The purpose of this dissertation was to scrutinize the complexities involved in the formulation and implementation of relevant policies. The design of each study mirrored key elements in the legislative life cycle specifically as it pertained to civics education policymaking, including problem identification, policy creation, and policy diffusion.…

Many students may find math word problems uninteresting; therefore, lacking the motivation to solve them. The content in most math word problems in use today is outdated, deliberately generic, and does not fully engage students. The development of technologies that personalize math word problems seeks to improve the engagement of students.…

Individuals with lower proficiency in a second language tend to produce more disfluent speech patterns in the second language. Speech disfluencies refer to interruptions in the forward flow of speech and are distinct from the colloquial use of "fluency," to characterize knowledge of a language. Prior research indicates that some speech…