Though job opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) continue to expand in the United States, people on Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) while in school are continually disadvantaged in future STEM-based career possibilities. Studies have shown that students on IEPs are far less likely to major in a STEM degree…

Background/significance: The World Health Organization identified bullying in childhood as major health problem; studies document its profound impact on physical, mental, and social well-being. To prevent these impacts, interventions need to be implemented. Bullying peaks in middle school; therefore, it is important to prepare school nurses to…

Introduction: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is becoming more prevalent with an increasing need to identify and eliminate barriers to care. Healthcare Providers (HCP) have shown limited knowledge and confidence when managing patients with ASD. The inability to provide specialized care and recognize symptoms of pain or discomfort could result in…

There is a gap in reading scores between blind/low-vision students and their sighted peers. The problem addressed in this study was that the reading interventions currently in use for blind/low vision students are not successful in closing the reading achievement gap at a Midwest secondary school for the blind and visually impaired. The purpose of…

This mixed-methods study examined the factors contributing to teachers' self-efficacy in teaching for conceptual understanding and investigated the impacts of a targeted intervention on their self-efficacy to work toward all students having equitable access to teaching that builds their conceptual understanding. This three-manuscript dissertation…

Middle school offers an entryway onto the path of college readiness. However, many practitioners and researchers have focused their efforts on high school students. Remaining is a population of potential college-going students, whose opportunities to prepare for college at an earlier stage are overlooked because middle school is not viewed as the…

Building upon the work of social constructivists Vygotsky (1978) and Bakhtin (1981) and their work in dialogic instruction, as well as the self-efficacy theory put forth by Bandura (1977), this study sought to answer these questions: How does teacher participation in a book club impact teacher disposition to dialogic practices in the classroom?…

School crisis situations are increasingly prevalent, yet many educational leaders lack adequate preparation for crisis prevention and intervention upon assuming administrative roles. This gap poses severe implications for the well-being of school communities. To address this issue, a study was conducted within a university educational leadership…

National and local data sets reveal that students with disabilities have yet to gain full access to the opportunities that science, technology, and engineering (STE) education has to offer. Through an improvement science lens, this three-manuscript dissertation attempts to define, diagnose, explain, and address this pervasive problem of practice.…

There has been a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) teacher shortage in K-12 schools across the United States (Klassen et al., 2021; Luft et al., 2005). To help provide a possible solution to the nationwide STEM teacher shortage, this study investigated the factors that influence STEM majors to change careers from STEM…

The purpose of this embedded multiple case study was to explore perceptions of reading comprehension interventions in students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at public schools within the Commonwealth of Virginia and to discover common themes and strategies that help students with ASD. The sample pool consisted of approximately 62 students.…

High school students' chemistry self-efficacy (CSE) and scientific identity (SI) are not well understood in the high school chemistry classroom. The purpose of this research was to quantitatively investigate the interaction between gender and giftedness on students' CSE and SI in a suburban high school chemistry classroom, with and without…

The rate of children being diagnosed with autism is growing rapidly. Currently, 1 in every 36 children born will go on to have an autism diagnosis (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2023). Teachers and early educators working with young children do not have the training required to identify children at risk for this developmental…

The purpose of this study was: (1) to build embedded reflective practices with qualitative data in alignment with existing continuous improvement (CI) for equity processes; and (2) provide professional development (PD) to support educators in using qualitative data sharing processes with the expectation of collective teacher efficacy (CTE)…

Understanding how the disposition of a student interacts with or influences a behavior plays a central role in cognitive theories. Middle school years have been accounted for as being difficult, awkward, and sometimes downright stressful. The overall purpose of this action research was to examine the impact of a growth mindset innovation using a…