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The role of secondary education is critical to preparing graduates for adulthood. This study explored the transition experiences of high school graduates and factors that impacted their preparation for adulthood. This descriptive study focused on the experiences of degree and non-degree-seeking graduates. Surveys were distributed to students enrolled in a general education course at a state university and marketing research participants not enrolled in post-secondary programs. The survey sought to identify overall preparedness, responsibilities deemed necessary to teach in high school, and influence factors that prepared them for adulthood. The overall findings displayed that graduates seeking degrees felt more prepared for adulthood. While both groups agreed that many adulthood-responsibility topics should be taught, degree-seekers found less value in teaching parenting skills in a high school class despite identifying that parents have a more significant impact on preparing them for adulthood. Researchers recommend that in addition to college and career-ready curricula, instruction should include preparation topics that align with 21st-century markers that better support non-degree-seeking graduates toward successful transitions into adulthood.

The violence of incarceration creates greater responsibility for higher education administrators in supporting students who are in prison. Using focus group data with incarcerated students and formerly incarcerated alumni who participated in or are actively participating in Second Chance Pell, we explore their perceptions and understandings of the Pell Grant and eligibility for the Pell Grant, including lifetime eligibility used limits. Through a lens of Witnessing, we argue that deprivation and censorship of information negatively influence students' access to accurate and timely information about federal student aid and their ability to fully participate in the process. Accordingly, college and university staff have a fiduciary duty to incarcerated applicants and students who are subjected to the information deprivation and censorship that characterizes imprisonment in the U.S.

Despite the recent anti-CRT (Critical Race Theory) movement within U.S. education, teachings of Native histories and perspectives have never been accurately taught, or even taught. From their perspectives as teacher educators in predominantly white institutions (PWI), the authors share counterstories from their existing IRB-approved research projects to explore the impacts of CRT bans on teacher education and how the bans continue to perpetuate systemic erasure of Native perspectives. They review how legislators in the Western U.S. passed anti-CRT laws as well as its impact on teacher education. Using the TribalCrit framework with an emphasis on the first tenet, "colonization [being] endemic to society" (Brayboy, 2005, p. 430), the authors discuss how Native invisibilization and erasure are perpetuated in predominantly white classrooms by silencing Native perspectives in policy making and curriculum implementation, banning Natives in public education, and explicit refusal of white teachers to learn culturally sustaining pedagogies (Paris & Alim, 2017). While erasure and colonization may no longer be explicit U.S. federal policy aims in the education of Native youth, the subjugation of Native rights, cultures, knowledges, and histories remains a contemporary feature of state-sanctioned public education. Telling these stories of structural violence toward Native peoples reflected in the ignorance enforced by mainstream teachers and educational policymakers makes salient the overwhelming need to teach Native history and content at all levels of public education.

The interrupted case study is a structured way to engage students in active learning. Interruptions, or pauses for reflection and discussion scheduled within the case-study presentation, provide students with a chance to collaborate and engage in critical thinking. Critical thinking style, which is a measure of how one tends to think critically, provides insight into how one tackles problem solving. This article describes a pilot project that combined critical-thinking style and an interrupted case study, delivered over a two-class-period time frame, to four college courses. The project's goals were to assess students' self-reported knowledge, self-reported ability, changes in thinking, and intentions to use their critical thinking style in the future. The University of Florida Critical Thinking Inventory and an end-of-session evaluation were administered online, and 110 students voluntarily responded. Results indicated that many students enjoyed the discussion-based and problem-solving structure of the interrupted case study. Results also showed increases in students' self-reported knowledge about critical thinking style and content covered in the case study. For teachers looking to pilot an interrupted case study with a critical thinking style component, two class sessions can have a positive effect on student learning and encourage critical thinking.

