<p dir="ltr">Higher education is vital for fostering new knowledge and applying existing knowledge for societal and economic advancement. Despite the private and public benefits, college enrollment rates are declining in the United States. Colleges and universities also face a significant demographic cliff in the next decade. Identifying new students for higher education in the United States will be essential for the vitality of higher education institutions and for meeting societal educational needs. Youth-serving organizations often introduce youths to pre-collegiate experiences to advance interest in higher education through a positive youth development framework. Youth-serving organizations must demonstrate impact during a tumultuous time for adolescents. They may rely on short-term impacts to justify resource investment, but youth-serving organizations struggle to capture long-term outcomes due to methodological challenges. Secondary data sources like the National Student Clearinghouse can provide youth-serving organizations an opportunity to examine long-term programmatic outcomes such as college readiness. This study provides the most comprehensive examination of Indiana 4-H and its contribution to college readiness to date. Major findings include that Indiana 4-H high school graduates enroll in postsecondary institutions at a higher rate than the state population across all observed demographics. Recommendations highlight future research and practice needs at national, organizational, and individual levels.</p>

<p dir="ltr">This three-article dissertation explores Learning by Evaluating (LbE), an educational approach that enhances student learning through the process of assessing and providing feedback on peer work. Leveraging principles of comparative judgement, students evaluate pairs of exemplars side-by-side to determine which is better and provide a rational for their decision, actively engaging in the assessment process. Students engage in critical thinking to justify their decisions, enhancing their understanding of the task at hand by discerning quality where they can apply these principles to their own assignments. Teachers may use this as a formative assessment tool to elicit student insights and misconceptions to better utilize teaching strategies and address specific needs. Engaging students in feedback allows teachers and students to communicate about a shared value structure, making the design process more comprehensive and manageable. Importantly, teachers have control over the duration of student engagement with LbE in the classroom. Once students have started the decision-making process, teachers can use a website interface to bring the session to a close, ensuring that all students finish simultaneously. Once these sessions have been created, they can be reused, further enhancing the efficiency of LbE in the classroom.</p><p dir="ltr">An important part of this process is the selection of exemplars for student evaluation. In my first paper, I engage in a systematic literature review of 33 articles on exemplars and their influence on the student learning experience in secondary and post-secondary education. Through this process, nine key themes were identified: clarity of instruction, learner focus, motivation for learning, student reflection on learning, building student self-efficacy, identifying instructional challenges, providing contrasting cases, the relationship between exemplar quality and student work quality, and raising the bar for learning outcomes. Findings suggest that the selection of exemplars has a significant influence over student motivation, understanding, and application, and that time should be taken not only to identify these items, but to use them as a means to discuss and clarify expectations to enhance the learning experience.</p><p dir="ltr">After establishing the educational merits in the first paper, I explore how selected pre-engineering teachers integrate LbE into their classrooms. To do this I use a design-based research approach in my second paper to both analyze and optimize the implementation of this method in a secondary STEM education setting through an investigation of student comments and justifications throughout the design process for five teachers after the first year of piloting the program in their classrooms. Findings show diverse student engagement and decision-making patterns, highlighting the importance of strategic integration of Learning by Evaluating for both students and educators.</p><p dir="ltr">In my final paper, recognizing that much of the research of Learning by Evaluating has focused on student outcomes in groups, I investigate the benefits on students as individuals. Using quasi-experimental research, a conceptual replication study was initiated to investigate the influence of Learning by Evaluating of 325 undergraduate students in an entry-level design thinking course as they prepare for and conduct qualitative research interviews. While the original study used LbE to have students develop PoV statements as a group, this replication study builds on that research by using the same methods and a similar sample of students from the same course, but shifts the focus to individual interviews to inform the PoV problem statement. The findings show that students in the treatment group prepared more open-ended questions, indicating improved interview preparation, however, the actual length of interviews showed no significant improvement. The study used random sampling and independent samples t-tests to compare treatment and control groups, with results suggesting that this is an effective pedagogical strategy for individualized work, highlighting its value for educators and researchers in optimizing comparative judgement to enhance student learning experiences.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p>

<p dir="ltr">This dissertation investigates the dynamics of co-regulated learning within the context of teamwork in higher education with a focus on software development courses. Co-regulated learning, where team members collaboratively manage, adapt, and synchronize their learning processes, is essential for effective teamwork and improved learning outcomes. The study comprises three interrelated investigations: a systematic literature review of co-regulation in higher education, an empirical evaluation of co-regulated learning strategies in a software development course, and a longitudinal study on the evolution of these strategies over time.</p><p dir="ltr">The systematic literature review synthesizes findings from 25 empirical studies on co-regulation in teamwork, highlighting the theoretical foundations, methodological approaches, and gaps in existing research on co-regulation. The first study examines how co-regulated learning strategies influence team interactions, performance, and learning outcomes in a semester-long software development course, identifying common challenges and effective practices such as adaptive planning, proactive monitoring, and reflective practices. The second study provides a dynamic view of how co-regulation strategies evolve over multiple project milestones, demonstrating how teams transition from initial role exploration to more defined responsibilities and improved collaboration over time and offering deeper insights into the factors influencing team dynamics and effectiveness.</p><p dir="ltr">Key findings highlight the importance of structured planning, continuous monitoring, reflective evaluation in fostering effective teamwork and co-regulation, and the dynamic evolution of teamwork strategies. The research contributes to understanding co-regulated learning in software development education and offers practical insights for fostering effective teamwork skills such as integration of co-regulation strategies into educational curricula and the development of instructional interventions to support collaborative learning. This research contributes to the theoretical understanding of co-regulated learning and offers practical recommendations for educators, policymakers, and researchers to enhance teamwork and co-regulation skills in higher education, ultimately preparing students for the collaborative demands of the software industry.</p>

