricultural education is to succeed, it is vital that educators feel confident in their ability to teach such material. This study examines Mississippi and Tennessee agricultural…

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate which components or programs within the higher education environment have the greatest influence on college students' intention to engage in physical activity. Participants: Undergraduates enrolled in colleges and universities in the southcentral United States were issued a questionnaire via…

Many students lack the comprehension skills required to navigate high school and the world (Turner, 2019). This qualitative narrative analysis study examined how the background of Career and Technical Education (CTE) educators' shaped their educational experiences when embedding literacy in the CTE curriculum. The researcher interviewed ten CTE…

The purpose and goal of this quantitative method, causal-comparative study was to explore the impact of a year-long mentorship program on the self-efficacy, collective efficacy, perceived support, retention plans, and effectiveness of novice (i.e., 1st-3rd year) teachers in a rural, public school district in Mississippi. The mentorship program…

This research study examined teachers' perceptions of professional development needs of teachers on student achievement through 66 (Male=17; Female=49) secondary teachers. A closer look at current trends and research in education shows a link between teacher learning and student achievement. Teacher preferences are an important component in…

Attempting to balance all the aspects of teaching can be overwhelming and challenging without the appropriate measures for novice teachers. The purpose of the mixed-methods study was to examine the challenges and opportunities in teacher retention of K-12 novice teachers in a rural, south Mississippi school district. Novice teachers may struggle…

Statement of Purpose and Method of Study: The purpose of this study is two-fold. One purpose is to examine whether there is a correlation between Mississippi community college instructors' self-reported recollections of their coping self-efficacy and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic. The second purpose is to explore Mississippi community…

This study used a convergent mixed-method design and a pragmatic approach to examine how professional development (PD) affected teachers' confidence in their abilities to use the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) framework in a rural Mississippi middle school. Grounded in Bandura's self-efficacy theory, the study aimed to answer two research…

The purpose of this study was to explore character education related to the perceptions and sense of efficacy of selected central Mississippi private and public elementary and middle school teachers. This research questioned 140 elementary (1st through 4th grades) and middle school (5th through 8th grades) teachers using the Character Education…

The need for engineers in the workforce continues to grow. Filling this need requires recruiting future engineers to colleges and universities and retaining them through to degree completion. However, this is easier said than done. Universities are tasked with attempting to keep up with the demand for new engineers and companies are searching for…

Data-driven decision-making (DDDM) requires educational leaders and teachers to monitor and evaluate programs and processes and link results to individual and organizational outcomes. A classroom teacher's ability to collect and review data, analyze data to identify trends and strategies for student achievement, and use data to determine and…

This study was grounded in the spatial computational thinking model developed by the "3D Weather" project funded by the NSF STEM+C program. The model reflects a discipline-based perspective towards computational thinking and captures the spatial nature of computational thinking in meteorology and the reliance of computational thinking on…

Teaching reading has been an ongoing challenge for many educators across the United States. Numerous studies suggest that teachers feel they were not adequately prepared to teach reading and have low efficacy in delivering literacy instruction. Teaching reading requires educators to be knowledgeable about the alphabetic principle, decoding new…

This three-article dissertation examined the perceptions of school-based agricultural education teachers in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama on self-efficacy and professional development activities since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first article was an examination of teacher self-efficacy in delivering instruction in three classroom…

In January 2022, music teacher shortages accounted for eight percent of all vacancies in U.S. school systems. After emerging from COVID-19 lockdowns, many education stakeholders began to reconsider the ways in which teaching and learning have shifted. By committing to a strong understanding of teacher self-efficacy and empowerment, administrators…