abstract: This research study looks at the design and development of an online concussion awareness education module. The Keep Your Head in the Game: Concussion Awareness Training for High School Athletes, or Brainbook, is a stand-alone e-learning module designed to run for fifty minutes and to be highly interactive using short video clips with associated comments as well as polling features to allow students to experience the content as they are learning. It was designed to provide the instruction through a framework that resembles social networking to increase relevance and engagement to the high school student-athlete population it was created for. The content is delivered through the presentation of an online conversation or a "feed" where characters with varying attitudes towards concussion, with contributions from a doctor and professional athlete, discuss concussions from their experiences and beliefs. The instructional goals of the module are to increase the athletes understanding and personal application of the causes and effects of concussions, and to motivate a change in attitude and behavior related to the perception, recognition, and care of head injuries. The design and development of this online educational module followed the tenets of design and development research as determined by Richey and Klein (2007), where the tasks of completing the design and development of the product were combined with studying the process. The study focused on what could be learned during the phases of design and development, identifying challenges that were encountered designing education that resembles social networking, testing the effectiveness of the module in relation to meeting the instructional objectives, and creating guidelines and best practices that contribute to the field of instructional design. This design and development project was found to be a success by the design team, the client, and outside entities. Findings of the study include a breakdown of the most impactful decisions made by the design team in the design and development process, the results of the team member and client interviews to provide additional insight into the process, and results from the student athlete post-module design and attitude surveys informing if attitude change indeed occurred as a result of this educational intervention. Brainbook also received much coverage in the media and has progressed on to version 2.0, additional measures of success of the project. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Technology 2016

abstract: Many English Language Learner (ELL) children struggle with knowledge of vocabulary and syntax. Enhanced Moved by Reading to Accelerate Comprehension in English (EMBRACE) is an interactive storybook application that teaches children to read by moving pictures on the screen to act out the sentences in the text. However, EMBRACE presents the same level of text to all users, and it is limited in its ability to provide error feedback, as it can only determine whether a user action is right or wrong. EMBRACE could help readers learn more effectively if it personalized its instruction with texts that fit their current reading level and feedback that addresses ways to correct their mistakes. Improvements were made to the system by applying design principles of intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs). The new system added features to track the student’s reading comprehension skills, including vocabulary, syntax, and usability, based on various user actions, as well as features to adapt text complexity and provide more specific error feedback using the skills. A pilot study was conducted with 7 non-ELL students to evaluate the functionality and effectiveness of these features. The results revealed both strengths and weaknesses of the ITS. While skill updates appeared most accurate when users made particular kinds of vocabulary and syntax errors, it was not able to correctly identify other kinds of syntax errors or provide feedback when skill values became too high. Additionally, vocabulary error feedback and adapting the complexity of syntax were helpful, but syntax error feedback and adapting the complexity of vocabulary were not as helpful. Overall, children enjoy using EMBRACE, and building an intelligent tutoring system into the application presents a promising approach to make reading a both fun and effective experience. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2017

<p> Increasingly, more high school teachers are providing instruction using blended learning. This provides benefits to students such as having more time flexibility in their learning as well as the ability to work through assignments at their own pace (Oliver &amp; Kellogg, 2015). However, this also involves student challenges, such as the need for self-motivation and time management. </p><p> The purpose of this qualitative study is to gain insight regarding teacher perceptions, experiences, and recommendations regarding transitioning from teaching in a face-to-face classroom environment to blended learning. The theoretical frameworks that form the basis for this research include the Community of Inquiry (CoI), Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM), and Disruptive Innovation Theory. Hence, this research is based on diverse frameworks to incorporate those that focus on the change process along with frameworks that address online learning for instruction. Through administering background surveys, in-depth participant interviews, review of course design, and time-ordered matrices of syllabi, triangulation of data was used to provide &ldquo;convergence of evidence&rdquo; (Yin, 2009, p. 117). </p><p> The research focus on in-depth interviews yielded the opportunity to learn details of the blended course teachers&rsquo; experiences from their point of view. By shedding light on teacher perceptions and experiences while transitioning to blended learning, this study sought to inform how teachers may approach this journey and how districts/Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) may better assist them. Ultimately, this may inform educators of research-based approaches to provide effective blended learning instruction regarding academic, personal, and social skills. </p><p> This study showed that high school blended learning teachers enjoyed having the opportunity to meet with their peers to share their ideas and learning strategies. They take pride in coming up with new and improved ways to assist their students in learning. Hence, this will provide more student engagement opportunities. </p><p> Furthermore, high school blended learning teachers may gain additional ideas from attending conferences and workshops. Although this does cost money and result in reduced teacher time in the classroom, based on teacher willingness and perceptions, the benefits in attending are very valuable. The teachers are able to learn about diverse areas of blended learning through attending sessions and networking. Ultimately, this will provide greater options for student learning in blended learning environments.</p><p>