The purpose of this study is to investigate challenges and tensions encountered by university supervisors working with student teachers in dual language immersion (DLI) settings. Despite the growth of Utah's statewide DLI program, Utah university teacher programs have few faculty members familiar with the partner cultures and languages of Utah's DLI model. Drawing from a larger multiple case study, this study examines three non-Chinese university supervisors' written reflections and focus group transcripts during supervision in Chinese DLI classrooms. Findings suggest the challenges and tensions encountered by these supervisors were not just cultural in nature; at times, university supervisors were unfamiliar with the DLI model and/or unsure of whether challenges were products of cultural differences, the DLI program, or other influences.

The use of #digitalpowerups is a technique that involves associating keywords with prompts in online discussion forums, which enables students to have more choice and voice. These powerups not only help structure responses but also enrich discussions and develop academic skills necessary for online assignments. The approach leverages the social media interaction space of discussion forums by introducing hashtags that remind students of the prompt being addressed and indicate the level of Bloom's being engaged. By using the powerups, students can engage in mid-levels and higher-order levels of Bloom's, along with the lower levels that they typically engage in based on the design and facilitation of the discussion. Students typically participate in the lower levels of Bloom's taxonomy (#remember, #understand) due to the way the discussion is structured and facilitated. However, the use of #digitalpowerups encourages students to move beyond these levels and engage in mid-levels (#apply, #analyze, #evaluate) and higher-order levels (#create, #connect) during discussions. The powerups also scaffold or frame student responses with habits of mind skills. This article examines how the #digitalpowerups strategy supports learning in a virtual community for Environmental Concerns in the Environmental Sociology Course through content analysis of student discussion postings. The primary data (total of 375 postings) were collected from the Environmental Sociology Class throughout the following academic years: Fall 2020 (96 postings), Fall 2021 (67 postings), Spring 2022 (92 postings) and Spring 2023 (120 postings).

While active learning strategies have been promoted by researchers as practices to increase performance and retention, some practices have been shown to have unintended negative effects on students such as increasing anxiety. Students often report the debilitating effect of test-taking anxiety on their performance. This study investigated the use of an exam preparation process utilizing clicker questions to help human anatomy students at a community college cope with test-taking anxiety by practicing answering timed questions and regularly confronting the specific impact of anxiety on their performance. Students completed early and late semester surveys which measured self-reported test-taking anxiety levels and social anxiety in response to various teaching practices. There was no difference in test-taking anxiety between students who received clicker questions and students who did not. However, when comparing test taking anxiety across a subset of students who took both the early and late surveys, independent of treatment, a significant decrease in test taking anxiety was observed from the start to the end of the semester. Students also reported a change in effectiveness of teaching practices, rating lectures as effective early in the semester, while emphasizing active learning more at the end of the semester.

Scholars suggest that culturally responsive instructional supervision (CRIS) is an important component of equitable teaching practices in schools. This fictional case study details the experiences of a fifth-grade team who, along with their principal and their instructional coach, perform a discourse analysis of their own mathematics lessons to diagnose the equity gaps in their teaching and make necessary adjustments. The case narrative highlights the need for equitable teaching practices in the mathematics classroom and the potential needs of school leaders as they work to create more equitable learning environments in their schools through the use of CRIS.

Today, efforts in WAC/WID to address social issues are gaining traction. Parallel to the shift in WAC/WID is a shift in STEM. Practices in STEM are responding to larger social concerns that include recruiting more diverse populations and improving research in consideration of its value and consequence to various publics. Rather than conceive of STEM as a homogeneous group or as representing narrow interests of progress, the social context of STEM is also gaining traction, though the uptake is slower. STEM instructors often lack the knowledge to incorporate social issues into their curriculum, much less address social change through writing instruction. This article contributes to the social turn in WAC/WID STEM in two ways. First, it examines STEM students' attitudes toward science to find out how they view the social in science since its importance in STEM is increasing, but instruction is lagging. And second, given our results, we suggest grant-writing as one way to facilitate the social into STEM writing pedagogy because of its critical importance as a genre in the field.

