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The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted teaching and learning, causing schools to close and to move students to remote learning. Many principals sidestepped the guiding principle for schools, the mission statement, and were instead on a mission to salvage teaching and learning. Environmental entities became crucial to school survival. The open system theory, which framed this qualitatively driven mixed methods study, asserts organizations like schools are strongly influenced by the environment, especially during emergencies. This study explored the extent to which select pre-COVID mission statements showed language similarity, facilitated tenets of the open system theory, and aligned with job responsibilities of principals during the pandemic. The 10 South Carolina alternative school principals in this study showed via survey data the pre-COVID mission statements supported their decision-making and allowed flexibility to connect with internal and external entities. Data collected from the focus group of the 10 principals revealed mission statements were similar in language with regard to ensuring the needs of students were met through quality learning environments. An inconsistency emerged from focus group data, defying the earlier survey data findings. Finally, the focus group revealed categories of language essential for supporting open system operations post-pandemic: language that supports student success, school community, and environmental collaboration or interchange and invites parental involvement. The study implies that mission statements can be critical to confirming purpose but must be flexible and the result of robust collaboration. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Because of the priority placed on learning intercultural skills in the 21st century workplace, many higher educational institutions around the world have emphasized internationalization in recent years. In late 2022, two years after the Covid-19 pandemic significantly impacted their internationalization efforts, resulting in quarantine requirements and border closures, Internationalization at Home activities have increased dramatically in universities in Hong Kong. In this study, document analysis was used to examine the extent to which internationalization, culture, diversity, equality, and inclusion are reflected in the vision and mission statements, strategic plans, and annual reports of six selected public and private universities in Hong Kong, and the impacts Covid-19 had on their Internationalization at Home initiatives. The study found that the word "international" appears more in documents reviewed from the two large public universities while the word "regional" appears more often in those of the two small public universities and the two private universities, and that the terms "diversity, equality and inclusion" appear more frequently in these six universities' latest annual reports. The Internationalization at Home initiatives identified were programs with international themes, foreign language courses, virtual exchange/internships, and diversity-related extracurricular activities. The findings may be helpful to students, staff and other stakeholders who are interested in the efforts made by these six universities in terms of Internationalization at Home initiatives, culture, diversity, equality, and inclusion. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Crises are unpredictable events that affect the organization and all the stakeholders. In higher education, crises are often found in a single institution or small region, depending on the nature of the situation. The coronavirus pandemic presented an opportunity to understand the impact of crises on a larger scale. This study explored how college and university leaders responded to and communicated with their stakeholders. It looked at how mission statements connected with institutions' COVID-19 communication and leadership theories aligned with the messaging. This study used qualitative content analysis to examine the websites and publicly available messaging of fifteen colleges and universities accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. The sample was narrowed down based on the basic Carnegie Classification category, and additional demographic data was collected from the sample. The study focused on information from each institution's COVID-19 website and publicly available messages for the Spring 2021 semester. Communication is necessary for making sense of crises. The study suggests that leaders need to consider what information is provided and how it is relayed so stakeholders can find it and receive it. Further, messaging should balance informational and interpersonal to ensure stakeholders gain knowledge and are reminded of their value to the organization. Determining leadership theories was impacted by the limitations of secondary data but aligned with the literature, which indicated that a variety of leadership theories could be applied to crisis events. However, it suggested that a leader's approach to a crisis should adapt to the organization's needs as the crisis evolves. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

As technology use in sub-Saharan Africa has grown more prevalent, economic opportunities have become more available and plentiful (World Bank, 2024). Policymakers agree that economic development requires an educated workforce (Anna Valero, 2021). They acknowledge that proper workforce development places education at the center of talent generation (Radcliffe, 2023). While the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to unwind in the background on a global scale, this research attempts to intervene on the local, regional, and national levels in Uganda. Uganda experienced the most prolonged interruption of schooling in the world due to the pandemic. Between 2020 and 2021, roughly 15 million learners missed school, and about 30 percent might never return (Kwasi, 2023). Posing a more immediate economic fallout, "About 548,000 teachers [in Uganda] either took pay cuts or lost their jobs" (Kwasi, 2023). Social scientists are now beginning to understand precisely how these prolonged interruptions to Ugandan schooling have affected the country's society and economy over the longer term. This paper represents just one humble step in widening our understanding of the possibilities and pitfalls of technology interventions to right the course of development within the education sector in Uganda. Teachers remain at the center of change in the education sector, and those who can effectively use technology have been proven to facilitate instruction better (Costley, 2014). However, even in schools with an abundant supply of computers, institutions, and personnel require more than the readily available hardware to close the education gap or improve teaching and learning processes (Kibirige, 2023). This paper deals with how to leverage technology within Uganda's education sector. The subject deserves further attention. Technology could significantly enhance and expand students' education opportunities in Uganda. The study used mixed methods aligned with a Participant PAR (PAR) methodology and gathered qualitative data from a focus group, multiple surveys, an online content forum, and many one-on-one interviews. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

K-12 educational outcomes are a powerful reflection of social opportunity, both by meaningfully predicting adult wellbeing across measures like health and income, and by encapsulating the breadth of factors that contribute to a child's preparedness, ability, and opportunity to learn and persist in school. In this light, the persistent deficits in educational outcomes experienced by individuals from traditionally disadvantaged identity groups and classes reflect systemic failures to meaningfully address the numerous shortcomings of education and social policy to create equal educational opportunities for all students. The three papers that comprise this dissertation aim to promote more equitable education and social policy by contributing valuable insights into three vital areas of policy that substantively shape the educational opportunities and outcomes of students in the United States. In the first, I extend the existing literature on how air pollutants can contribute to educational inequality by measuring the association between students' proximity to hog farms, their feces lagoons, and fecal fertilizer spraying, and educational outcomes in North Carolina. In the second, I examine the most important school-level resource for student achievement -- teachers -- and how the processes by which students are assigned to classrooms enables the disproportionate assignment of lower performing, nonwhite, and low-income students to less effective teachers within their schools. And finally, I examine districts' proposed spending of federal COVID-19 relief funds, what differences in spending strategies existed for these extremely flexible dollars, and what potential equity implications may exist for student academic learning recovery in the wake of the pandemic. Collectively, these papers contribute new knowledge in three important areas of education and social policy and foreground several promising future research directions by which greater educational equity and equality of social opportunity can be promoted. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This research study investigates the impact of the rapid transition from paper-based to online administration of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exams on student performance in a South Texas school district. The transition, mandated by House Bill 3261, presented Texas public schools with a tight timeline for adapting to this new testing format. Additionally, the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the cancellation of the Spring 2020 STAAR exams, leaving schools with only two academic years to make the transition. The study focuses on assessing the reading and math STAAR exam results for sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade students during the Spring 2022 and Spring 2023 test administrations. It aims to identify whether there were any significant differences in student scores as a result of the shift from paper-based to online testing. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The COVID-19 pandemic caused worldwide closures of schools resulting in a sudden shift to online instruction for a large population of students. For many students, this shift caused a decrease in academic performance. This four-paper dissertation explores the impact of this shift on newly struggling high school students. These students earned a D or F as their final course grade in two or more classes during the first semester of 2020 online learning but earned zero or one D or F final course grade during the first semester of 2019 with in person instruction. Using a correlational research design, the first paper explores whether the demographic characteristics of gender, racial/ethnic minority status, low household income status, and special education status were associated with decreased academic outcomes among newly struggling high school students. Findings suggest that students from low-income households were impacted more by the shift to online learning than students from non-low-income households. Conversely, while special education students did see an increase in the frequency of D and F final course grades between semesters, it was a significantly lower increase than their newly struggling sample group peers. Through data collected from focus groups interviews, the second paper seeks to understand the perceptions of newly struggling high school students regarding their academic struggle with the shift to online learning during the pandemic. An overarching theme generated from the focus group data was a struggle with motivation. A subtheme generated from the data was a loss of connection with teachers and peers that contributed to participants' struggle with motivation. The third paper is a research brief for the quantitative portion of the study. The fourth paper is a research brief for the qualitative portion of this study. The purpose of these briefs is to provide a concise, nontechnical summary of the key findings and takeaways from this study for educators and educational leaders. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

