This study employed Participatory Action Research (PAR) which applied critical pedagogy, actor-network theory, and social network theory to create and implement an "Application Framework for Critical Pedagogy" (AFCP) with the goal of making critical pedagogy more broadly accessible to a wider range of faculty in higher education.…

This dissertation examines contemporary issues that 18 (im)migrant university students faced during a time of highly militarized U.S.-Mexico border relations while living in Arizona during the time of this dissertation research. Utilizing critical race theory and public sphere theory as theoretical frameworks, the project addresses several related…

Since the Great Recession, international student enrollment in U.S. institutions has experienced profound increases. As campuses attempt to attract more international students, they have placed greater emphasis on developing units that specifically serve the needs of these students. Using the qualitative approach of document analysis, this…

Pearson sought to explore whether the use of MyLab Math for Developmental Math, a teaching and learning platform predominantly used in higher education by students who need remediation on foundational math skills, is related to students' course grades and likelihood of passing the course. This Research Report presents findings from two research…

The central goal of this study was to characterize major patterns of reasoning exhibited by college chemistry students when analyzing and interpreting chemical data. Using a case study approach, we investigated how a representative student used chemical models to explain patterns in the data based on structure-property relationships. Our results…

This study reports the results of the first systematic investigation into Astro 101 students' conceptual and reasoning difficulties with cosmology. We developed four surveys with which we measured students' conceptual knowledge of the Big Bang, the expansion and evolution of the universe, and the evidence for dark matter. Our classical test theory…

Research has documented the ways in which students of Mexican origin are not succeeding academically in the same proportion as the rest of the US population. This process of educational failure occurs in the context of overt and more subtle forms of racism experienced throughout their schooling and everyday lives. Undocumented Mexican students…

Wide disparity exists in philanthropic giving to public, two-year community colleges as compared to public, four-year universities. Recent estimates indicate that 0.5 to 5% of all private philanthropic giving to U.S. higher education annually goes to public, two-year community colleges, with the remainder going to public and private four-year…