Many evaluation systems feel like a series of hoops to jump through. Some require goal setting, some require elaborate data collection, and some are a little of both. Regardless of role, it often becomes a box-checking exercise and not a reflective, meaningful process that engenders growth for those engaged in it. In the small rural district of South Summit School District in Kamas, Utah, the authors hoped to go about principal evaluation in an entirely different way. They envisioned something more useful and grounded in principals' work, specifically in the area of instructional leadership that would also promote growth. This article is an account of how the authors used survey results, formed a professional learning community (PLC) with principals, and built a framework of the four themes that emerged that function together for a meaningful process of collaborative inquiry and evaluation.

Vocational and technical education programs continue to play a pivotal role in developing workers' occupational safety and health skills in all industries. The Agricultural Safety Education Initiative was first conducted in the summer of 2017 as a multi-year "Train the Trainer" program to improve teachers' tractor and machinery knowledge. The National Safe Tractor and Machinery Operations Program (NSTMOP) Curriculum was used to develop and organize the training program. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of a multi-year agricultural safety education professional development model. A total of 85 teachers participated in the third year of the training program. Teachers' average NSTMOP test score was 41.9 out of 50 (SD = 3.62). Teachers attending the training for the first time in 2019 scored lower (40.8, SD = 4.41) than teachers who had attended the training during all three offerings (43.2, SD = 3.00), though the difference was not statistically significant (Kruskal-Wallis H was 5.91 (2) p = 0.052). Post-experience qualitative data findings showed many teachers reported curriculum obtainment as a motivating factor for continued attendance. A benefit expressed by teachers participating in the professional development focused on higher-order instructional and alternative assessment methods for tractor and machinery safety. For these SBAE participants, the involvement in a multi-year approach to professional development is influenced when curriculum is offered.

As the follow-up to an earlier examination of the frequency and outcomes trends of published court decisions under the IDEA for P-12 students, this updated analysis covers the 25-year period ending on December 31, 2022. The frequency trend for the most recent 10 years reversed the upward trajectory of the previous 15 years. The outcomes trend for the most recent 10 years continued the approximate 2:1 ratio in favor of school districts for the completely conclusive rulings, with variance among the 5-year intervals and the intermediate outcome categories, such as inconclusive rulings. For the 25-year period, the frequency of the decisions was highest in Second Circuit region (Connecticut, New York, and Vermont) and lowest in the Tenth Circuit (Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming). The corresponding outcomes for the entire period was most district-favorable in the Eighth Circuit (Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Dakota) and Fifth Circuit (Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas) regions, and the least district-skewed in the D.C. and Sixth Circuit (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee) regions.

Purpose: The aim of the present study was to develop and validate a patient-reported outcome measure for gender incongruence specific to voice and communication parameters, including pitch, intonation, resonance, loudness, speech smoothness, speech clarity, word choice, facial expression, gesture, and posture. Method: The Utah Gender Presentation Scale for Communication (U-GPS) includes 10 items, each on a 10-point scale from masculine to feminine. Items were selected based on literature review and patient focus groups. During test administration, respondents provide their current rating and goal rating for each item. The difference between these scores is used to calculate an overall incongruence score. Prospective data from transgender and gender-diverse (n = 155) and cisgender (n = 69) individuals were then used for a multiparametric psychometric evaluation of the measure. Results: Findings demonstrate excellent levels of internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha for current scores: [Alpha] = 0.943; Cronbach's alpha for goal scores: [Alpha] = 0.970), test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.905), longitudinal validity (improvement in therapy for trans women: F = 293.0, p < 0.001; nonbinary folx: F = 80.9, p < 0.001), concurrent validity (correlation with the Trans Woman Voice Questionnaire: r = 0.51, p < 0.001), and known-group expectations (differences among five gender groups: F = 82.7, p < 0.001). Conclusion: The U-GPS is a meaningful measure of voice-related gender incongruence, which is clinically relevant for assessing goals in gender-affirming voice and communication therapy for individuals across the gender spectrum.