As science becomes increasingly computationally intensive, the need for computational thinking (CT) and computer science (CS) practices in K-12 science education is becoming paramount. Incorporation of CT/CS practices in K-12 education can be seen in national standards and a variety of allied initiatives. One way to build capacity around an emerging educational practice is for a team of researchers to partner with a local school or district in a Research-Practice Partnership (RPP). Over the past four years, our team has worked with a local middle school via a RPP to help support a school-wide STEM ecosystem that aimed to integrate computational thinking concepts throughout all elements of the school day (core curricula, electives, after school activities, etc.). Throughout this partnership, we have worked closely with science teachers to develop and implement computational modeling units that aim to develop both computational thinking skills and scientific knowledge. This research considers the far-reaching impacts of this RPP by examining science teachers' infusion of CT/CS into their science curricula, the development of a scientific computational modeling unit, and students' understanding of both metamodeling and scientific concepts after participating in the implementation of the computational modeling unit. The first paper in this dissertation is written for a practitioner journal. It discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic led to the rapid revision of a previously utilized disease transmission modeling unit in order to reflect the current scientific consensus regarding the behavior of the coronavirus. The paper details what a middle school science computational modeling unit about COVID-19 using the Use-Modify-Create (UMC) instructional strategy looks like in the classroom, and how the pandemic may have impacted student understanding of disease transmission through the use of computational modeling. This work demonstrates the efficacy of engaging in agile curricular revision and instruction to capture salient, emerging real-world events that can help contextualize student learning around what might otherwise be experienced as abstract science concepts. The second study is a qualitative study that utilizes a combination of modeling theoretical frameworks to investigate eighth grade science students' understanding of the nature, purpose, and revisability of the same computational model depicting the spread of COVID-19. Student exit-ticket responses, student interviews, and multiple-choice responses were analyzed to determine students' levels of understanding of metamodeling concepts. This work also compares student descriptions of what they learned using the computational model to student responses from before the pandemic, when students used a more generalized epidemics modeling unit. The results suggest that the unique context of engaging students in SSI-centered scientific modeling that is directly related to a natural phenomenon that they are directly experiencing could increase their level of understanding of metamodeling components, and even add additional complexities to their comprehension rooted in the socio-scientific nature of the content and context. The third paper is a case study that examines the attitudes, beliefs, and experiences of seven middle school science teachers at the magnet middle school engaged in the CT-focused RPP. Through the analysis of semi-structured interviews, a CT self-efficacy survey, and lesson plans, themes regarding the relationship between the variables being studied are presented. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

