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open access

Flipping Scripts: Mentoring for Secondary Readers

Description: Researchers have reported that a variety of socio-cultural interventions can be used to increase positive attitudes toward reading for secondary students. A socially constructed reading intervention could add learning growth for a reluctant reading population. This study examines whether secondary students experience a measurable increase in positive attitudes toward reading after engaging in modeling and mentoring sessions with a much younger student and whether there is a perceivable differen… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Cross, Terry
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Lived Experiences of Families of University Students Amid a Pandemic Response

Description: This study explores students' and their families' experiences during the pandemic response to COVID-19 by the higher education community. Using the hermeneutic phenomenological approach, we employed two open-ended surveys and semi-structured interviews of 16 parent-college student dyads (N = 34). The study draws on students' and parents' retrospective accounts beginning Spring 2020 through the Fall 2020 semesters. Families experienced a disruptive event initialized by the ebb and flow of inform… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Eide, Shaun
Partner: UNT Libraries

A Multi-Site Case Study of Middle School Reading Teachers' Perceptions of the Impact of Response to Intervention

Description: Early reading intervention has not eradicated reading deficiencies at the middle school level. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), adolescents continue to read below grade level in middle grades. Response to intervention (RTI) is one method of combating this educational concern. This study examined the impact of implementation of a RTI program within one district across multiple middle school campuses. Using individual structured online questionnaires, focus grou… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Norris, Frankie L
Partner: UNT Libraries

Using a Slopes Difference Test to Probe Longitudinal Multilevel Interactions in an Aptitude-Treatment or Skill-by-Treatment Context: A Simulation

Description: In order to determine which interventions work best for which students, precision education researchers have examined aptitude-treatment interactions (ATI) or skill-by-treatment interactions (STI) by using multiple regression analysis. In recent years, technological innovation and greater accessibility to more advanced statistical techniques have allowed researchers to examine ATI or STI using longitudinal mixed modeling. Probing techniques for interaction effects like slopes difference tests f… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: DeJong, Trey L.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Accommodating People Safety Curriculum for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students

Description: Children with disabilities are three to four times more likely to be abused than their non-disabled peers due to the impact of challenges related to behavior, cognition, language, social skills, and communication skills. In September of 2018, the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) specifically noted the need to establish maltreatment prevention and response curricula and promote research and advocacy surrounding maltreatment of children with disabilities. One common curriculum recommended i… more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Johnson, Jennifer A. L.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Early Intervention Referral and Service Frequency for Children with Visual Impairments: Experiences from the Field

Description: The purpose of this study was to examine differences in early intervention (EI) referral and service frequency for children with blindness or visual impairment (BVI) and gather information about the practices and experiences of vision professionals across the United States. The study focused on obtaining data from certified teachers of students with visual impairment (CTVI) and certified orientation and mobility specialists (COMS) in the United States. Information collected included descripti… more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Bishop, Audra Lea
Partner: UNT Libraries

Exploring Turkish American Fathers: Father Involvement, Father's Perception of Maternal Gatekeeping, Competence, and Conservatism

Description: There has been an increase in the fatherhood studies with minority groups in the United States in the past decades; however, these studies rarely included Turkish American fathers. To the best of the authors knowledge, current study was the first to explore father involvement in relation to fathers' perception of mothers' gate-keeping, fathers' competence as a parent, and their cultural stance as related to conservatism among a sample of Turkish American fathers with children between the ages o… more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Soyer, Gonca Feyza
Partner: UNT Libraries

The Impact of Including Teacher and School Characteristics on Predicting Value-Added Score Estimates

Description: Value-added models (VAMs) have become widely used in evaluating teacher accountability. The use of these models for high-stakes decisions making has been very controversial due to lack of consistency in classifying teachers as high performing or low performing. There is an abundance of research on the impact of various student level covariates on teacher value-added scores; however, less is known about the impact of teacher-level and school-level covariates. This study uses hierarchical linear … more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Allen, Lauren E.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Military-Focused Leadership Talent Development: An Examination of JROTC Participation and Postsecondary Plans

