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.…

This study explores using transfer learning in machine learning for natural language processing (NLP) to create generic automated essay scoring (AES) models, providing instant online scoring for statewide writing assessments in K-12 education. The goal is to develop an instant online scorer that is generalizable to any prompt, addressing the…

Background: Phonological processing skills have been found to contribute to spelling development across different orthographies; however, less is known about the role of orthographic knowledge. This longitudinal study explores the contribution of phonological and orthographic knowledge to spelling development in a semi-transparent orthography…

Are oral sentences accompanied by pictures easier to understand than written sentences accompanied by the same pictures? This question--intensely discussed for more than two decades in educational, psychological, and psycholinguistic research in terms of "modality effect in multimedia learning," "split-attention effect," or…

This study, which is part of a larger project that aims to make online math more accessible to students with visual impairments (VI), examines the text quality of math assessment items for students with VI who use screen readers. Using data from about 29.5 million students taking standard versions of the MAP Growth math assessment, and 48,845…

We used multivariate generalizability theory to examine the reliability of hand-scoring and automated essay scoring (AES) and to identify how these scoring methods could be used in conjunction to optimize writing assessment. Students (n = 113) included subsamples of struggling writers and non-struggling writers in Grades 3-5 drawn from a larger…

Unfortunately, far too many American adolescents are unable to read proficiently. The science of reading suggests explicit instruction in both word identification and language processing skills should bolster reading proficiency, but most commercial reading interventions for secondary students focus exclusively on the latter skill area. This study…

Recent studies have accumulated to suggest that children, akin to adults, exhibit a processing advantage for formulaic language (e.g. "save energy") over novel language (e.g. "sell energy"), as well as sensitivity to phrase frequencies. The majority of these studies are based on formulaic sequences in their canonical form. In…

The assessment data in La Frontera School District suggests a need for improving instructional practices for middle school emergent bilingual migrant students' language and reading development. One possible solution to the language and literacy issues maybe introducing cognates. Cognates are words with identical or similar orthography and meaning…

Teaching axiomatic representation of mathematical objects in all grades can and should be done. The paper analyzes students' understanding and how they perceive theorems using problem posing. We looked at how English-language learners create questions about four geometric theorems from a 9th-grade math textbook. The analysis looks at the…

Resolution to ambiguity imposed by English relative clauses (RC) was examined with Thai EFL students in this study. Offline experimental items included two-site context NPs, i.e., NP1 "of" NP2 (Complex NP of) and NP1 "with" NP2 (Complex NP "with") modified by RCs. As NP1 and NP2 occupy higher and lower positions in…

English speaking is considered the most difficult and anxiety-provoking language skill for EFL learners due to lack of access to authentic language use, fear of making mistakes, and peers' negative comments. With automatic speech recognition and natural language processing, intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) have potential in foreign language…

The present study tested whether the switch costs of production-based language switching tasks by trilinguals are due to competition from outside language schemas or from within language systems. We recruited 90 Tibetan-Chinese-English trilinguals in 10th grade in a Tibetan middle school in China to name digits and number words using different…

The aim of this research is to investigate the educational potential of AI-powered chatbots in Social Studies learning-teaching processes. The study was conducted using embedded design, evaluated within the framework of mixed methods research. The study group consists of 78 6th-grade students studying in three different classes, along with one…

This research investigated the impact of processing instruction (PI) on the acquisition of the English third-person singular present tense by Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners and whether this effect would extend to the acquisition of other language components. This study featured the pretest-immediate-posttest design and…