With increasing numbers of first-generation college students enrolling in colleges and universities across the US, so too is the need to begin preparing such underrepresented students for graduate school and a career in academia. As a phenomenological case study of student transformation, this dissertation examines the experience of nine…

Students have their own lenses through which they view school science and the students' views are often left out of educational conversations which directly affect the students themselves. Pinar's (2004) definition of curriculum as a "complicated conversation" implies that the class' voice is important, as important as the teacher's voice, to the…

Understanding the ways in which scientific knowledge develops, or the epistemology of science, is believed to be a crucial component of scientific literacy. This construct is more formally known as Nature of Science (NOS) within the science education community. The merits of three different approaches to NOS teaching and learning in the context of…

This study explores undergraduate students' experiences of learning disciplinary research in a summer undergraduate research program (S-UR). The study used a qualitative research design incorporating semi-structured interview, observation, and document analysis methods to analyze the learning experiences of nine study participants from different…

This study examines the information seeking and use behaviors of English language learners (ELLs) while performing a research task, using Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development and Kuhlthau's Information Search Process as theoretical frameworks. The research tasks implemented in this study were curriculum based units where students engaged a…