School choice is a tool used to fight inequality and is important to consider how students are assigned to schools. The essays in this dissertation study mechanisms designed to improve and understand students' attendance at schools. Chapter 1 examines the inequality caused by the COVID-19 pandemic with respect to schools switching to a hybrid option. During the pandemic, school districts adopt hybrid schedules to continue the education of the students while maintaining social distance. In a hybrid schedule, students in the same classroom are usually divided into two groups, and students only in the same group can physically attend class together two days a week. School districts do not take the preferences of the students/parents over the days they would like to come to school into account during this procedure. In this paper, we propose a solution that divides students into groups based on their preferences. Our solution respects the number of classrooms initially reserved for each grade and enables possible efficiency gains by swapping classrooms across grades. Moreover, when there are two alternative schedules provided for students, our solution is immune to preference manipulations. In Chapter 2 we analyze the application of a reserve system to the Boston Mechanism. School choice enables disadvantaged students to have access to better schools and is an important tool in the fight against inequality. A reserve system sets aside a predetermined number of seats for under-represented groups. In this paper, we analyze the application of a reserve system under the Boston Mechanism. The Boston Mechanism is widely used by school districts in the US because it maximizes the number of students who receive their reported first choice. We show how the current inclusion of reserve systems to the Boston Mechanism by school districts, such as Charlotte-Mecklenburg, can negatively impact students. We propose a modified mechanism that respects reservations while eliminating waste. Moreover, it Pareto improves upon the current applications of reserve systems under the Boston Mechanism and is not outperformed in terms of incentives. In chapter 3 we develop a new methodology to estimate a student's true preference order. The estimation of student preferences from revealed choices typically uses a student's reported rank-order list. However, a student who chooses to not report a rank-order list of schools has revealed information about her beliefs of acceptance over her preferences but is often not included in current estimation strategies. In this paper, we adopt the bounds approach, introduced by Lu (2022), to estimate student preferences and compare it to the commonly used exploded logit model. We present simulation evidence that suggests the bounds approach has a smaller bias in the estimators while increasing the number of students in the data. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This qualitative research paper investigated the intersection of the COVID-19 pandemic and the year 2020 in sparking a phenomenon of hiring chief diversity officers (CDOs) in higher education. By exploring the interplay between the pandemic, racial justice movements, evolving higher education landscape, and institutional accountability, this study aimed to understand the motivations behind the increased hiring of CDOs during this transformative period. Additionally, this research examined the specific effects of this phenomenon on Black women diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice (DEI&J) professionals in higher education. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges faced by Black women Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social justice professionals in navigating their roles amidst institutional efforts to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and justice. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on schools world-wide required school leaders to provide effective, decisive leadership for their students, staff, and communities. The purpose of this interpretive qualitative study was to discover the systems and processes that framed leaders' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study focuses on the superintendent's role on student achievement, ensuring access to technology, the financial wellbeing of operations, as well as maintaining relationships and displaying a human connection to all stakeholders. An interpretive qualitative study approach was used to answer this question: How did school superintendents respond to the crisis presented by the COVID-19 pandemic? The framework for assessing leadership performance by Boin et al. (2013) serves as the conceptual framework for this study. With this paper, I explored the nature of a prolonged crisis, and then considered the response of leadership to successfully deal with and learn from it to prepare for other crises they inevitably will encounter. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation is motivated by a need in the higher education learning sciences field to understand the cultural, social, and emotional processes of student learning and development in advancing equity for students from first-generation, low-income, and marginalized backgrounds. To address this need, I develop and examine a sociocultural conceptual framework called the zone of proximal self. The zone of proximal self is the distance between a learner's current self and their possible selves which can be bridged through support from institutional figures, resources, and materials across a broad learning ecology in higher education. The structure of this dissertation paper includes the three papers followed by an integrated discussion in the conclusion. In a series of three papers, I use the zone of proximal self as a lens to study college students' interactions in postsecondary settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. In my first paper, I use mixed methods approaches to analyze survey results from 524 students at a private four-year university to explore first-generation students' experiences with institutional resources. In my second and third paper, I draw on a study of 50 students at a public four-year university who were asked to meet with a counselor or advisor throughout an academic term and share their experiences through diary entries, surveys, and an interview across a 14-week semester. Results from the first paper reveal how barriers persist for students in interacting with institutional resources; and it reveals the importance of shifting the focus from the role of student meritocracy to that of institutional structures and variability in access to interpersonal and material resources. The second and third paper highlight three pillars of effective practices from counselors and advisors -- creating a brave space, validating students, and supporting students' social-emotional competencies -- which are associated with higher growth in students' professional and personal goals for their possible selves. Taken together, a zone of proximal self lens illuminates how advancing equity in higher education will require humanizing notions of college student success beyond a narrow focus on academic outcomes. The findings which surfaced from an "interpersonal plane of analysis" (Rogoff, 2003) offer design implications for formal and informal learning environments in higher education to incorporate dimensions of humanizing relational practices between students and institutional figures and resources. Moving forward, this work opens up new lines of research to better theorize and assess how humanizing relational practices emerge and foster growth in the zone of proximal self for students from first-generation, low-income, and marginalized backgrounds. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The objective of this study was to better understand what aspects of place and curriculum influence experiences for underserved youth in an environmental education program. For instance, how can environmental education managers create program experiences that maintain depth and focus, while honoring the unique ways students connect and find meaning with the natural world? (Paper 1) Next, how is student stewardship identity in nature affected by curriculum and programming? (Paper 2) Lastly, what are the place-based learning affordances in specific locations and with specific curricula? (Paper 3) To better understand this, I studied five cohorts of high school students each year for 5 years (the fourth year is excluded in this paper due to the program undergoing an alternative schedule during the 2020 pandemic) in a place based, service-learning, environmental career-pathways education program for underrepresented students in Colorado. This program was unique in that it took students to five service-learning locations where the experiences were differently structured. This allowed an examination of what elements of place and curriculum impacted the student experience. I used a mixed-methods approach that included surveys and ethnography (interviews, observations, field notes taken while embedded as an active participant). Surveys were designed to evaluate curriculum affordances for the participants and were aligned with local (Thorne Nature Center) and regional (Colorado Environmental Education Guidelines) recommendations for teaching to the whole person. This research provides insights about how student nature connecting experiences both prior to and during environmental education programs can help foster stewardship identity development. Further, this research can bridge research to practice to inform curriculum development and evaluation design by highlighting how culturally responsive programming can integrate unique affordances of specific places with the funds of knowledge and experiences that students bring to the experience. These findings encourage curriculum co-design for culturally responsive pedagogy and equitable evaluation so programs and the students they serve receive the impact and value required for a meaningful environmental education program experience. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Our institutional approaches to problems in the changing global landscape of internationalized higher education are being challenged, and many scholars call for new approaches for understanding and addressing the complex problems we face (e.g., la paperson, 2017; Lee, 2021; Patel, 2016; Stein, 2019, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has sped up the need to make changes in how we approach our evolving problems and possibilities for human-centric transformation. This multi-paper dissertation is a call to action and proposes the use of new approaches to research and educational practice--specifically, critical futures studies (see Equity Futures (Brown, 2017; IFTF, 2019)) and arts-based research (see Barone & Eisner, 2012; Cahnmann-Taylor & Siegesmund, 2008). Design justice principles and participatory action approaches frame and motivate these possibilities. First, "A Public University Futures Collaboratory: A Case Study in Building Foresightfulness and Community" addresses a defining critical need of our communities and institutions, namely, developing social capacity for responsible foresights praxis on an institutional level. Next, "'Art and Documentaries in Climate Communication': A Review and Participant-Voiced Poetic Inquiry" considers how Arts-Based Research (ABR) approaches can impact perceptions of the need for social change. Finally, "Transforming IHE in a post-COVID world: Using methodologies of Futures thinking and ABR to Amplify International Students' Voices" proposes utilizing the pluralistic perspectives and participatory methodologies of futures thinking and ABR to amplify students' voices and reimagine international higher education futures. This multi-paper dissertation outlines four futures-facing, arts-based, participatory methodologies that could be used in international higher education (IHE) and other educational settings to amplify student voices: design futures (Costanza-Chock, 2020; IFTF, 2021), scenario building (Dator, 1998), ethnographic experiential futures (Candy & Kornet, 2017), and poetic inquiry (Prendergast, 2009; Reilly, 2013). The IHE Design Futures Framework I propose is outlined in paper 3 and toolkits intended for use in IHE are included. These participatory, critical, and creative methodologies are a form of jargon-free, open-access, public scholarship. In a world struggling with the evolving global COVID-19 pandemic, they could help us re-envision and re-learn how we engage with IHE by amplifying transnational, multilingual voices through design justice principles in order to re-imagine globalized HE as otherwise. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Reports of ecological disturbances - wildfires, loss of biodiversity, drought, contaminated drinking water, extreme temperatures - fill the news. People have to navigate and manage these challenges. To do so effectively, requires that people are environmentally literate (EL), demonstrating an understanding of the problems, so they are motivated to take action. The problem in the United States is that the levels of EL are estimated to be relatively low, despite concerted efforts, since the 1960's, to promote environmental education in both formal (e.g., school) and informal (after-school, community-based) settings. K-12 schools are one important place to examine EL. One intervention strategy to examine EL is through the focus on place-based education (PBE).This dissertation focuses on the experiences of secondary science teachers and their connection to natural and social places as a mediating influence on their instructional choices and professional decisions to remain in education. The research was initially designed using a social ecological systems (SES) frame but ultimately the analysis was framed around social cognitive theory (SCT). SES views humans as a part of - not separate from - natural systems. SCT describes how a person's behavior is shaped by their personal (i.e. knowledge, attitudes, and expectations) and environmental (social and natural environment) attributes. Paper 1 examines northern Colorado middle school teachers' implementation of locally developed place-based education (PBE) curriculum. The curriculum was designed with the intention of promoting students' environmentally positive behaviors. Camera traps were placed near schools and teachers (n = 12) were provided with photographic data of urban wildlife to use during ecology lessons. Through our grounded theory study, we found that teachers who perceived a curricular alignment and drew on curricular agency were willing to adopt and adapt the lessons for their classrooms. Those who did not implement the lessons either lacked curricular agency or perceived a misalignment of the PBE lessons and their school context. Paper 2 examines the factors keeping highly qualified science teachers in rural schools in northeastern Colorado. The U.S. is experiencing a critical shortage of science teachers, particularly in rural communities, in part as a result of teachers having to navigate multiple expectations and few resources. Teachers respond professionally by either staying, moving within, or leaving the rural school system. Their choices have economic and organizational implications for schools because schools lose institutional knowledge and financial resources as they recruit and train new teachers. This case study of rural science teachers (n =9) was informed by both systems theory and integrated capital theory and was designed to identify what factors affect teachers' decisions to remain or leave the rural classroom. My deductive analysis of interviews used an adaptive capacity lens to describe vulnerabilities, adaptations, and resilience that teachers felt they faced in the education system. When rural teachers were able to navigate both professional and social vulnerabilities by capitalizing on places, people, and community knowledge, they were able to build professional resilience and remain in the rural school system. Paper 3 was designed in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Within the science teacher education research community, there was a mounting concern that the pandemic would exacerbate the already concerning issue of science and mathematics teacher shortages. As the pandemic began to disrupt school systems in March 2020, teachers were expected to, on very short notice, modify their instructional approaches. We recruited science, technology, engineering, and mathematics teachers who were supported with National Science Foundation scholarships because of their high-quality academic record and commitment to working in high-needs school districts. Participants graduated from universities or colleges in the Mountain West or western region of the Midwest. Their professional experience ranged from 1-10 years. Through a series of three surveys (n = 153) administered throughout 2020 and follow-up focus group interviews (n=42) in early 2021, I examined the perceptions and beliefs of teachers about o the education system response to COVID-19. I found teachers perceived the system as being most concerned about continuing instructional delivery. The needs of teachers to continue functioning in the classroom was a low priority. Additionally, most teachers believed the actions taken by schools to be negative or neutral. Teachers were categorized by years of experience (preservice 0, novice 1-3, early career 4-5, and master 6+) to compare their perceptions of success and intentions to continue teaching. Prior to the pandemic perceptions of level success increased with years of experience, but during the pandemic all categories of teachers reported decreased success. The loss of feeling successful particularly among early career and master teachers equated to a loss of support for preservice and novice from those with experience. In spite of teachers' negative beliefs about the school response and perceived low levels of success, teachers intended to remain in the classroom short-term. Their intentions to remain long term decreased. Teachers described both internal (personal) and external (environmental) variables influencing their intentions. This study confirms teachers' fortitude to remain and thrive in the classroom while also demonstrating limits to their persistence. While this dissertation began with the intent to examine teachers' inclusion of place in their respective curricula, the findings highlighted the importance of teacher agency. When teachers have the agency to act based on past experiences to shape current and future work in the classroom, they are then able to connect to local people and places. These connections are critical components to increasing both student and teacher EL and motivating them to take pro-environmental actions. Furthermore, teachers' agency is shaped by their perceptions of the capital or resources within systems to which they have access. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The evolution of school finance has become increasingly more complex, and accountability and transparency of spending decisions toward academic outcomes have increased, leading to more demands on the superintendent (Bjork & Kowalski, 2005; Kowalski, 2013; Ramirez, 2013). This has led to evolution of the role of the superintendent position in school districts (Bjork & Kowalski, 2005; Callahan, 1966; Carter & Cunningham, 1997; Decman et al., 2018; Glass et al., 2000; Tienken, 2021). Prior to the educational crisis caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic, Roza (2018) emphasized building fiscal knowledge for educational leaders is important. However, due to the COVID-19 global pandemic's negative effects on education, the federal government has released unprecedented funds known as The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER). Roza and Hess (2021) asserted leaders who are better equipped to maximize resources from the federal relief efforts will seize the opportunity, and leaders lacking the fiscal knowledge may have a missed opportunity with detrimental effects on the economy and student outcomes that will be publicly transparent Hess (2021). The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to explore the relationship between the self-perceived fiscal literacy of New York State school district superintendents, the actions superintendents can take to acquire fiscal knowledge, and their self-perceived ability to maximize ESSER. This study's theoretical framework used Waters and Marzano's (2006) working paper, "School District Leadership That Works: The Effect of Superintendent Leadership on Student Achievement." Several key findings emerged: on average, (a) superintendents had the highest level of agreement regarding their confidence in communicating the budget to stakeholders, (b) informal mentoring with other superintendents helped build fiscal knowledge, and (c) having district goals agreed upon for ESSER spending that included academics and instruction. On average, the lowest level of agreement was their self-perception regarding their district-level administrative advance certificate program, which helped prepare them to make financial decisions. Differences did exist between male and female superintendents' responses to four statements about financial oversight and between superintendents with 1±3 years of experience in any district and any other experience group. Furthermore, the statement regarding their advanced certificate program had the most frequent statistically significant relationships with financial oversight statements despite having the lowest average agreement; informal mentoring had zero statistically significant relationships despite having one of the highest average agreement levels. Finally, the source of their fiscal knowledge had statistically significant relationships with all 13 financial oversight statements. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Belonging has been studied for decades with many researchers concluding that humans have an inherent need to belong. Although each person's level of need to belong differs, it is a deeply rooted human motivation that impacts a person's feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Individuals develop a sense of belonging when they feel connected to others. The postsecondary journey allows for unique experiences and opportunities that foster a sense of belonging, which can assist college students to flourish in many aspects of their lives. Research has shown that belonging significantly impacts student well-being and academic achievement, making the topic imperative to continue studying and teasing out. More recently, as postsecondary institutions have returned to in-person instruction and campus life, the need for reestablishing connectedness and belonging in the campus community has been substantial. The COVID-19 pandemic changed the postsecondary student experience, forcing institutions to seek alternate strategies for student engagement and community formation. Through a primary data analysis of a mixed methods study (n=100), this paper aimed to explore the relationship between students' sense of belonging and on-campus student employment status post the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, analyses of variance were used to identify differences amongst various subgroups: sex assigned at birth, year in school, and ethnicity. To gain a more complete understanding, coding of the qualitative data collected was used to identify trends in participant responses related to their belonging experience at the university. Key findings emerged from the study related to leadership, social connection, and involvement with DeSBI factors when comparing those who had a history of campus employment and those who did not. These findings assist in better understanding student belonging and on-campus employment, which can guide future research endeavors and postsecondary strategies focused on building campus community, increasing student success, and improving overall student well-being. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation responds to the dearth of research in responding practice of instructors teaching in college composition online writing classrooms, especially addressing both how they do it and how "care-fully." More specifically, the dissertation investigates the responding thoughts and behaviors of instructors teaching writing within the parameters of an asynchronous online format. Furthermore, the dissertation regards the instructors as carers and the students as cared-fors, exploring how teachers' responses to students (carer and cared-for) are marked by elements of care-fullness. These elements include engrossment (empathy [thinking + feeling] + receptive attention), motivational displacement (the impulse to focus on and contribute to the resolution of students' challenges), and reciprocity (the desire for dialogic exchange between carer and cared-for). There has been ample research establishing the increased frequency of online writing instruction and its rising prevalence especially during COVID-19. In the wake of the move from face-to-face teaching to online teaching, the need to explore instructors' responding protocols are also increasing. While response to students' writing has been a staple in composition studies for more than six decades, little research has focused specifically on fully online situations, particularly those with an asynchronous approach. Furthermore, while care in the context of elementary and middle-school has been researched before, no such research focuses on the asynchronous online situation. This dissertation brings together these disparate elements into a meticulously structured intellectual confluence. In brief, this dissertation examines the following questions through the case studies of two instructors teaching the asynchronous online iteration of a sophomore-level college composition course, mandatory to all undergraduate students at Florida State University, namely, ENC 2135 (Research, Genre, and Context). The research questions the dissertation answers are: 1) How do teachers of online writing instruction describe their response protocols and goals? How, if at all, does "care-fullness" emerge within those descriptions? 2) How do teachers of online writing instruction respond to student papers? How, where, and when, if at all, does "care-fullness" emerge within those response behaviors? 3) What role, if any, does the medium of response play in teacher of online writing instruction response? How, if at all, does medium affect care-fullness? To find answers to these questions, the data corpus consisting of the instructors' response philosophies and textual comments, along with transcripts of audiovisual conferences and retrospective protocols were collected, coded, and interpretated through observation, transcription, color classification, and tabulation. The coding of the data happened on two levels. The descriptive coding focused on answering the questions: what, who, when, where, why, and how. Likewise, the "care-fullness" coding focused on the occurrences of the elements of the "care-fullness" triad, i.e., engrossment, motivational displacement, and reciprocity. The results showed that, first, there is negligible difference in the textual responses of college composition courses taught face-to-face and those taught asynchronously online. The instructors had numerous marginal comments and end comments across the drafts that helped students polish their projects. In addition to the format of responding that follows a series of comments at different locations on and across drafts, the similarity between online instruction and face-to-face instruction also lies in employing Canvas as the Learning Management System (LMS) through which textual responses are shared periodically. Second, the only domain of response that shows a departure from the responding practices of face-to-face college composition course is the mode of teacher-student conference, conducted via Zoom. This is significant because while it provides the immediacy in conversation which imitates a real-world in-person meeting, it is still happening through virtual channels. As a result, it consists of computer screens and Zoom elements like screen sharing. Third, the project shows that "care-fullness" can be performed in diverse ways. As derived from the first case study, balance is a key to care-full responding practices. Diego, the nurturing coach, maintains a delicate balance between personability and professionalism as he ensures that the conversation between him and his students flows smoothly through different mediums of responses. Likewise, the second case demonstrates the harmful effects of cultural forces at play informing the gendered expectations of care that migrate from face-to-face classrooms to online instructional platforms. Samantha, the pragmatic teacher, underscores the invisible labor demands of carework based on gendered perceptions of online writing instructors that if left unmonitored, may contribute to instructors' burnout. Finally, the project deems "care-fullness" as a necessary factor in all educational environments, but especially so in asynchronous online classes because it is an immensely powerful way to ascertain human presence, establish emotional and intellectual interactions, and intensify human community bonds in a technologically mediated instructional space. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This paper uses a novel data on both students' and teachers' online participation with students' administrative academic records and characteristics. The first chapter provides evidence that pre-pandemic lower-achieving students benefitted of the extra time they got during the Spring 2020 lockdown by doing more homework and completing the work assignments that counted towards the final grade, improving their academic performance relative to their pre-pandemic performance (relative to the change observed among higher-achieving students). Using difference-in-differences models and event-study analyses, both with individual fixed effects, we find that lower-achieving students' Spring 2020 GPA improvement relative to their pre-pandemic academic performance (relative to the change in GPA observed among their higher-achieving peers) is driven by a relative increase in their time studying measured by student's online logging, signing into the platform, mouse clicks, and homework postings. The second chapter examined the effects of experiencing unexpected lockdowns more often on students' study performance and study effort. This chapter finds that students with more experience in lockdown while registering for classes can adjust to the shock better by performing better in course grades and investing more study time. Also, female students and younger students are the major forces driving such differences. The third chapter incorporates teacher value-added models (VAMs) and provides evidence for the effects of teaching assistants on students' academic performance. This chapter finds that although teaching assistants are not directly teaching students, they still have high impact on their academic performance through communication. Value-added estimates for teaching assistants differ by their efforts and experience. High quality teaching assistants can help students to achieve a higher course grade and reduce the probability of failing courses. Our results indicate that teacher value-added can be partially explained by their efforts and attitudes toward students' study, so policies should be implemented to incentivize teachers' efforts to improve students' academic performance. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The COVID-19 epidemic created significant challenges in the field of education, especially for low socioeconomic Hispanic K-8 students. The purpose of this literature review is to explore the ways in which school closures impact school-aged children within the school environment and how school psychologists can identify and help support students with learning loss. The focus of this extended literature review is on Hispanic students, despite the fact that gaps in educational experiences and outcomes occur for many students from various backgrounds in U.S. schools. In addition, this literature review also aims to examine the role that school psychologists play in addressing social-emotional gaps so that students can achieve academically and experience social emotional success. Broadly speaking, this paper analyzes school closures, the impact on school-aged children, its effect on academics and social-emotional well-being, and the various ways school psychologists can collaborate with various school team members within the school environment. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This paper examined the effects of teachers' preconceptions of social and emotional learning (SEL) after professional development training and continuous support. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated a disconnect between teachers and students, particularly in positive school climates. A positive school climate can help students to want to attend school, resulting in academic achievement and lower absenteeism. A positive school climate can lower stress in students and teachers and help teachers to feel empowered and want to continue in the profession. Social and emotional training and support seem to help in creating a positive school climate. This research addressed the question, can continuous social and emotional professional development and support change teachers' preconceptions and create a positive school climate? This mixed-methods study evaluated whether SEL training and support changed teachers' preconceptions. Quantitative data were collected via a survey designed by CASEL. Qualitative data were collected in interviews to answer open-ended SEL questions. This research used quota sampling to ensure that four middle schools in the CTSD were represented. Use of convergent-parallel methods ensured validity and reliability of the research. The results of the survey, interviews, and literature review indicated positive changes in teachers' preconceptions over time with the continuous use of SEL training and support. Triangulation of the data ensured validity. The results contain rich data and quotes from teachers who reflected on changes in their preconceptions. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This paper examines the critical decision-making that occurred within community college IT leadership within the commonwealth of Pennsylvania during the first year of the COVID pandemic. The research utilized semi-structured interviews with IT leadership within 10 of the 13 qualifying community colleges. The study, through qualitative thematical analysis and while looking through the lens of the Iron Triangle project management approach, set out to learn from the decisions and leadership styles that were developed in the first year of the pandemic to help prepare for future emergency situations. Through the research, the study found that IT leadership was successful during the pandemic when utilizing an adaptive leadership approach, and leadership maintained the primary focus on student success. By keeping students' needs as the primary priority, Pennsylvania community college IT leadership was able to successfully adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic and provide much-needed technology and support to their institutions. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Virtual education has been steadily growing since the late 1990s. Early research was primarily focused on the comparative studies between brick-and-mortar schools and virtual or hybrid schools. While the research over the past two decades has grown substantially and now includes broader topics such as for whom virtual education seems to work well and under what circumstances, there is little research regarding virtual schools and school choice. This paper uses research on school choice in home and charter schools, while there was much overlap, a new category surfaced that was unique to virtual and hybrid education. This research found that many parents opt into virtual or hybrid education in order to provide more flexibility for their child. Flexibility came within four main categories--flexibility of time, flexibility of instruction and assessment, flexibility of pace, and flexibility of learning environment. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

