As state school-based accountability systems have become more complex and increasingly comprehensive, school district leaders have struggled with the balance of managing limited school district funding while focusing on improving student academic achievement as quantified by state-mandated testing results. The amount of a school district's…

The purpose of this study was to explore the behaviors and characteristics of school leadership, specifically principals' behaviors, that lead to increased student achievement. This study examined (a) what type of information is available to principals, (b) how they use the information, and (c) what factors determine a positive or negative impact…

Reading skills comprise the following three categories: decoding, fluency, and comprehension. All three of these skills are necessary for students to become successful readers in and out of academic settings. Many students in special education read far below their grade level; difficulty reading is particularly challenging for such students…

Declining mathematics scores are forcing school administrators to look for nontraditional ways to educate students. Adaptive learning systems have been implemented in schools with the purpose of providing personalized learning opportunities for students. The purpose of this experimental study was to investigate the effect of adaptive supplemental…

Given the demands on Indiana schools to continually improve student performance results on End of Course Assessments, it is important to define the organizational structures, instructional methodologies and leadership strategies that result in student performance increases. This study compared student performance results on the Algebra I End of…

South Lee Middle School is a small, rural school with approximately 270 students located in north Mississippi. The central issue of concern at South Lee Middle School was low levels of student academic growth in mathematics according to state assessments. An informal preliminary analysis identified root causes of this concern as a lack of…

The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of the "Do The Math (DTM)" intervention for increasing math achievement of elementary school students in special education. This cross-sectional, quasi-experimental study compared the performance of a group of special education students in one school district on a standardized…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how faculty describe the impact of their verbal and nonverbal communication on the effectiveness of their feedback for students enrolled in online courses. Purposeful sampling was used to recruit 20 faculty participants at a university in the Midwestern US and taught at least four…

This quantitative quasi-experimental study explored the effectiveness of an in residence research skills plagiarism avoidance workshop. The problem is what effect a research skills plagiarism avoidance workshop would have on the improvement of plagiarism avoidance. Information literacy was discovered as the foundation of why students plagiarize.…

Hackathons, the time-bound collaborative project-based competitions increasingly popular with undergraduate CS students, are both transformative and problematic. On one hand, they are unique opportunities to apply skills learned in the classroom to real-world, interest driven projects that celebrate risk taking, collaboration, and playfulness. On…

In order to assist community college students in completing their program of study at a more rapid pace, this quantitative, correlational study examined the effectiveness of acceleration as a method to help community college students complete the developmental reading sequence quickly and more successfully. Acceleration is a curricular redesign…

The varied academic needs of students with learning disabilities throughout the U.S. and in Southern California, specifically, have driven demand for private learning centers. For the purposes of this study, a learning center refers to a private business that teaches primary and secondary school students with learning disabilities outside of the…

Well-educated and informed elementary educators provide the highest of quality instruction to elementary students. Elementary educators are expected to provide instruction from all academic subjects throughout the school day. As standardized testing continues to be a priority in U.S. classrooms, educators must be prepared to continue to deliver…

Existing literature indicated that supporting the executive function skills (EFs) and learning strategies of students with disabilities (SWDs) during the learning process is important for improving the persistence and success of those students in post-secondary Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. This study…

My dissertation evaluates two efforts to improve undergraduate economics education---the College Fed Challenge (CFC) competition and requiring intermediate algebra as a prerequisite for taking introductory economics courses. Using survey data of undergraduate students who participated in the CFC competition and a control group of students who did…