Description: Federal and state descriptions of gifted and talented services include identifying and developing leadership talent, but in many states, services are not mandated or funded. Consequently, leadership development is often left to extracurricular programs (e.g., student organizations, athletics). The Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) provides school-based military-focused leadership education and opportunities to apply emergent leadership skills. This qualitative descriptive study ex… more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Meyer, Melanie S.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Using Student Response Systems to Increase Academic Engagement for Secondary Students with Specific Learning Disability in General Education Settings

Description: Secondary students with specific learning disabilities often have challenges with academic engagement and performance within the general education setting. Opportunity to respond strategies, such as student response systems, have shown promise in supporting academic engagement for students without disabilities. However, there are few studies examining the relationship between student response systems and academic engagement for older students with specific learning disabilities. The purpose of … more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Triplett, Patrick C
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Caregiver Knowledge of Risk Factors Associated with Complex Congenital Heart Disease and Quality of Life Outcomes

Description: Congenital heart disease is the most common birth defect globally, affecting both children and their families. Twenty –five percent of children experiencing a CHD birth defect are diagnosed with complex CHD (cCHD), signifying critical heart dysfunction requiring one or more open-heart surgeries during the first year of life. With medical advances, cCHD survival rates have almost tripled in the last three decades. This has resulted in an increase in the number of morbidities associated with cCHD… more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Hutchinson, Jessica B
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Class Enumeration and Parameter Bias in Growth Mixture Models with Misspecified Time-Varying Covariates: A Monte Carlo Simulation Study

Description: Growth mixture modeling (GMM) is a useful tool for examining both between- and within-persons change over time and uncovering unobserved heterogeneity in growth trajectories. Importantly, the correct extraction of latent classes and parameter recovery can be dependent upon the type of covariates used. Time-varying covariates (TVCs) can influence class membership but are scarcely included in GMMs as predictors. Other times, TVCs are incorrectly modeled as time-invariant covariates (TICs). Additi… more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Palka, Jayme M.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Mixed-Method Sequential Explanatory Study of Fundamental Motor Skills Competence of Underserved Preschool Children

Description: This dissertation investigated the roles of early childhood fundamental motor skills (FMS) competence on physical, cognitive, and psychosocial health outcomes among underserved preschoolers in Head Start, and examined parental influence on their children's FMS competence. An explanatory sequential mixed methodology was used to examine the predictive strength of FMS competence on physical, cognitive, and psychosocial health outcomes among 216 underserved preschoolers from six Head Start centers … more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Lee, Joon Young
Partner: UNT Libraries

Using Kidpower® Social Narratives to Teach Individuals with Autism about Bullying

Description: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at an increased risk to be victims of bullying due to the core characteristics of the disorder. Prior research has focused on understanding bullying from the perspectives of individuals with ASD, parents, and practitioners through interviews and questionnaires. However, limited evidence exists using interventions to teach individuals with ASD about how to identify and respond to bullying. This study employed Kidpower® bullying narratives to te… more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Anderson, Chelsi
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Coaching Athletes with Post-Traumatic Stress: Exploring Trauma-Related Competencies and Coaching Efficacy

Description: The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) assess cycling coaches' trauma-related competencies, as measured by trauma knowledge (i.e., trauma-specific education, familiarity with post-traumatic stress [PTS]), stigma of persons with PTS (i.e., fear/dangerousness, help/interact, forcing treatment, negative emotions), and interpersonal skills (i.e., self-reported emotional intelligence, perceived quality of coach-athlete relationships); and (b) examine the influence that trauma knowledge and stigm… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Leibovitz, Amanda Patricia
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Factor Retention Strategies with Ordinal Variables in Exploratory Factor Analysis: A Simulation

Description: Previous research has individually assessed parallel analysis and minimum average partial for factor retention in exploratory factor analysis using ordinal variables. The current study is a comprehensive simulation study including the manipulation of eight conditions (type of correlation matrix, sample size, number of variables per factor, number of factors, factor correlation, skewness, factor loadings, and number of response categories), and three types of retention methods (minimum average p… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Fagan, Marcus A.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Measurement Invariance of a Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms Measure (PCL-5) in College Student and Amazon's Mechanical Turk Samples

