In a youth-oriented culture, individuals in midlife who are facing 30-40 years of life after full-time employment are redefining retirement. As people are healthier, living longer, and desire to contribute to society in meaningful ways, college and university administrators have the opportunity to create innovative programs that align with…

Teacher talk is a powerful pedagogical tool in the science classroom. Educators use their talk to provide information, guide discussions, check for understanding, and develop students' scientific identities. However, few researchers have investigated how teachers use their talk during an integrated science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)…

Creating engaging student-faculty interactions has been a challenge for instructors teaching at community colleges in the United States. The purpose of this research study was to explore the relationship between student-faculty interactions and students' course engagement and completion. To explore this relationship, the research study collected…

Response processes are an important component of validity to support the use and interpretation of test scores. Response processes information can provide insight into how students engage with assessment tasks and the type of errors made when solving items, as well as allow for the study of cognitive properties in items that may be associated with…

Many university students across the United Arab Emirates (UAE) face the problem of low achievement when compared to students graduating from other countries. This may be due to lower student engagement, which in turn may be a result of faculty's choice of teaching strategies. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how university…

Undergraduate students are a vulnerable population faced with college costs and a lack of financial management knowledge, issues that have led to high student debt, failure to repay this debt, and sometimes dropping out of college. Facing these financial matters often serves as a leading source of stress, which, according to Selye's stress theory,…

The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to determine if there were statistically significant differences between 3rd-, 4th-, and 5th-grade reading teachers in the Northeast Unites States, defined as participants and nonparticipants in the LETRS® professional development, in terms of teachers' self-efficacy in student…

This qualitative narrative research investigated successful cases of international students who actively verbally participate and speak up during academic or coursework discussions in the classrooms. More specifically, the aim of this narrative inquiry was to capture the lived and living experiences of English language learners (ELLs) navigating…

Examining school-wide factors that can positively influence student and school success is especially crucial after the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in a period of online learning that led to a decrease in student achievement scores across the nation. As a result, this study sought to assess how schedule design specifically affected teacher…

The concept of second language (L2) learning motivation (L2 motivation) has been a focal point of extensive research in second language acquisition (SLA) for over 50years, with both scholars and classroom language instructors acknowledging the pivotal role motivation plays in L2 learning. This action research study tests an MTP within a Chinese…

In the context of rapidly advancing technologies, the significance of noncognitive skills is increasingly recognized by academia and industry as essential qualities in the era of knowledge economy. However, the study of Chinese students' noncognitive skills development during their college period in China was scarce. This research adopts a case…

The shift to online learning management systems such as Canvas seemed to assume students would become more independent and self-regulated, yet little research has been conducted in this area, especially with school-age students. This study examined the ways middle school students engaged with an online learning management system (LMS) and their…

This dissertation explores the intricate dynamics between the self-perceptions of undergraduate mathematics (UM) educators and their conceptions of excellent teaching practices conducive to student learning. Employing a sequential mixed methods approach, the study addresses two primary research questions. First, it investigates educators'…

Many professional STEM jobs go unfilled annually, especially by diverse people. To increase the number of STEM graduates to fill these jobs, bridge programs at college campuses across the country look for innovative ways to support and retain these diverse, underserved populations. Today's Generation Z campus population is not only diverse but…

Co-teaching is a practice in which "two professionals co-plan, co-instruct and co-assess a diverse group of students. Both teachers provide substantive instruction to all students on a daily, consistent basis. Neither is considered the main teacher of the class; they are equals" (Murawski, 2008, p. 29). Unfortunately, co-teaching in…