Background: Data storytelling is an interdisciplinary practice that uses visual and narrative elements to engage an audience with data. Students need more opportunities across school curriculum to consider the connections between data and social and environmental contexts. Few studies have investigated how to support teachers in co-designing for…

This qualitative, phenomenological research study explores the best practices that secondary Grades 6-12 educators employ when using microcontrollers in the classroom. Governmental and private organizations have investigated and promoted the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) and computer science in education (Code…

Within the secondary level of education covering students in grades 6-12, reading comprehension continues to be an area of concern for traditional public-school educators. Because students lack the foundations of reading upon entering middle and high school, on average across the United States, many students struggle to meet high school graduation…

This doctoral dissertation investigates the effects of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policy on educational equity in New Jersey, focusing on three primary research questions. Firstly, the study examines whether the implementation of NCLB mandates led to the closure of achievement gaps between black and white students, as evidenced by disparities…

Indigenous-language immersion (ILI) is a form of schooling where all, or nearly all, classroom instruction in every subject area is conducted in an Indigenous language. This dissertation comprises three case study comparisons of neighboring pairs of ILI and English-medium school programs. The first case study examines two elementary schools in the…

As procedural flexibility, previously understood as adaptive reasoning, emerges as an important consideration in math skill development, it is important to account for executive functioning in that process as well, as executive functioning a well-researched factor in math performance. The current study, a secondary data analysis, explores how…

This quantitative study was conducted to investigate possible relationships between psychological safety, collaborative capacity, and school climate in middle level schools in order to identify specific leadership behaviors to increase collective efficacy. School leaders' knowledge of the positive effect collective efficacy has on student learning…

The purpose of this dissertation was to scrutinize the complexities involved in the formulation and implementation of relevant policies. The design of each study mirrored key elements in the legislative life cycle specifically as it pertained to civics education policymaking, including problem identification, policy creation, and policy diffusion.…

The problem that was addressed through this study was the decline in home-to-school partnerships within a local, public, and ethnically diverse middle school (DMS) in the Southeastern United States. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore parents' perspectives on the decline in home-to-school partnerships at a DMS. Using Epstein's six…

This quantitative, correlational study aimed to investigate the relationships between collective teacher efficacy (CTE), its enabling conditions (EC-CTE), and student achievement in third through eighth grades in Colorado. Leveraging the theoretical foundations established by Rotter (1954), Bandura (1977) and expanded by Tschannen-Moran et al.…

Lower reading scores on standardized tests over the years are a great concern. Middle school students have negative reading attitudes due to less emphasis on reading. The problem addressed in this study was the relationship between middle school students' reading attitudes and their reading comprehension levels are not known and factors that may…

This quantitative study explores the success rate of middle school students who chose to participate in virtual learning during the 2020-2021 school year. Students were provided access to the internet and Chromebooks and had attendance requirements within the program. Families that chose the virtual learning option agreed to give the students…

This qualitative case study served to investigate teachers' and students' experiences implementing BASE Education, an electronic learning (e-learning) platform for social and emotional learning (SEL), in an urban charter middle school in Paterson, New Jersey. Convenient purposeful sampling was used to recruit seven students and three…

This research study was designed to examine the impact of the incorporation of vocabulary instruction and various teacher strategies by a middle school science teachers team on student science achievement. The researcher focused on the teacher preparation of vocabulary word walls and the inclusion of specific words within individual units of study…

The genre of persuasive writing requires writers to independently probe their long-term memory to generate pertinent ideas that support their opinion on a given topic. However, many students with high-incidence disabilities struggle with the complex synergy of tasks involved in writing, and in particular generating ideas. A qualitatively dominant…