More than thirty years of research has shown that the practical value of business-IT alignment is significant and that its importance derives from strategic impact on business outcomes. The purpose of this exploratory study is to identify the current-state of business-IT alignment maturity within the hospital organization. Data for this study was…

A growing body of literature has provided evidence of the contribution of various metalinguistic skills to children's English literacy development; however, most of the studies focused on reading outcomes while spelling outcomes have been under-researched. Further, very few studies have been conducted to investigate if the results based on native…

The purpose of my study was to develop a grounded theory of the underlying social processes and/or other ecological factors that impact the effectiveness of skill acquisition for students with emotional and/or behavioral disorders (EBD) in "sister" cities located in the United States (Site One) and in Norway (Site Two). Theory…

In 2005, over 100,000 e-Learning courses were offered in over half of all U.S. postsecondary education institutions with nearly 90% of all community colleges and four year institutions offering online education. Streaming video is commonplace across the internet offering seamless video and sound anywhere connectivity is available effectively…

Although the mathematical preparation of future teachers is of particular concern within the field of mathematics education right now, little research has taken into account the increasing role of community colleges in offering mathematics courses for elementary teachers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the curricular decisions of…

Research suggests that gambling is similar to addictive behaviors such as substance use. In the current study, gambling was investigated from a behavioral economics perspective. The Multiple Choice Procedure (MCP) with gambling as the target behavior was used to assess for relative reinforcing value, the effect of alternative reinforcers, and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate international female doctoral students' perceptions of the challenges they faced in a foreign university, and their strategies for success. The theoretical framework underlying this study focused on the need for learner analysis to aid the design of effective instruction. The participants in this study…

The lack of empirical scholarship on professional development initiatives for teachers of English language learners (ELLs) in US schools has been repeatedly documented in educational research. The present dissertation project examines a professional development course specifically designed for K-12 teachers of ELLs. The course aims to foster the…

There is limited research addressing how graduate students from the People's Republic of China (PRC) are supported academically or socially while studying in the United States of America (U.S.). The purpose of this study was to address this gap in the literature by utilizing a participatory action research model in order to collaborate with…

Continued improvement of the training and preparation of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agents is critical to the organization's ability to protect the national security of the United States. Too little attention has been paid to the factors that improve new agent trainees' (NATs) ability to learn and succeed in their training…

The present study investigates the degree to which social, experiential and usage-related factors correlate with Spanish linguistic competence among adult Hispanic Heritage Language (HL) speakers in the United States. Two online survey instruments were developed in furtherance of this research aim: a Likert-scale survey measuring five areas of…

A two-stage mixed methods approach was used to examine how foreign correspondents stationed in the United States use World Wide Web technology to maintain their news perspectives remotely. Despite emerging technology playing an increasingly significant role in the production of international journalism, the subject under investigation has been…

This dissertation addresses the research question: To what extent do secondary school science students attending the U.S. Particle Physics Masterclass change their view of the nature of science (NOS)? The U.S. Particle Physics Masterclass is a physics outreach program run by QuarkNet, a national organization of secondary school physics teachers…

This study is an initial analytic attempt to iteratively develop a conceptual framework informed by both theoretical and practical perspectives that may be used to analyze non-textual elements in mathematics textbooks. Despite the importance of visual representations in teaching and learning, little effort has been made to specify in any…

This study investigated the transitional experience of college seniors who are also first-generation status. This topic merits investigation because there is an increasing interest in various demographics of college students, and because college seniors represent an important retention demographic for American higher education, where the retention…