Quality academic advising has been known to have lasting impacts on student success and persistence in higher education. In 2017, NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising established a set of 20 competencies known to be the essential topics that advisors and student success professionals have an understanding of, knowledge of, or skills…

This sequential-explanatory mixed-methods study assessed the construct validity of the educative Teaching Performance Assessment's (edTPA) Elementary Education Literacy, Elementary Education Math, and Early Childhood assessment areas. The edTPA is a portfolio-based subject-specific teaching performance assessment developed by Stanford's Center for…

Self-efficacy is frequently explored as a construct within assessments in counselor education (Crutchfield & Borders, 1997; Cashwell & Dooley, 2001; Kozina et al., 2010). However, despite the importance of advocacy in our field, there is a lack of research that measures self-efficacy in relation to advocacy attitudes and behaviors (Smith…

Given recent calls for advancing valid instrumentation in the field of cyberaggression, the present study evaluated construct validity and measurement invariance for the Cyberbullying Experiences Survey (CES) in a high school and college student sample. A series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFA), reliability analyses, and a nomological net…

The purpose of this three-manuscript dissertation was to examine the construct and predictive validity of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework (i.e., teaching, cognitive and social presence) through a confirmatory factor analysis, meta-analysis, and qualitative synthesis. The first paper was a confirmatory factor analysis study that…

This dissertation bridges the literatures on race, migration, and health to highlight the acculturation experiences and related health implications among Chinese immigrants, particularly sojourning Chinese international students in the US. Due to their temporary stay in the recipient society, Chinese students usually demonstrate a sojourning…

To meet the needs of complex and/or underserved patient populations, health care professionals must possess diverse backgrounds, qualities, and skill sets. Holistic review has been used to diversify student admissions through examination of non-cognitive attributes of health care applicants. The objective of this study was to develop a novel…

Academic research has consistently shown effective teacher presence to be a significant factor in student satisfaction, engagement, perceived learning, and sense of community. The need for effective teaching presence remains of significant importance, particularly with the vast growth of online courses and online degree programs. It is, therefore,…

Under the framework of item response theory (IRT) and generalizability (G-) theory, this study examined the effects of item difficulty on rating reliability and construct validity on both the constructed-response (CR) items and essay items on English examinations. The data collected for this study were students' scores and responses on the two…

The primary purpose of this study was to collect evidence on the construct validity of grit using convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity principles. To accomplish this purpose and extend previous research on grit, college students from two schools completed an instrument comprised of a cognitive ability test, and a questionnaire. The…

Adult students are an important subgroup in higher education. They are returning to school in numbers at higher percentage rates than their traditional counterparts. Between 2000 and 2010, the enrollment of students under age 25 increased by 34%; however, enrollment of students 25 and over rose 42% during the same period. From 2010 to 2020, the…

This quantitative study examined the structure, validity, and reliability of the "Three-Dimensional Worldview Survey-Form C" ("3DWS-Form C") for potential use in postsecondary Christian institutions. This instrument delineates from other worldview instruments in that it purports to measure three components of a person's…

Teaching is a complex and fundamentally collaborative process, through which knowledge and skills are acquired as a result of repeated interactions between teachers and students. The effectiveness of these interactions depends on both the instructional environment created by the teacher and the extent to which students engage with that…

The United States needs workers with more than technical skills to meet the demands of global competition; more specifically, a new breed of engineer is necessary, one who possesses leadership skills and business acumen in addition to the technical engineering skills. One Midwestern foundation has recognized this challenge and is working with…

The concept "academic culture" has been used as a framework to understand faculty work in higher education. Academic culture research builds on organizational psychology concepts of culture and climate to better understand employee practices and work phenomenon. Ample research has investigated faculty teaching at the disciplinary and…