The public often makes judgements about schools and what happens within them, despite rarely setting foot inside of one. Prior research finds that the public relies on word-of-mouth, news media, and online resources that rate and rank schools in order to make decisions. Notably though, much of the existing literature predates the widespread usage…

The field of science education has long advocated for students to leave K-12 education with an appreciation for the diversity of research methods scientists employ in order to effectively engage with research generated across many scientific fields of study. Yet, research has indicated that students typically believe research proceeds according to…

Students are expected to interpret the complexities and nuances of literary texts yet might struggle with interpreting texts in ways that are academically valued in literary studies. While linguistic studies that examine students' literary interpretive writing have mainly been situated in secondary contexts, there is a noticeable absence of…

In current news media environments where the separation between fact and opinion is blurred, it is important to understand college students' media literacy practices and variables that may affect how they discern fake news. The purpose of this study was to investigate variables that may be related to college students' fake news discernment,…

The purpose of this dissertation is to describe a doctoral research study that comprehensively investigated school psychologists' record review practices. Record reviews are part of the psychoeducational evaluation process, and there is relatively little previous research literature on this topic. The current study aimed to investigate the…

Despite the importance of child assessment data in early childhood education, teachers struggle with its use in their work. This study uses an implementation science approach to explore facilitators and barriers to teacher use of child assessment practices in three Head Start centers and tests a specific strategy to improve teacher practice. This…

One expected outcome of physics instruction is that students develop quantitative reasoning skills, including evaluation of problem solutions. To investigate students' use of evaluation strategies, we developed and administered tasks prompting students to check the validity of a given expression. We collected written (N > 673) and interview (N…

Socioscientific issues (SSIs), or controversial scientific issues with social implications, influence members of society regardless of demographic. SSIs are contentious and ill-structured, meaning they do not have a definitive answer. To properly equip students with the tools needed to handle SSIs, undergraduate science curricula emphasize…

Higher education institutions are to teach advanced thinking skills that help students process information, make judgments, and justify associated beliefs. Such skills are necessary for reflective judgment according to the reflective judgment model (RJM). The purpose of this study was to explore whether engaging undergraduate students in classroom…

Despite acknowledgement in the data-informed decision making (DIDM) literature that data use is not a purely rational process, there has been little attention paid to the role of values and normative factors that underpin school improvement planning (SIP) processes and little consideration of the inherent evaluative nature of associated activities…

The purpose of this case study was to examine how one high-performing California TK-6th grade public elementary school had committed to the development of 21st century skills. Specifically, this study sought to identify the practices and structures at Utopia Elementary that allowed students of low socio-economic status and students with an…

This quantitative study was conducted to describe and compare the perceptions of Missouri secondary principals and teachers regarding the duration of classroom observations and evaluative feedback. The study explored the effects of variation in classroom observation durations from the perspective of both principals and teachers. A survey…

Decision-making and design in uncertain situations in which information is limited and goals are ambitious or conflicting are a part of common practices of engineers. Such abilities in engineering practices are important to develop for all students from elementary school through college and graduate school. An important aspect of decision-making…

Situational judgment tests (SJTs) are used to measure important components of professional competence that cannot be assessed via traditional tests of knowledge and skills. Despite their increasing popularity, there is a significant gap in the validity evidence and research on the response process to support how SJTs measure their intended…

This dissertation examines the use of dialogic discussion to improve young adolescents' ability to critically evaluate web sites. An intervention unit comprised three iterations of an instructional cycle in which students independently annotated web sites about controversial issues and discussed the reliability of those sites in dialogic…