More research on information and communications technology (ICT) use for teaching and learning is needed, particularly since the almost global transition from traditional face-to-face to virtual classrooms forced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The problem addressed in this current qualitative project study was the reported challenges experienced by teachers integrating ICT into the delivery of the biology curriculum in Bahamian public high school classrooms. The purpose of the study was to explore the biology teachers' ICT integration into their virtual classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was grounded in the technological pedagogical and content knowledge conceptual framework. Three research questions focused on the teachers' decisions to use ICT in their biology classrooms, their challenges with ICT integration and their mitigation of challenges, and their needs for improving ICT use. A purposeful sampling procedure yielded eight participants, and data were collected using semistructured virtual interviews on Zoom. Coding analysis of interview data revealed several emergent themes and four key findings: (a) ICT selection hinged on logistics and teachers' technological and pedagogical knowledge; (b) teachers experienced infrastructural, technical, and pedagogical challenges but found solutions; (c) the ICT integration was valuable; and, (d) teachers wanted to improve their ICT use to enhance their teaching and students' learning in remote classrooms. A position paper was developed to be a positive social change catalyst by informing local education policymakers and stakeholders about biology teachers' suggestions for needed modifications to better support teachers in remote instructional delivery. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This four-article dissertation is about fostering learning relationships online during the COVID-19 pandemic with undergraduate teaching fellows and adolescent learners enrolled in a summer enrichment program (SummerSpark). I, along with six undergraduate students (teaching fellows), created a "relational learning community" (RLC) to deepen our teaching practice and process the impact of COVID-19 on our lives and the lives of the adolescent students enrolled in the program while developing strategies to improve relational connections with learners. Chapter 1 is an introduction to a pedagogical framework, Holding SPACE, developed to teach the emotional and relational concepts and principles that are known to effectively develop a thriving learning community. Chapter 2 describes how we created our RLC and the relational rituals that grounded and supported our learning. Chapter 3 is a co-authored paper on the teacher action research project that resulted from our RLC and the recommended strategies and action to deepen connections with learners online. Chapter 4 is a portrait that describes how a teaching fellow experienced, navigated, and understood learning relationships online using Lawrence-Lightfoot's portraiture and Mears' poetic narrative methodologies. This research brings to the fore the voices of undergraduate students learning to become teachers in a time that dramatically disrupted the educational field. Their stories and our teacher action research, frameworks, practices, and tools to support learning relationships online are shared, deepening and enriching the literature on relational learning. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The COVID-19 pandemic changed life on the planet in many different ways. It altered how we interacted with other individuals and disrupted how countless industries conducted business. Included in this disruption was the field of education. During the pandemic, many schools closed the doors to their physical buildings and began teaching students virtually. The results of virtual school included a loss in student academic achievement and an increase in the technology skills of both students and teachers. The proposed innovation contained in this executive position paper intends to capitalize on the gains in technological skills to mitigate the academic losses in student achievement. For years, the School District of Philadelphia has successfully been utilizing its reading specialists to enhance the literacy skills of district students. Reading specialists use evidence-based strategies to obtain favorable results in student learning; however, the students' access to these specialists has been greatly limited. If the district uses the best practices of distance learning to have reading specialists deliver reading interventions online, more students will be exposed to these proven beneficial approaches. Thus, this will increase the reading specialists' ability to impact student learning and increase student academic achievement. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In March 2020, Ohio's schools were closed by order of the governor due to the COVID-19 crisis. Although the buildings remained closed until the end of the 2019-2020 school year, the learning did not cease as educators adjusted their practices and leveraged technology to continue teaching remotely. The pandemic impacted the 2020-2021 school year as well; districts around the state adapted different learning models to meet the needs of their communities. This mixed methods study was interested in the experiences of Ohio's secondary mathematics teachers during this 15-month period, from mid-March 2020 to the beginning of June 2021. Prior to this time period, the literature reveals that compared to those who teach science and English, mathematics educators were less likely to incorporate technology in their classrooms (Gallup & NewSchools Venture Fund, 2019; Howard et al., 2015a; Howard et al., 2015b; OECD, 2015). The teaching and learning of mathematics, a subject whose practice has traditionally relied on paper and pencil in the classroom, faced unique challenges during this time. This study sought to collect data on how teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and integration around technology changed during this time, as well as illuminate the contexts in which these changes occurred. For the quantitative strand, an anonymous survey collected pretest-posttest self-reported data on these variables from 54 secondary mathematics teachers in Ohio. Six of these teachers were also interviewed for the qualitative strand of this study. The teachers in this study showed statistically significant increases in their pedagogical technological content knowledge, technology beliefs, and technology integration. Taken alone, this data appears to indicate that the pandemic had positive impacts on teachers; however, the qualitative data revealed a deeper, more complex story about obstacles to teaching and learning which were counteracted by other facilitative factors, both internal and external to the teacher. The results of this study have implications for secondary mathematics teachers, district- and building-level administrators, teacher educators, and state-level decision makers. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Guided online coaching for teachers of emergent bilinguals (EBLs) is a job-embedded professional development model established from the educational policies and practices described in the No Child Left Behind Act and Every Student Succeeds Act. Having effective teachers who ensure an equitable, creative, and linguistically and culturally relevant education for all EBLs is of paramount importance in the ever-changing demography of schools in the United States. The guided online coaching for teachers of EBLs offers a collaborative, facilitative, dialogic, and reflective coaching process for positively influencing teacher transformation, thus providing a creative language teaching pedagogy for EBLs. The purpose of this study was to understand and describe teachers' transformation into creative and effective language teachers of EBLs through reflection and self-directed learning as well as coaches' perception of the influence of the coaching process on those teachers' professional growth during COVID-19. Two research questions guided this qualitative study: (1) "How did 4 inservice teachers transform their teaching for EBLs when following the modified cyclic guided online coaching in a TESOL practicum course due to COVID 19?" (2) "How did 3 coaches perceive the influence of the guided online coaching model in terms of its transformation of the participating teachers?" The participants in the qualitative case study included three coaches and four inservice teachers from racially, linguistically, culturally, and geographically diverse school settings in the Midwest. Among the data sources used were coach, peer, and instructor feedback and teacher reflections on two VoiceThread presentations from the three modified guided online coaching cycles (preparation, strategies, and reflection), the coaches' semistructured interviews, and the teachers' final paper for triangulating the data. Four themes emerged from the findings: Funds of Knowledge, EBL strategies, translanguaging, and evidence-based reflection. The results suggested cyclic guided online coaching for teachers of EBLs was a critical process for professional learning and transforming teachers' creative and LCRC teaching. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation study sought to examine how the video mode of response, compared to the written mode, affects MLW students' writing development and how MLW students perceive the use of video response in their FYC classroom. To that end, this study drew upon a mixed method approach, combining a quasi-experiment and interview method. Participants were undergraduate multilingual writers (MLW) from one northeastern U.S. state public university. Data collected include the first and second writing drafts of 12 students, one instructor's recordings of video response, and recorded interviews with 10 students. Results of the analyzed data indicate that video response tended to focus on meaning-level categories and generated more non-command comments, while written response focused on the surface level and generated more command comments. In terms of revision, the participants made a similar quantity and quality of meaning-level revisions between the two modes, but a higher quantity and quality of surface-level revisions with written mode than video mode. Also, both modes improved overall writing performance, and the difference was not significant. These results suggest that video mode and written mode can be used for different purposes: video for meaning-level response and written mode for the surface level. Results also indicate that most participants preferred video response over written mode, believing it to allow for emotional expressions, to be easy to understand, and informative. Among the three video modes: talking head (only the instructor's head on the screen), screencast (only the student's paper on the screen), and hybrid (a combination of talking head and screencast), participants favored a hybrid mode. Among the video-only, both video and written, and written-only response, they all denied written mode in the future. Additionally, they all believed that the online transition due to the outbreak of COVID-19 justified the use of video for providing response. Additionally, results suggest that an advanced multimodality H+T, one that combines the hybrid and text response, has the potential to stand out of various distanced modes of response for a single assignment. The study concludes by offering recommendations to faculty and administrators to support teaching with the hybrid video response and H+T multimodal response. Furthermore, performing multiple response modes consecutively, particularly with video and face-to-face, across different assignments, can be beneficial. Researchers receive future direction involving video response and MLW participants. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

