As nursing faculty transition to online education, faculty roles and responsibilities have shifted from face-to-face to online courses. Nursing faculty need to implement instructional approaches that are relevant and engaging to online nursing students, as this leads to student learning. The problem is undergraduate online nursing faculty are…

Despite research and advances in hybrid learning in the field of education, the gap lies in the lack of research focusing on community college students' perceptions of which elements of hybrid classes significantly impact their academic achievement. This problem, often leading to lower completion rates and higher attrition, was particularly…

Access to higher education pursuits has expanded through the growth of online education offerings. The purpose of this causal comparative study was to compare undergraduate student perceptions of community in the online classroom across different ethnicities to determine if these differences were significant. The community of inquiry (CoI) serves…

This dissertation consists of three papers on education policy. In each paper, I use applied econometric methods and descriptive quantitative analysis to examine topics related to teacher labor markets and postsecondary attainment. The first paper leverages a rich student-teacher-day data set to study the relationship between daily teacher…

The purpose of this study was to explore what instructor social presence factors and immediacy behaviors Southwestern community college students enrolled in asynchronous online courses described as lessening transactional distance. Qualitative methodology with descriptive design was chosen to help the researcher obtain a description of the…

Education is critical to a democratic nation and in creating a strong economy (Verstegen, 2008). The importance of education is clear across society as an important tool in creating equal opportunities for all children regardless of race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. As school accountability increases, it is critical to determine what…

The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study explored the impact of COVID-19 on the overall educational learning experiences of low-wage working women students during COVID-19 at an off-site campus. A feminist standpoint theory (FST) lens utilizing the community of inquiry (CoI) framework focused on the cognitive, social, and teaching…

Institutions of higher education are facing increased pressure to do more with less while continuing to provide a high-quality education. Faculty are asked to teach more and do more with decreased resources and without additional compensation. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on institutions of higher education resulting in…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of virtual office hours in the online classroom on engagement and course completion among criminology students at Arizona State University. The study relied on an action research mixed-method design. The goal of the interventions was to increase the engagement of all members of the class. The…

This study examined the extent to which student- and teacher-level characteristics in high school and college are associated empirically with high school students' college readiness and success in American Samoa. More specifically, multilevel ordinal logistic regressions were employed to understand the extent to which these characteristics predict…

To address the pedagogical needs of African American learners, some educational researchers have rejected the seductive tendency to document damage, but rather intentionally showcase excellence in Black education. They have studied highly successful teachers of African American students, their teaching practices, beliefs, and self-efficacy. What…

This study explored the perceptions of ten community college visual arts faculty in five different community college settings with regard to the theory and practice disjunctures they were experiencing in their roles as instructors teaching foundational level courses within visual arts programs. The study illuminated the responses of community…