Education reform in the United States is heavily regulated and has undergone various iterations in the past several decades. With each passing legislation, government mandates and educational initiatives become the focus of reform. School districts must constantly find ways to keep up with increasing state and federal accountability standards.…

This study highlights the role and importance of advanced, machine learning-driven predictive models in enhancing the accuracy and timeliness of identifying students at-risk of negative academic outcomes in data-driven Early Warning Systems (EWS). K-12 school districts have, at best, 13 years to prepare students for adulthood and success. They…

School climate is increasingly recognized by scholars and policymakers as a crucial factor associated with students' educational experiences. Hence, practitioners endeavor to equitably measure and improve school climate to promote favorable student academic and behavior outcomes. Unfortunately, school climate research is fragmented, and a…

Higher education institutes experience lower success rates in online learning environments compared to traditional learning. Students' engagement within the learning management system (LMS) is one of the main factors affecting students' academic performance and retention. This quantitative correlational-predictive study examined if, and to what…

The aim of this dissertation was to develop and validate a novel Epistemic Competence Beliefs Measure (ECBM) in order to explore students' ability to evaluate the characteristics of scenarios about complex and controversial social issues. Epistemic competence was hypothesized to be critical in performing multiple source use (MSU) tasks and in the…

There is an ongoing debate among instructional personnel, parents, legislators, and the community at large about the nature and purpose of testing in the educational system. State and district-based testing programs have been criticized as "over-testing" policies. The result of the criticism culminates in a reduction of assessment…

Underachievement in postsecondary education has been a growing concern for educators and researchers. Higher education institutions have implemented early alert systems to identify students performing below standards. This early warning system has major limitations that confine it to an identification only approach. The current study aimed to…

Given the broad framework of the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports model, its barriers to adaptability and implementation in schools have affected an increased emphasis on exploration and measurement of treatment integrity. A tool directly linked with a model of treatment integrity is the Implementation Beliefs Assessment (IBA;…

Disparate student academic outcomes and program access is a problem at Master of Public Administration (MPA) programs in the Northeast United States The current admission committee members at the case university did not know institution leaders' rationale for eliminating the Graduate Records Examination (GRE) criterion. The decision to exclude the…

Social emotional skills and competencies are integral to student success at home, school, and in the larger community. Extant research also consistently demonstrates that social emotional skill deficits are associated with various adverse outcomes. Universal screening for social emotional and behavioral risk in schools facilitates early…

Achieving effective use of new IT at the workplace can be notoriously difficult. There has been significant focus on the role of the individual in new job-related technology use, but considerations of personality differences and their role in effective use have been limited. Results have been mixed regarding the influence of personality on new IT…

The purpose of this three-manuscript dissertation was to examine the construct and predictive validity of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework (i.e., teaching, cognitive and social presence) through a confirmatory factor analysis, meta-analysis, and qualitative synthesis. The first paper was a confirmatory factor analysis study that…

College students experiencing psychological distress are at unique risk for negative academic outcomes. The Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms-62 (CCAPS-62; Locke et al., 2011) is a multidimensional symptom inventory designed for use in college counseling centers. However, the relationships between the CCAPS-62 and functional…

The number of applications to postsecondary institutions continues to increase year over year, and in most cases, the number of applications exceeds the number of students admitted. The use of standardized tests continues to grow to help in these admissions decisions. Due to both high usage rates and the changing demographics of our nation's…

The selection for the best candidates for the nursing profession from a large group of applicants into a small number of program openings for associate degree nursing programs poses a critical task for nursing administration and faculty. Admission criteria vary throughout nursing programs. The selection criteria need to target students that will…