<p dir="ltr">This project aims to determine the overall attitude towards chemistry in a general chemistry course primarily taken by non-chemistry science majors. Given that this course is required for non-chemistry science majors, such as engineering, it is hypothesized that the courses (CHM 115 and CHM 116) directly relate to STEM retention within Purdue. Surveys were conducted and analyzed by format and course. It was determined that the course format does not affect student attitude towards chemistry. The factor that played the largest role in student attitude was if the student continued to CHM 116 after completing CHM 115. Overall, the surveys conducted on students who took this course displayed that they have a low attitude towards chemistry, with CHM 116 student attitude decreasing in several factors when compared to CHM 115. Interviews were conducted to gain deeper insight into student attitudes, where it was learned that the largest factor in the negativity towards the course was the lectures. Importantly, students cited their previous experience with chemistry in high school as the reason they enjoy chemistry, clarifying that if the general chemistry course was their only chemistry exposure they would have chosen a different career path. One student specifically stated that he felt the general chemistry courses were “weed out” courses due to the way the course was run. Participants made several suggestions to address in these issues, such as conducting more demonstrations in lecture, making videos on the LMS to help students with common problems, and providing more real-life examples to help students relate chemistry to their life. Further study will need to be conducted to determine which interventions will help increase student attitude towards chemistry.</p>

The purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore the literacy practices of marginalized adolescent youth in India and the relationship of these practices to imagination and identity construction. More than just tools for communication, language and literacy practices allow individuals to express their selves and identities as they voice their thoughts, negotiate meaning (Dyson & Genishi, 2005; Gee, 2003), and enact themselves within society (Janks, 2010; New London Group, 1996). This qualitative case study took place in Lucknow, India; the subjects were a group of adolescent girls at a nonprofit all-girls school in a seventh-grade classroom. Using discourse analysis, the data revealed the ways in which the girls used literacy to agentively position themselves as actual selves in their societies, as imagined social selves and others, in relationship to social others, and in imagined events.

For African Americans, literacy has historically been rooted in passion, collaboration, and social justice. This study explores two distinct sites of historical African American literacy development: literary societies of the 1800s and print culture of the Harlem Renaissance. Notably, literacy and culture were fundamentally intertwined during these times, creating an urgency and inspiration for literary pursuits not often seen today. In an effort to rekindle this reverence and utility for literacy in classrooms today, a culturally sustaining pedagogy is called for. Culturally sustaining pedagogy seeks to leverage students’ cultural knowledge and skills. By culturally aligning curriculum and instruction, educators position students to experience the transformative power of literacy—a transformative power that was evident in African American literary societies and through the Harlem Renaissance print culture. This study seeks to merge historical and contemporary approaches to literacy development to reconceptualize literacy education and engagement for all students.

The purpose of this qualitative case study is threefold: (1) to examine the implementation of current Life Sciences curriculum in a selected primary school from the perspectives of teachers, students and administrators / (2) to investigate the degree to which teachers&rsquo / , students&rsquo / and administrators&rsquo / perceptions were embedded in the classroom practices / and (3) to identify whether the implementation of the curriculum was conducive to principles of constructivist pedagogy. An elementary school was chosen as a single case in an outer district of Ankara. The participants of the study were the school administrator and 2 co-administrators, 4 classroom teachers and 87 students from different 2nd and 3rd grades classrooms. The data were collected through document analysis, observations in the Life Sciences classes, semi-structured interview with administrators, stimulated recall interview with teachers, and creative drama with students. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings indicated that the suggested Life Sciences Curriculum was conducive to the principles of constructivist pedagogy in terms of its content / teaching and learning processes / instructional methods / assessment methods / and teachers&rsquo / and students&rsquo / roles. However, the acquisitions of the LSC were not conducive to the constructivist approach. The findings on the teachers&rsquo / , students&rsquo / and administrators&rsquo / perceptions about the Life Sciences curriculum indicated that in Life Sciences lessons the teachers seemed to have a role of knowledge transmitter to a group of passive students. According to the findings, the most frequently used teaching methods were lecturing, question-answer and demonstration through using textbooks, workbooks, and white boards. In addition, the most frequently used assessment methods were essay and oral exams, classroom observations and self-assessment. Overall it can be concluded from the findings that although the suggested Life Sciences curriculum was prepared in line with the principles of constructivist pedagogy, the way it was implemented had some deficiencies regarding the actualization of goals suggested by a constructivist curriculum.

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