We do not know the precise figure for solid organ tumors diagnosed each year in Spain and it is therefore difficult to calculate whether there has been a decrease in cancer diagnoses as a consequence of the pandemic. Some indirect data suggest that the pandemic has worsened the stage at which some non-hematological neoplasms are diagnosed. Despite the lack of robust evidence, oncology patients seem more likely to have a poor outcome when they contract COVID-19. The antibody response to infection in cancer patients will be fundamentally conditioned by the type of neoplasia present, the treatment received and the time of its administration. In patients with hematological malignancies, the incidence of infection is probably similar or lower than in the general population, due to the better protective measures adopted by the patients and their environment. The severity and mortality of COVID-19 in patients with hematologic malignancies is clearly higher than the general population. Since the immune response to vaccination in hematologic patients is generally worse than in comparable populations, alternative methods of prevention must be established in these patients, as well as actions for earlier diagnosis and treatment. Campaigns for the early diagnosis of malignant neoplasms must be urgently resumed, post-COVID manifestations should be monitored, collaboration with patient associations is indisputable and it is urgent to draw the right conclusions to improve our preparedness to fight against possible future catastrophes.

In this thesis, I present a body of quantitative empirical work on the theme of deprivation and health, linking administrative and survey datasets to publicly available census data to provide insight into the factors affecting a range of health related outcomes. In the first paper, I investigate the impact of distance and deprivation on the uptake of extended hours services in Primary Care and conclude that there is evidence of geographical inequity in the service but that deprivation was not directly associated with rates of use. In the second paper, I analyse the trajectory of well-being over the course of the firstwave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and found that well-being decreased but bounced back in a similar way across all deciles of deprivation. In the third paper, I analyse the outcomes for hospitalised COVID patients in Greater Manchester during 2020 and conclude that there was a deprivation effect in risk of death but that the length of stay in hospital for any given patient was not associated with their level of deprivation. The work highlights that investigating health outcomes and inequalities therein is a complex and difficult task, and at the heart of this must be an understanding of what the researcher seeks to measure and how this relates to the lived experience of the study population.

The pandemic declared in March 2020 and subsequent lockdown included sudden school, college and university closures and a move to emergency remote teaching. UNESCO identified a number of adverse consequences of these school closures, including confusion, fear and practical challenges. Children and young people (CYP) are arguably at particular risk from the long-term repercussions of the pandemic, therefore any recovery curriculum must be responsive to their particular needs. As such, it is crucial to gather the views and experiences of CYP themselves. Paper One is an exploratory systematic literature review exploring the views and experiences of YP in different stages of education and in different parts of the world. Systematic searching of research identified 7 papers to be included in the review. Paper Two explores the experiences of year 13 students and staff in one sixth form college during a period of lockdown and the return to face-to-face learning, carried out through online semistructured interviews. Synthesis of the identified papers in Paper One highlights a number of common experiences across students at different stages of their education, as well as general agreement regarding their academic and well-being needs going forward. Paper Two discusses the 'dark clouds' and 'silver linings' of the pandemic and the crisis curriculum, indicating commonalities between staff and students as well as differences in views. Paper One discusses implications relevant to schools, colleges and universities, educational psychologists and future research and proposes a curriculum recovery model. Paper Two considers implications for sixth form colleges in particular, and future research. Paper Three explores evidence-based practice within educational psychology. It discusses a dissemination strategy for the findings outlined in Papers One and Two and evaluates the potential impact of these.