<p> Autism spectrum disorder rates are climbing in the United States. Because this population is growing, research is needed to understand how to assist these individuals in pursuit of postsecondary educational and employment opportunities. The purpose of this qualitative study, as reflected in the central research question, was to investigate how a career and technical education program impacted the preparedness of students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder for educational and employment opportunities beyond high school. The conceptual framework was based on Bronfenbrenner&rsquo;s ecological perspective of human development, Zhao and Frank&rsquo;s ecological perspective of technology, and Song&rsquo;s research about distributed cognition. This study used a single case study design, and the case was a career and technical education program at a high school located in Southwestern state. Participants included one program administrator, three career and technical education teachers, and two special education teachers. Data were collected from multiple sources, including individual interviews with participants and program documents. Data analysis included line-by-line coding and category construction to determine themes and discrepancies. Key findings indicated that the CTE program prepared ASD students for postsecondary educational and employment opportunities, differentiated instruction to meet the individual needs of ASD students, technologies such as computers helped ASD students prepare for postsecondary educational and employment opportunities, helped ASD students learn technical skills, life skills, and job skills. As a society we need to recognize ASD students are impacting the paradigm associated with special needs students as they attend universities, work study programs, technical schools, and other opportunities which have evaded this population.</p><p>

<p>This exploratory study applies social network analysis techniques to existing, publicly available data to understand collaboration patterns within the co-author network of a federally-funded, interdisciplinary research program. The central questions asked: What underlying social capital structures can be determined about a group of researchers from bibliometric data and other publicly available existing data? What are ways social network tools characterize the interdisciplinarity or cross-disciplinarity of co-author teams? The names of 411 grantees were searched in the Web of Science indexing database; author information from the WoS search results resulted in a 191-member co-author network. Research domains were included as attribute data for the co-author network. UCINet social network analysis software calculated a large 60 node component and two larger components with 12 and 8 nodes respectively, the remainder of the network consisted of smaller 2-5 node components. Within the 191-node co-author network the following analyses were performed to learn more about the structural social capital of this group: Degree and Eigenvector centrality measures, brokerage measures, and constraint measures. Additionally, ten randomly selected dyads and the five 4-node cliques within the 191-node network were examined to find patterns of cross-disciplinary collaboration among researcher and within award teams. Award numbers were added as attribute data to five 4-node cliques and 10 random dyads; these showed instances of collaboration among interdisciplinary award teams. Collaboration patterns across disciplines are discussed. Data from this research could serve as a baseline measure for growth in future analyses of the case studied. This method is recommended as a tool to gain insights to a research community and to track publication collaboration growth over time. This research method shows potential as a way to identify aspects of a research community?s social structural capital, particularly within an interdisciplinary network to highlight where researchers are working well together or to learn where there is little collaboration.

<p> The focus on the lack of diversity in technology has become a hot topic over the last several years, with technology companies coming under fire for not being more representative of the markets that they serve. Even The White House and President Obama has made this issue of technology diversity and recruiting more women and people of color a topic of discussion hosting several events at The White House aimed at finding solutions to this issue. The issue has become so prevalent in the news recently that technology companies have been asked to publish report cards disclosing the demographic breakdown of their employee workforce. Most of the major technology companies in Silicon Valley have vowed to dedicate themselves to becoming more diverse, and have instituted programs to do such. However, progress has been slow and the results have been disappointing. Although many attempts to fix this problem has occurred for decades there has been no panacea to emerge. Why are there so few minorities pursuing careers in technology? The answer to this question at the moment is unknown. Although many experts have offered theories, there is little in the way of agreement. As the numbers continue to dwindle and more women and people of color continue to pursue careers in other fields or depart from the technology industry, technology companies are challenged to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in their workforce and to come up with solutions that address this issue that has become so important to the future economic growth of the United States. </p><p> Qualitative by design, this study examines the perspectives, insights, and understandings of African American software development engineers. Accordingly, participants in this research study provided key insights regarding strategies, best practices, and challenges experienced by African American software development engineers while developing and implementing application programs at American corporations. Participants&rsquo; perspectives provided an insightful understanding of the complexities of being an underrepresented minority in an American corporate information technology department.</p><p>