Description: College student and Amazon's Mechanical TURK (MTURK) samples are regularly utilized in trauma research. Recent literature, however, has criticized these samples for not being generalizable to the general U.S. population. Measurement invariance (MI) using confirmatory factor analyses (CFA), is rarely utilized in trauma research, even though the analysis can determine whether groups are invariant across factor structure, factor loadings, item intercepts, and residual error variances on a given me… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Bedford, Lee
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Mixed Development and Validation of an Authentic Assessment for Middle School Mathematics

Description: In response to concerns about using only standardized multiple-choice assessments, some school districts have moved to using alternative ratings of student achievement with authentic assessments. However, such assessments are often limited in terms of the psychometric validity data supporting their use. The present study mixed quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the validity, development, and refinement of an authentic rating approach currently in use in middle school mathematics c… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Raadt, Jay Schyler
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Mothers' Parenting Stress in Chinese Immigrant Families: The Role of Fathers' Involvement and Social Support

Description: This study investigated the association between Chinese immigrant mothers' reports of parenting stress and two sources of parenting support: fathers' support and social support. Five independent-samples t-tests were first computed to examine whether there were discrepancies between Chinese immigrant mothers' and fathers' perceptions of fathers' involvement across five domains of fathers' involvement in early child care: (1) fathers' warmth and attunement; (2) control and process responsibility;… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Zhang, Xun
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Assessing Self-Determination Inventory: Validity for Students with Disabilities and Typically Developing Students

Description: Students' self-determination (SD) can positively influence their ability to make choices in planning for their future. The current study is a preliminary validity study on the most recent 21-item version of Shogren and Wehmeyer's Self-Determination Inventory: Student Report (SDI-SR). The SDI-SR was administered to 316 students (ages 13-22) and results were examined with exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Results of the EFA on a 7-factor solution (TLI = 0.9… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Nix, Susan Michele
Partner: UNT Libraries

Comparing Raw Score Difference, Multilevel Modeling, and Structural Equation Modeling Methods for Estimating Discrepancy in Dyads

Description: The current study focused on dyadic discrepancy, the difference between two individuals. A Monte Carlo simulation was used to compare three dyadic discrepancy estimation methods across a variety of potential research conditions, including variations on intraclass correlation, cluster number, reliability, effect size, and effect size variance. The methods compared were: raw score difference (RSD); empirical Bayes estimate of slope in multilevel modeling (EBD); and structural equation modeling es… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: McEnturff, Amber L
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Institutional Pluralism and the Organization's Response: A Case Study of Chinese Women's Ice Hockey

Description: In recent years, the sport of women's ice hockey is growing fast worldwide. Upon winning the bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, women's ice hockey in China started to develop rapidly. However, the development of women's ice hockey in China has encountered numerous challenges. These challenges include addressing traditional Chinese culture, gender norms, and the process of sport reform. This study used a qualitative case study methodology to examine the perspectives of Chinese women ice hocke… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Li, Hongxin
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Relationship between the Big Five and Creative Self-Beliefs in Undergraduates in Terms of College Enrollment and Major

Description: Supporting creativity in undergraduate education is important for the future development of society. To do this, an understanding of undergraduate characteristics is needed. A systematic literature review of the relationship between the Big Five personality factors and little-c creativity in undergraduates identified 19 studies. The creativity assessments within these investigations represented several conceptions of the construct with domain-general, self-reported measures of Person as most… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Soles, Kathryn L.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Self-Reported Feelings of Shame and Fear of Failure among High Ability Undergraduates

Description: Understanding how emotions influence motivation among students is critical to the talent development process. Research shows that certain emotions elicit an approach motive while other emotions elicit an avoidance motive. This study explored emotional disposition and fear of failure among undergraduates enrolled in honors college (n = 63) compared to undergraduates enrolled in regular college courses (n = 296). Results suggest that dispositional shame is positively correlated with fear of failu… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Nyikos, Tara
Partner: UNT Libraries
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