The rise of online course enrollments in higher education has highlighted the need to establish and validate effective online instructional strategies focused on improving learning outcomes and affective responses towards instruction. One such strategy, group-based context personalization, frames instructional materials within contexts relevant to…

This multiple case study examined the experiences of elementary L2 learners who received instruction in either reciprocal teaching or the think aloud strategy (TAS), and identified patterns of use that emerged from participants' employment of the strategies. The three L2 participants took a pre- test and a posttest, were recorded using the…

This comparative pre-test/post-test quantitative study investigated the effect of an instructional strategy using concept mapping as a graphic organizer on the quality of persuasive writing compositions produced by fourth grade elementary school students. Six fourth grade classes were assigned as intact groups to three conditions: concept mapping…

The pedagogy of teaching and learning has been changing since computers were first integrated into the classroom. As technology evolves, the evaluation of the instructional tool's effectiveness will continue to be an area of research need. The effectiveness of an instructional tool can be measured by student learning and achievement. Student…

When counting, the final word used to tag the final item in a set represents the cardinality, or total number, of the set. Understanding of this concept serves as a foundation for children's basic mathematical skills, such as arithmetic. However, little is known about how variations in the early learning environment affect children's understanding…

Vocabulary is vital for success in secondary content area curricula and students with learning disabilities often have limited vocabulary knowledge which inhibits their success in secondary-level content area classes. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of an explicit algebra vocabulary intervention with graphic…

How do children use physical and virtual tools to develop new numerical knowledge? While concrete instructional materials may support the delivery of novel information to learners, they may also over-simplify the task, unintentionally reducing learners' performance in recall and transfer tasks. This reduction in testing performance may be…

Students with and without learning disabilities (LD) struggle with the written expression process, from planning and organization (e.g., prewriting) to actually writing an essay. For students with LD, challenges in written expression are more intensive than their typical peers. Without effective written expression supports and instruction, such as…

Chemistry is a difficult subject to learn and teach for students in general. Additionally, female students are under-represented in chemistry and the physical sciences. Within chemistry, atomic and electronic structure is a key concept and several recommendations in the literature describe how this topic can be taught better. These recommendations…

Partners in Print, a family literacy program, was brought to the urban elementary school in this study to educate and empower kindergarten and first grade parents to promote literacy development at home. This research aimed to explore the impact of participation in this program after consistent participation by utilizing a one-group pre-test,…

An analysis of data from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement and multiyear analysis of pretest/posttest scores in introductory criminal justice courses revealed there was a systemic decline in student engagement and achievement. Because of this analysis, a commercial virtual learning tool (CJI) that purported great success in…

Universities are trending towards displacing traditional printed textbooks (p-books) with electronic textbooks (e-books), even though an incomplete body of knowledge exists about the learning value of using e-books as instructional materials. As a result, this dissertation study was conducted to determine if digital textbooks are as…

The Instant Word Notebook study was a program evaluation completed by two educators who saw a need for an instructional tool to teach and assess Instant Words. In order to address reading deficits of students in first and second grades, teachers were expected to teach Instant Words. Unfortunately, teachers did not have a systematic process to…

This study examined independent reading behaviors and contextual factors that contributed to growth in vocabulary and literacy of fourth grade English-only (EO), limited English proficient (LEP), and fluent English proficient (FEP) children. Participants were given pre-post measures of receptive and expressive vocabulary, word reading, decoding,…

Effective communication skills are a vital component of student academic achievement and success, yet students often struggle with them. This study utilized an organizational writing graphic organizer based on a critical thinking model to determine the impact of its use on the persuasive writing scores of 9th-grade students. A sample of…