Modern technology threatens traditional modes of classroom assessment by providing students with automated ways to write essays and take exams. At the same time, modern technology continues to expand the accessibility of computational tools that promise to increase the potential scope and quality of class projects. This paper presents a case study where students are asked to complete a "reproducible" final project in an introductory data science course using the R programming language. A reproducible project is one where an instructor can easily regenerate the results and conclusions from the submitted materials. Experiences in two small sections of this introductory class suggest that reproducible projects are feasible to implement with only a little increase in assessment difficulty. The sample assignment presented in this paper, along with some proposed adaptations for non-data science classes, provide a pattern for directly assessing a student's analysis, rather than just the final results.

Analysis of programming process data has become popular in computing education research and educational data mining in the last decade. This type of data is quantitative, often of high temporal resolution, and it can be collected non-intrusively while the student is in a natural setting. Many levels of granularity can be obtained, such as submission, compilation, edit, and keystroke events, with keystroke-level logs being the most fine-grained of commonly used dataset types. However, the lack of open datasets, especially at the keystroke level, is notable. There are several reasons for this failing, with the most prominent being the challenges of deidentification that are peculiar to keystroke log data. In this paper, we present the public release of two fully deidentified keystroke datasets that are the first of their kind in terms of both event and metadata richness. We describe our collection technique and properties of the data along with deidentification techniques that, while not fully relieving researchers of significant effort, at least reduce and streamline manual work in hopes that researchers will release similar datasets in the future.

Using consumer socialization theory, this study examined the associations between perceived influence of parents, peers, employment, and media and spending behaviors of emerging adult college students from three different regions of the US: Northeast, South Atlantic, and Mountain regions. Data from the Emerging Adult Financial Capability Study (N = 2,322) were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Greater parental and employment influences perceived by the students were linked with more responsible spending behaviors, while greater peer and media influences were associated with less responsible spending behaviors. This study highlights the importance of the home and the workplace as the nexus for financial learning. This knowledge can help focus efforts to help future emerging adult college students learn responsible spending behaviors.

The growth of Utah's dual language immersion (DLI) program has led to situations where student and mentor teachers teach in settings far different from their home countries' schools, while supervisors observe lessons in unfamiliar languages. This study examined critical incidents in a cross-cultural student teaching experience consisting of a student teacher teaching in a Chinese DLI classroom and supported by a Chinese mentor and a non-Chinese speaking university supervisor. We collected and analyzed audio from dyad meetings, from a triad meeting, and also audio from one-on-one interviews. Our findings raise questions about differences in how teaching is discussed between triad members, as well as whether such student teaching arrangements inhibit student teacher growth due to language or cultural barriers.

The purpose of this study is to examine the professional development (PD) needs of Chinese dual language immersion program (DLI) educators, particularly the PD supports these teachers receive. This instrumental case study examined the professional learning of four Chinese language DLI teachers through semi-structured interviews and observations of classroom teaching and PD trainings. Findings suggest the Utah DLI model indelibly shapes teachers' work and learning as teachers. Chinese DLI teachers also identify needs that are particular to their teaching role like adapting/translating resources; however, the findings also confirm other scholarship indicating Chinese DLI teachers' particular needs are not well supported. PD received by participants was general in nature, rather than differentiated for Chinese DLI teachers' needs.

This article argues for a Deweyan "democratic design" approach to program leadership that builds programmatic ideals into leadership practices. To illustrate democratic design in practice, we draw from case studies of two partnership programs based in writing studies--a writing partnership between the University of Arizona and area high schools and a collaboration between Salt Lake City Community College and the University of Utah--that utilize community advisory boards and democratic processes to work toward stakeholder-oriented approaches to leadership. Through these case studies, we emphasize three core principles of democratic design, including stakeholder leadership, political vision, and epistemic equity, that can be applicable across a range of programmatic opportunities. For leaders in composition studies who see collaboration as central to their mission, democratic design can serve as a linchpin for aligning processes with values.

Extension is not equitably serving Indigenous communities due to the effects of colonization in the Land Grant System, a lack of funding, and a lack of understanding of the needs of Indigenous communities. The concept of food sovereignty offers a way to create meaningful educational programming and, despite the inequitable access to services, there are some Extension educators that collaborate with Indigenous communities. To understand these collaborations, I investigated the Western Region of Extension through an interview study. The interviews revealed that educators are facilitating programs having to do with food sovereignty that meet communities' goals and respect Indigenous sovereignty.

