Early Childhood Education (ECE) professionals faced unprecedented challenges, including the disruption of instructional programs and routines, since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The purpose of this study was to examine the physical and psychological well-being, job satisfaction, and job-related needs of early childhood educators and administrators…

Objective: College students play a major role in the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the viral agent responsible for COVID-19. We aim to understand risk perceptions, self-efficacy, and adoption of prevention behaviors in this population to inform prevention strategies. Participants: Undergraduate students attending a large public university. Methods:…

Although interest in blended learning for students has grown within elementary and secondary school contexts, limited research exists on the implementation of blended professional development (PD) for teachers. The current mixed-method action research study examined teacher participation in blended learning PD in a large California district,…

This study examined the impact of a virtual parenting intervention designed to support parents of incoming kindergartners (N = 45) by bolstering their parental self-efficacy during the summer of 2020, immediately following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, this group-based intervention provided parents with weekly psychoeducation…

Objective: To assess the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on college students' stress, life satisfaction, and college experiences and investigate sources of resilience. Participants: 1,042 students from 11 U.S. colleges and universities. Methods: Longitudinal study with surveys in winter 2018-2019 and fall 2021. Interviews with 54 survey respondents,…

This study examines opportunities for teacher professional growth and innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey data, including responses to both closed and open-ended questions, were collected from 276 elementary-school teachers who taught online in two school districts in California. Quantitative and qualitative analyses document the…

Despite the importance of understanding teacher empowerment and silence to help address issues of teacher shortage and well-being and improve school-based consultation, research on the topic has been understudied and undertheorized, particularly for new teachers. To fill this research gap, we carried out a constructivist grounded theory-based…

My dissertation examines undergraduates' online learning experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic through three distinct studies. The primary goal of my dissertation is to shed light on crucial aspects of social cognitive learning theories and learning experience design (LXD) applied in distance learning. These studies, using an LXD approach…

Community college students represent a large percentage of U.S. undergraduates. In California, most of these students are low-income Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. However, despite the size of this student population, the mental health challenges these students face, and a need for alternatives to current campus mental health services,…

Purpose. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to discover the approaches teachers use to create collective teacher efficacy (CTE) while teaching online at one elementary school located in Southern California. Methodology. A case study design, using semistructured interviews, was used to answer the following central research question: How…

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, distance learning became popularized throughout the country as various schools were forced to transition to an online platform unexpectedly. This case study explored caregivers' digital literacy self-efficacy and its connection to their academic involvement to primary grade students during distance learning in…

Research related to the engagement of parents in education continues to perpetuate critical misconceptions in the education of English Learners (ELs), as ideological mind-sets and mislabeling of Latinx families intentionally diminish their roles, importance, participation, and histories. The effects of COVID-19 pandemic on mitigating online…

Background: Adolescents' school engagement, mental health, and substance use have been major concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly given disruptions to school instruction. We examined how the instructional setting was associated with academic and health-related outcomes within an adolescent cohort followed during the pandemic.…

This case study documents a large, 4-year university magazine's transition to virtual instruction during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using theoretical frameworks from Kuh's work on high impact practices (HIPs), this analysis offers empirical evidence that virtual student newsrooms may provide impactful learning experiences during…

Guided by the job demands--resources model and social-cognitive theory, we examined how educator perceived school connectedness and their attempts to connect with school members (i.e., administrators, staff, students, and families) concurrently and interactively influenced educators' compassion fatigue and online teaching self-efficacy during…