Background: Extending the range of remote psychological interventions for older people and enhancing access routes to these have been long-standing ambitions of psychological services in the U.K. The direct impact of Covid-19 and the consequences of the accompanying mitigation measures have increased the urgency of developing creative, effective and patient centred models of remote service delivery for older peoples' mental health needs. "Lockdown" has been a core feature of the response to Covid-19 but research on the experiences (including the Information and Communication Technology experiences) of older adults isolating in their homes and of the psychological impact thereof is limited. Objectives: This thesis had two objectives. Firstly, to analyse the effectiveness and acceptability of remotely delivered CBT interventions for depression and anxiety for people aged 60+. A systematic review aimed to establish the quality of the evidence and provide a critical appraisal of the literature. Secondly, to explore the experiences of older adults (70+) during lockdown (March-May 2020) in the U.K. Method: A systematic literature search identified studies reporting the effectiveness and/or acceptability of CBT interventions delivered via online/telephone to individuals aged 60+ with anxiety and/or depression. Sixteen studies met the criteria for inclusion and relevant quality appraisal tools from the Joanna Briggs Institute were used to assess their quality. For the empirical project a qualitative design was adopted. Fifteen individuals were recruited and participated in in-depth semi-structured interviews about their experiences of lockdown in the U.K. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results: Results of the systematic review supported the efficacy of remotely delivered interventions for the treatment of anxiety and depression in older people in that the majority of individuals reported improvement in the outcome measurements adopted by the studies. High levels of reported satisfaction and low attrition rates, were suggestive of high levels of acceptability of remote interventions. Potential bias arises from the extensive range of study designs and the non-exclusion of any study on the basis of quality. Results of the empirical project generated five superordinate themes and accompanying subthemes which were critically analysed and validation was sought from available participants. Discussion and implications: The first paper of the thesis provides details of the evidence regarding the efficacy and acceptability of remotely delivered CBT interventions for the treatment of anxiety and depression in people aged 60+. Suggestions for the focus of additional research are proffered. The second paper indicates that participants found confinement to be challenging across a range of issues and that they experienced a variety of fluctuating emotions and cognitions. Nevertheless, many participants displayed a range of coping mechanisms and attributes, including adaptability, resilience and stoicism in the face of significant disruption to their routines and lifestyle.

Models are often formulated to aid in decision-making. However, the details included or excluded are often determined with minimal examination of the effects. There is a tendency to make models more complex than merited. Yet, decision makers’ risk preferences are often ignored without considering the effect on recommendations. Additionally, modelers do not always understand the difference between preferences toward deterministic outcomes and risk preferences or the impact of modeling conflicting risk and deterministic preferences together in a single component. In this paper, I investigate the relationship between complexity and accuracy, using COVID-19 forecasting as a case study. I find our simple model is comparable in accuracy to highly publicized models, generating among the best-calibrated forecasts. This may be surprising, given the complexity of many high-profile models supported by large teams. However, it is consistent with research suggesting simple models perform very well in a variety of settings. Although utility functions are a fundamental component of decision analysis, they can assume many forms. For small decisions, the choice might not change the decision. But it can greatly affect recommendations for large decisions. There are qualitative recommendations on which functional form to use. But there is no quantitative recommendation relating size of uncertainties to choice of utility function. By maximizing error in certain equivalents when using different utility functions, this paper provides guidance into when to use different utility functions. Although decision makers should be approximately risk neutral for small problems, they are often “risk averse.” Rabin and Thaler showed utility functions modeling small-scale risk aversion result in absurd risk aversion for large uncertainties. They explain small-scale risk aversion is due to loss aversion, where pain from losses exceeds benefit from gains. But preferences for deterministic losses and gains is a deterministic preference and is not equivalent to risk preference. They argue loss aversion caused the observed behavior, yet modelled deterministic and risk preferences in a single factor. In this paper, I show modeling risk and deterministic preference separately can resolve Rabin’s Paradox, underscoring the need to explicitly model both when deterministic preferences can influence decision making or conflict with risk preferences.

This dissertation consists of four papers that examine human behavior through the use of stated preference data and discrete choice models. The first paper investigates how preferences for cycling infrastructure are related to self-assessed health. Results show that individuals who consider themselves less healthy tend to prefer more protected bike lanes. Inexperienced cyclists also tend to prefer this kind of infrastructure, which indicates that such lanes can promote cycling among those who do not cycle frequently and those who would benefit more from the associated physical activity. The second paper evaluates the demand for a first-mile/last-mile microtransit service. We found that certain demographic groups, such as men, younger or Black respondents, those with more education, and those who use public transit more often, tend to be more interested in microtransit. We also found that respondents valued time on their current modes similarly to microtransit, while walking and waiting were burdensome. This shows that microtransit has the potential to draw demand, especially when it is designed to reduce access time. The third paper uses discrete choice models to understand preferences for COVID-19 testing. Results indicate a preference for faster and less invasive tests, as well as a mild preference for at-home and appointment-based testing. We also found that respondents tended to underestimated low probabilities of false diagnosis and overestimate medium ones. Finally, we found that people were willing to pay around four times more to avoid a false positive than a negative result, which suggests there is some degree of "willful ignorance" in the sample. The fourth paper investigates changes in New Yorkers' values of time on shared transportation modes during and after the COVID-19 pandemic as a function of crowding and masking. Results suggest that crowding will become less salient after the pandemic, and that, at the time data were collected, safety measures like masking or vaccination requirements were not highly valued. On the other hand, respondents were willing to pay to avoid carbon emissions, which suggests that there has been a shift of concern from the pandemic to the climate crisis. Overall, this dissertation proposes and applies methods that can be useful for choice modelers that want to explain or predict heterogeneous behaviors. Moreover, the findings presented here have practical implications for policymakers and practitioners looking to abate the climate crisis and understand behaviors during a future health crisis.

The outbreak of COVID-19 presented an unparalleled risk to public health, leading to urgent scientific efforts in understanding transmission mechanisms and mitigating risks, especially in healthcare settings. This mixed-methods study examines knowledge advancement regarding indoor air quality in healthcare facilities during the pandemic. A systematic literature review of 163 post-COVID studies identifies key research thrusts and 31 recommendations related to building ventilation, air filtration, surface disinfection, and monitoring. Comparison with over 200 pre-pandemic publications reveals both reliance on established infection control principles and unique contributions, such as detecting viral RNA in air and surface samples indicating potential airborne and fomite transmission routes. Additionally, 11 studies are recognized for their novelty and significance through qualitative analysis. Reference network analysis identifies pivotal papers based on centrality metrics, with 5 out of 11 significant papers converging between systematic review and network analysis. Partial convergence between qualitative and quantitative approaches is observed, with discrepancies arising from evaluation criteria differences. Combining subjective qualitative inquiry with objective network analytics provides critical insights into knowledge advancement and scientific communications during extreme crises. The pandemic necessitated rapid mobilization of existing knowledge alongside the cultivation of new evidence to understand the novel SARS-CoV-2 threat. This research suggests that extreme events can accelerate science, but evidence-based rigor remains essential alongside swift action.

Mathematical models in epidemiology describe how diseases affect and spread within a population. By understanding the trends of a disease, more effective public health policies can be made. In this paper, the Susceptible-Infected-Recovered-Susceptible (SIRS) Model was examined analytically and numerically to compare with the data for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Since the SIRS model is a complex model, analytical techniques were used to solve simplified versions of the SIRS model in order to understand general trends that occur. Then by Euler's Method, the Runge-Kutta Method, and the Predictor-Corrector Method, computational approximations were obtained to solve and plot the SIRS model. Finally, with the Predictor-Corrector Method, the SIRS model was compared to COVID-19 data for 2021 in the United States. Using two different databases between the model and real data complicated the fit of the SIRS model on COVID-19. Nevertheless, the SIRS model could still potentially fit as the reinfection of COVID-19 has been a prevalent issue today.

Infection control practices (ICPs) are crucial for maintaining the health and safety of residents in a residential care community (RCC). This paper examines the differences in COVID-19 infection rates and cases based on the characteristics of RCCs, such as ICPs, personal protective equipment (PPE) shortages, ownership type (for-profit vs. nonprofit), census regions, and RCC size. While ICPs contribute significantly to preventing and controlling the highly contagious virus, a comprehensive program is encouraged to provide a targeted intervention based on RCC’s environmental factors. The importance of the characteristics of the RCCs must be considered in combing with the ICPs to enhance the impact of the infection practices, which will substantially improve the overall success of the infection control and prevention in COVID-19 outcomes. Systems Theory offers the lens for researchers to evaluate, examine, and compare various factors that are associated with the outcome of disease transmission and how those factors are related in certain settings. It facilitates the components such as census region, PPEs, size of the facility, and ownership type (for-profit vs. nonprofit) that are closely linked and provides feedback in a more accurate way to improve the overall success of the process. The study employed ANOVA to test the mean difference between each characteristic, revealing that for-profit and larger organizations tend to have higher infection rates in terms of the ICPs outcomes. However, there were contradictory results concerning other variables for PPE shortages and geographical variations (p>0.05), calling for more diverse explorations regarding the prevalence of ICPs and characteristics of RCCs in the future research.