The United States has fallen below many countries in international assessments of middle school aged students in the fields math and science. Computer games have only grown in popularity. In the last few decades, the time spent playing computer and video games have increased as well. Educational games try to recapture some of this time that may otherwise be wasted, but many have failed to preserve the main reason people are drawn to them, the sense of fun. Earthquake Rebuild is a game being developed to assist teachers in the presentation of the common core standards in mathematics in a fun and engaging way. The game is being developed for students in grades six through eight. The setting and story line are motivated by the Fukusima earthquake. The player will be rebuilding a village after its destruction by an earthquake. Earthquake Rebuild follows a progression from using temporary structures, such as the container mall found in New Zealand, to more permanent structures as the difficulty increases. Earthquake Rebuild is being developed by a small group of students, educators, and experts. The project is using Unity 4 as the game engine. A proof of concept demo is completed, with classes to score and track players, as well as classes that will ease the development of the next version. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Scientific Computing in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Fall Semester, 2014. / November 14, 2014. / Includes bibliographical references. / Gordon Erlebacher, Professor Directing Thesis; John Burkhardt, Committee Member; Fengfeng Ke, Committee Member; Shachin Shanbhag, Committee Member.

Instructional design and technology (IDT) professionals work in various environments with numerous job roles. Despite differences in work settings and job functions, there are many well-documented competency standards for all IDT professionals. This study analyzed approximately 400 job announcements and 20 interviews with ID project managers. The purpose of the study was to determine instructional designers’ competency requirements from employers’ prospective in hope to align their needs with the IDT academic programs to prepare the future instructional designers. Content analysis was used to analyze the job announcements and interviews. Frequencies of competencies in both job announcements and interviews were calculated in this study. The study listed the top 25 most required competencies from job announcements and the top 25 most desired competencies from interviews. The results were clustered into five competency categories: instructional design, instructional technology, communication, management, and other foundational competencies. This current study also listed the different competency requirements for hiring instructional designers in four different industry sectors. In addition, the current study indicated that both entry-level and experienced designers should have skills in the five major competency categories, but experienced instructional designers are required to have higher proficiency, especially in the management and communication and interpersonal categories. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2016. / July 26, 2016. / Employers' View, Instructional Designers' Competency, Instructional Design and Technology / Includes bibliographical references. / James Klein, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jonathan Adams, University Representative; Vanessa Dennen, Committee Member; Fengfeng Ke, Committee Member.

Learning support has been utilized widely in self-paced learning environments. However, researchers have not yet reached a consensus regarding if the learning support will benefit learning, or how to design learning support so that it benefits learning. This dissertation study investigated if providing learning support in the form of embedding hints in the video game Physics Playground could enhance physics learning, enjoyment, and reduce undesired gaming the system behavior. Two groups of participants were recruited. The experimental group played the version of Physics Playground with hints and the control group played the version without hints. Although there was no significant group difference in terms of learning, the posttest results of the participants in the experimental group increased significantly compared with their pretest. In addition, participants in the experimental group reported more enjoyment, although the difference was not significant. In addition, less gaming the system behaviors were identified in the experimental group. The hints were moderately utilized by the participants. Implications for future studies on learning support were discussed. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2017. / March 6, 2017. / Includes bibliographical references. / Valerie Shute, Professor Directing Dissertation; Walter Boot, University Representative; Fengfeng Ke, Committee Member; James Klein, Committee Member.

This mixed methods study examined teacher attitudes towards technology and their relationship to the integration of technology in technology-rich learning environments.