In this dissertation, I used an exploratory research approach to examine White psychology trainees’ affective responses to race-related material and how they relate to trainees’ self-perceived levels of multicultural competence amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Participants completed self-report instruments about their experiences and identities, their affective responses to racial content, and their grasp of facets of multicultural competence. Significant correlations were found between affective responses—specifically White guilt and negation—and multicultural competence. The relationship found between White guilt and multicultural competence may speak to the power of guilt to motivate trainees’ pursuit of insight and knowledge and may also reflect attunement to relevant issues given participants’ choice of profession and depth of training. Negation’s relationship to multicutural competence was also significant; the role that avoidance plays in negation may also lead trainees to avoid the implications of race in their multicultural training. I delve into other significant findings in the paper’s discussion. While statistically non-significant findings cannot yield definitive insights, I speculate about factors that possibly contribute to the weakness of some predicted associations. Relationships found in this study suggest the importance of exploring White guilt and negation during professional training, while non-findings offer opportunities for future studies on how racial affect may (or may not) relate to trainees’ grasp of material pertaining to their education and careers. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

This thesis explores experiences in maternity services during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, from both the perspectives of those delivering and receiving care. Chapter one is a systematic review of qualitative and quantitative literature, examining the impact of pandemic hospital restrictions on birth experience and subsequent maternal mental health. Quantitative findings highlighted that, overall, restrictions in maternity services had an adverse impact on birth experiences, with higher rates of post-natal depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress. Five themes were found across the qualitative data, reflecting experiences of 'change', 'neglect', 'emotional wellbeing', 'confusion', and 'positivity'. Chapter two is a qualitative empirical paper, utilising interpretive phenomenological analysis to explore the experiences of nine Early Career Midwives and the factors influencing their wellbeing. Four themes were identified: 'high stakes pressure', 'feeling (un)supported', 'safety in numbers', and 'on top of it all'. Of importance, high levels of moral injury were found amongst participants, differing from burnout. Consideration is given to the modifiable and non-modifiable aspects of the role that influence wellbeing, as well as clinical implications and future research. The third chapter integrates findings from the first two chapters to discuss clinical implications and future research in more depth. This also contains a personal reflection on the process of completing the research, locating the researcher and the lens with which data was viewed.

Introduction: Kidney dysfunction is a highly significant disease, both in the United Kingdom and globally. Human leukocyte antigens (HLA) are thought to be associated with kidney function; this study aims to collate all previously reported associations between HLA and renal function, and to identify novel associations (and replicate previous findings) by analysing a cohort of subjects recruited in the UK. Secondary analysis investigated whether there is a link between Covid-19 and either HLA or renal function. Methods: A systematic review was performed to identify all studies that had looked for associations between HLA and renal function. Additionally, regression analyses were performed to test for HLA associations with renal function in a cohort of around 500,000 UK Biobank subjects aged 39-73. Seven different ethnic groups and 362 HLA types were included. The primary outcome was estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), with clinical outcomes used in secondary analyses. Finally, regression analysis was performed to test for associations between Covid-19, HLA, and renal function in cohorts of up to 6,000 Covid-19 positive subjects aged 50-86. Results: 35 papers investigating the link between HLA and renal function were identified, with over 100 HLA types and haplotypes reported to be associated with kidney function. These findings were collated and published. This study revealed 33 HLA types that were linked to kidney function in white British subjects (11 hazardous and 22 beneficial). Studies of other ethnicities revealed nine significant associations, e.g., four alleles were linked to decreased function in Black African subjects. The findings relating to Covid-19 were limited. Previously reported associations were replicated (e.g., increased age and male sex were linked to increased mortality), but there were no associations found between Covid-19 and either HLA or renal function. Discussion: This thesis provides a list of all previously reported associations between HLA and renal function, and also presents a number of novel associations. Many of the associated alleles are commonly inherited together as haplotypes: HLA-A*01:01, B*08:01, C*07:01, DRB1*03:01, DQB1*02:01 has 9.5% frequency in England and each allele was associated with decreased renal function in white British subjects. This may have clinical applications and could affect the UK's organ allocation algorithm.

Generally, social determinants or social factors have been studied in the context of non-communicable diseases yet there is a critical need to elucidate the mechanisms behind social and environmental factors which affect communicable disease spread in different spatio-temporal and geographic contexts with the explicit purpose of informing policy, intervention and study design. Social determinants of health frameworks are useful for infectious diseases but lack the ability to translate said mechanisms onto processes that are specific to pathogen spread such as environmentally mediated, vector-borne and direct transmission, transmission cycles and exposure routes in a meaningful way. The focus of most transmission models which investigate social factors, have been within long-term infections and far fewer studies exist of social factors which drive acute infections such as influenza and enteric disease. Given the nature of health inequities within the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic recently, there has been a renewed call for social variables to be incorporated into the study of infectious disease to generate a coherent framework. What is lacking then is an overarching framework which can account for the unique ways social and environmental factors impact systems of pathogenic spread across long-term and acute infections. The overarching goal of my research is to elucidate the mechanisms behind social and environmental factors which affect pathogen spread in different spatio-temporal and geographic contexts to inform policy, intervention and study design to inform such a framework. Each aim within this thesis delves into the heterogeneity of social and environmental mechanisms over time and across space. The first paper emphasizes the role of changing social mechanisms over time to examine COVID-19 disparities. The second utilizes space as a dimension of variability and seeks to identify clusters of infectious disease outcomes across two time periods. The third adds more complexity and asks how social context and spatial context interact to increase infectious disease risk. Each of my papers also delves into the heterogeneity of social mechanisms across different geographic contexts. My second paper looks at social mechanisms at the marco level within the low-middle income country of India, my first paper looks at meso-level mechanisms in the state of Michigan within the United States and the last paper looks at micro-level mechanisms within six communities in the northwestern region of Ecuador. Overall, the exploration of social mechanisms over time, spatial mechanisms over time and the interaction of social and spatial mechanisms across different geographic contexts advances the concept of a socially and environmentally informed framework for infectious disease systems.

Consumption taxes play a major role in revenue generation for many developing countries. They are also used to encourage or discourage certain consumption behaviors. However, the administrative aspects of implementing these taxes can create challenges for the tax authorities, and lead to distortions in taxpayer behavior. To overcome these challenges, efforts have been made to simplify policies and utilize technology to improve administration and compliance. My dissertation aims to provide empirical evidence on the effects of three consumption or commodity tax policy reforms in Indonesia. The dissertation consists of three essays as follows. In my first essay, titled “The effect of modernizing the self-enforcing “paper” trail in Value Added Tax”, I study a modernization policy under Indonesia's Value Added Tax (VAT) regime, where the government switched from a paper-based VAT invoice system to an online electronic system. To measure how the digitalization of the self-enforcing “paper” trail affects firms' behavior and revenue mobilization, I exploit a two-stage implementation that mandated the new electronic invoice system to start in July 2015 for taxpayers in 7 provinces (similar to states) and then in the rest of 27 provinces one year later. This policy creates a quasi-experimental variation that allows me to use the two-stage introduction in a generalized differences-in-differences estimation following Malkova (2018). I utilize the Indonesian tax administrative data from the monthly VAT returns filed from 2014 to 2017. I use the firms in the 7 provinces that adopted the electronic invoices early as the treatment group and the rest of firms in the 27 provinces that adopted the electronic invoices later. I find that the electronic invoices system leads to an immediate increase in taxable sales but no effect on taxable inputs, and it further translates to increased VAT liability. The impact is driven by firms’ sizes, particularly smaller firms. The effect of electronic invoices are also heterogenous under different institutional environment (tax office type) and firm’s sectors. The second essay in my dissertation, titled “Toward fewer tax audit: Evidence from Indonesia“, utilizes another VAT administrative policy reform. The existing empirical literature has primarily focused on examining the impact of a higher probability of detection or audit in a tax system. However, we have little empirical evidence on the opposite situation when the probability of detection or audit gets lower. This essay fills the gap by studying firms' behavioral response when the tax authority in Indonesia removes a mandatory audit requirement for firms claiming a refund on VAT excess payments below IDR 1 billion (around $70,000). I use a difference-in-differences estimation by exploiting the variation in the treatment at the sector level to estimate the impact of this reform. I use firms in the sectors concentrating on export activity as the treatment group and firms in the sector less concentrated on export as the control group. For this essay, I also use the Indonesian tax administrative data from the monthly VAT returns filed from 2016 to 2020. The result show that the fast-track refund led to an 11.66 percent increased taxable inputs (partially significant), but no impact on productivity (export and domestic sales) and VAT liability. Consistent with the standard tax compliance model, this increases in taxable inputs indicates that fewer audit activity may facilitate tax evasion. The third essay, titled “Tax stimulus during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Indonesia” investigates the impact of a commodity tax stimulus program on new car purchases introduced in response to the COVID-19 economic downturn. This program provides a luxury sales tax (LST) exemption for new car purchases where the eligibility requirement is based on engine sizes and domestic content ratio. My empirical design exploits comparable vehicles similar in price, type, market segment, engine sizes, and engine power but with variations in their eligibility for the program. Using event study and multi period difference-in-differences, I analyze the shift in sales number between the incentivized cars and their comparable before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. I use national-wholesale level data of monthly new vehicle purchases from January 2019 to December 2021. I find that tax stimulus increases purchases on eligible cars by 80 percent but only statistically significant at 10 percent confidence interval, which may be due to the small number of observations in my data. This translates to approximately 40 thousand additional units of eligible vehicles being purchase from April 2021 to December 2021.

The dissertation comprises three empirical papers, each analyzing a novel network-structured dataset across three different contexts: enterprises, social networks, and academic collaborations. The first study uncovers the largely unexplored area of enterprise exits in the context of Shenzhen’s electronics manufacturing industry. It reveals the spillover effects of such exits on neighboring firms, with significant neighborhood effects found at the industry group level but not the industry class level. The second paper challenges the "Death of Distance" proposition by examining how geographical proximity continues to influence online social networks. It deciphers the complex interplay between physical distances and users’ online behaviors, presenting country-specific patterns in how distance affects the likelihood of link formation. Particularly, proximity dependence appears to be stronger for potential in-person connections and weaker for strong social ties. The final study capitalizes on the disruptive force of the COVID-19 pandemic on academic collaboration. It elucidates how peer effects and co-authorship dynamics influence the productivity of economics scholars. The peer effect is significant in the pre-pandemic period but not during the pandemic period, enhancing the understanding of how research collaborations shape knowledge production.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the mental health and well-being of young students, particularly those aged three to five, leading to disruptions in their daily routines and sensory dysregulation. The Sensory Diet Center (SDC) program offers a structured schedule of personalized sensory activities for early-grade students to regulate sensory input effectively within the classroom environment. By providing various sensory experiences, the Sensory Diet Center program aims to enhance students' sensory processing skills, attention, self-regulation, and readiness for academic tasks and social interactions. Utilizing evidence-based practices, the SDC program fosters a sensory-friendly classroom environment that promotes interactive play, social connections, and overall well-being. Offered twice daily for 30 minutes each, the SDC program targets tactile, proprioception, and vestibular systems, creating a balanced sensory environment that supports students' development of necessary academic and social skills. The author includes a funding plan that will assist in purchasing the necessary items to make the proposed intervention successful. In addition, this doctoral paper provides a comprehensive program evaluation plan highlighting the key stakeholders and a multiple baseline study designed to evaluate the program's effectiveness.

Improving access and care quality for children has received much research attention. However, substantial gaps still exist in knowledge about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on crucial aspects of children’s healthcare, such as delaying needed care or accessing preventive care. In this three-paper dissertation, we study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these critical measures and examine disparities in accessing care. We stratify our analyses by pre- and post-COVID survey years using a nationally representative dataset as well as by neurotypical children and children with neurodevelopmental disabilities. In the first study, we assessed the role of effective care coordination and having a provider who understands a family’s cultural value systems on unmet healthcare needs for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The association between foregoing care and not receiving care coordination was large in pre- and post-COVID years. Similarly, the odds of children’s families forgoing healthcare when the provider sometimes or never showed cultural sensitivity were significantly higher compared to when the child’s provider was always or usually culturally sensitive. In the second study, we continued to examine the role of a culturally sensitive provider in the uptake of developmental screening and provider monitoring for neurotypical children compared to children with IDD. Study findings demonstrated that parents of neurotypical children had 53% higher odds of completing a developmental screening questionnaire or receiving monitoring when the healthcare provider understood their cultural norms. These results were amplified for children with IDD when the provider was always/usually culturally sensitive. Results from our third study showed that post-COVID, 35.8% of children were identified as overweight/obese compared to 32.8% in pre-COVID years, and this trend was similar in children with IDD. Obesity prevalence was largest in the youngest age group of 10-12 years old. There was a sharp increase in the proportion of children spending more than 4 hours of screen time during COVID-19. Few studies have examined how family resiliency might be a protective factor in obesity prevention. We found a lower proportion of overweight children in families with higher resiliency, although family resiliency was not statistically significant in post-COVID models.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, referred to as COVID-19 in this paper) is a novel coronavirus first discovered in Wuhan, China (Tan & Aboulhosn, 2020). Since it's discovery it has spread across the world and as of 8th May there have been 156,496,592 confirmed cases of COVID around the world with 3,264,142 confirmed deaths (WHO, 2021). Current literature suggests the pandemic and subsequent government responses have had a significant impact on the global population with rises in mental health difficulties, poorer physical health, relationship difficulties and changes to people's work lives. Despite an awareness of people with chronic illnesses being at greater risk of severe illness and death from covid-19, there is minimal research on how the pandemic has impacted this group, and even less on how it has affected people with specific types of chronic illness such as epilepsy or congenital heart disease (CHD). Due to these identified gaps in the literature, this study focussed on the experiences of people with CHD during the pandemic in the U.K. Informed by critical realist epistemology and using qualitative methodology nine participants took part in semi-structured interviews to gather information on how their lives had been impacted by the current pandemic. Ages ranged from 32 to 54 years and the sample consisted of seven women and two men. Using inductive thematic analysis three themes were constructed from the data; 'vulnerability', 'wellbeing' and 'staying connected'. Similarly, to existing research, participants identified difficulties in their mental wellbeing, changes in their physical health and difficulties in relationships and work. Difficulties experienced by being labelled as vulnerable, being in the shielding group or not, narratives from others as 'burdensome' and significant lifestyle changes were raised and add to the existing literature. Recommendations for further research and improvements to government policy and guidelines are made.

Systematic Literature Review: Breaking bad news is an occupational hazard for healthcare practitioners. Fourteen papers pertaining to practitioner experience of breaking bad news were identified during a systematic search of the literature and a conceptual overview is provided in this critical interpretative meta synthesis. Analysis elicited four themes: (1) Discomfort, particularly difficult emotional and physical responses to breaking bad news; (2) Relational distress, connected to attachment and identification with patients; (3) Bad clinician, indicating the fear of doing it badly or being bad; and (4) Only human, highlighting a culture of invulnerability where practitioner self-care is deprioritised. Recommendations include reflective practice to support staff, normalisation of difficult experiences around bad news conversations, and inclusion of practitioner needs within breaking bad news protocols. Research Project: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to explore six myeloma patient's experiences of an end of life phase during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three super ordinate themes were identified: (1) Threat is all around, captured an intensified sense uncertainty and risk from others brought about by the pandemic; (2) My world became smaller, illuminated cumulative losses experienced and the adjustment to shielding including reduced social contact, which for some was experienced as an unexpected benefit; and (3) Outside I'm a swan, reflected the pressure participants felt to maintain prior roles and responsibilities and 'just get on with it'. Findings emphasised the amplification of pre-existing challenges for those with myeloma as a result of the pandemic and the importance of practitioner understanding of patient values and support systems in order to best provide person-centred care.

Prognostic biomarker discovery from omics data using machine learning approaches by Manik Garg Prognostic biomarkers can help clinicians identify high-risk patients to administer appropriate therapies. The omics data from patient samples can be used to find such biomarkers. Moreover, molecular biomarkers can help to understand disease mechanisms. Machine learning and related data analysis methods can be applied to omics data for reliable determination of these biomarkers. In this thesis, I aimed to identify reproducible prognostic biomarkers in three different diseases: Alzheimer's disease (AD), primary melanoma and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In my second chapter, I contributed to the discovery of a new metabolic signature, to predict which patients with mild-cognitive impairment would later develop AD. As there were thousands of un-annotated metabolic features potentially differentiating such patients, to overcome the problem of over-training, we shortlisted only those features associated with genetic variants. After annotating the top-ranking features, we hypothesized about their potential links to AD using extensive literature research. My contribution to this chapter mostly was employing the machine learning methods to refine and optimise the signature. In my third chapter, I analysed RNA-sequencing data derived from primary melanomas resected from stage IIB-IIIC (7th edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer staging manual) patients embedded within a prospective phase III randomized clinical trial. This led to the identification of a 121-gene-based expression signature that can predict poor outcomes and stratify patients with high absolute risk of death in 5 years. The prognostic ability of this signature was validated in 4 independent datasets. I also found that patients with higher signature score (indicating poor outcomes) had lower tumour infiltrating lymphocytes suggesting that these patients have immune cell deprived tumours that warrants the need for specialized treatment strategies. In my fourth chapter, I performed a meta-analysis of 10 published single-cell RNA sequencing datasets to validate the immune response changes associated with COVID-19 progression reported. I found that 8 out of 20 published immune response changes were consistently reproducible across multiple datasets. In addition, in my fifth chapter, I studied how immune response changes with COVID-19 severity in recovered patients. Here, I showed that while patients recovered from mild/moderate COVID-19 infection had their immune responses close to healthy individuals within 27-47 days of symptom onset, those recovered from severe/critical infection still had their immune response affected. The described results are published in four peer-reviewed journal papers and specific contributions are highlighted in the text. Overall, the work presented in this thesis demonstrates various approaches in which omics data can be used for prognostic biomarker discovery. Further, this work also contributes to the knowledge of current prognostic biomarkers in AD, primary melanoma and COVID-19.

This paper seeks to inform individuals of the importance of digital inclusivity, diminish the digital divide, and accessibility to technological services of college students who experience a form of disability. The United States has conducted minimal research on the digital disability rhetoric, promoted minimal disability-inclusive measures to protect the rights and well-being of college students, and minimal assistance to mitigate Coronavirus (COVID-19) impacts to this population subgroup. This subject can have a big impact on individuals who suffer from disability stigma, low accessibility issues, and who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Furthermore, this subject will benefit college students who argue in the favor of digital inclusion to help improve online rhetoric and become better equipped with communication technologies. Using survey research, this paper explains the experiences and solutions provided by college students to help alleviate the serious implications resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.