During the shift to online learning in 2020, the disruption to students and families was nearly universal, but the causes--and effects--varied. In this time, a shocking number of students did not attend school regularly, or at all. The work of the intervening years has been largely twofold: ensure that students reengage with learning and help them to get back on track with their academic progress. Therefore, the most important questions for state board members to ask are, Who is missing? and Why? Finding the answers is the first step to understanding the nature of unmet needs in each state, district, and school so that solutions are responsive. In search for these answers, the author illustrates four individual efforts of schools and states in analyzing attendance data, improving coordination and communication, tackling truancy, and connecting students with mentors, concluding with an explanation of how state boards can adapt the examples to their own needs.

This survey-based study examined how the intensity of the beliefs of novice in-service teachers about reform-based mathematics instruction changed as they crossed the threshold into their first year of teaching. It also investigated the relationship between the influence of new mentors, or "transitional faculty," including mentor teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators, along with curriculum materials, and the changes belief intensity. Results obtained indicated belief changes were highly influenced by transitional faculty and curriculum materials. This study highlights the importance of creating systems to improve mentor selection and training so the work of university personnel is not undone during the novice's first year of teaching.

The National Collegiate Honors Council's "Shared Principles and Practices of Honors Education" (2022) outlines the level of commitment, pedagogical innovation and inclusivity, mentoring, and intellectual leadership that honors programs and colleges expect from their faculty. These high expectations require institutional support structures that compensate faculty fairly, foster ongoing professional development, and build a sense of belonging and community in honors. Emphasizing the importance of faculty who teach, mentor, and guide honors students on their educational journeys, the author draws on firsthand experience to offer specific ideas about how to engage and reward honors faculty. The essay suggests that building a strong honors faculty goes well beyond the initial steps of hiring outstanding teachers and recruiting exceptional mentors. Ultimately, honors programs and colleges that visibly value and celebrate the work of all engaged faculty are most successful in forming lasting honors communities where faculty members feel that they truly belong.

Cooperative Extension employees and primary volunteers have opportunities to improve agricultural literacy among community members, yet little is known about the agricultural literacy proficiency of these community educators. It is generally assumed that Extension workers and volunteers are agriculturally literate; this study sought to provide evidence of existing agricultural literacy proficiency and identify high and low knowledge domains in Kansas, New Mexico, and Utah participants. The following objectives guided the study: 1) Describe the agricultural literacy proficiency of participants by state and focus area, 2) Determine the influence of years of service on agricultural literacy proficiency, and 3) Identify the strengths and weaknesses of Extension professionals and volunteers related to agricultural literacy. The Judd-Murray Agricultural Literacy Instrument (JMALI) assessment was used to capture data. Results showed that Extension professionals and volunteers were either factually literate or applicably proficient. Data indicated that role, years of service, and career stage had no significant relationship with assessment instrument score. We also determined that participants showed a high domain knowledge of agriculture and its connection to the environment but struggled to answer questions related to current topics of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Further research is needed to understand better why early career professionals and younger volunteers had proficiency scores like those with fifteen or more years of experience. The study shows the need for ongoing professional development for Extension employees and primary volunteers focusing on STEM integration and knowledge-based instruction.

In 2018, the BYU ARTS Partnership Native American Curriculum Initiative (NACI) was developed in response to teacher questions regarding the teaching of Native topics. Despite increased movements towards reconciliation, Native groups continue to be marginalized in Westernized educational settings. Additionally, teachers lack clear guidelines regarding the respectful teaching of Native topics. Describing the challenges we, the NACI team members, faced in our six-year journey partnering with Native groups in Utah, we outline key instructional design decisions we made and identify the culturally responsive principles that guided those decisions. We also advocate for the application of culturally responsive principles and practices in education including the amplification of Native voices in the classroom.

In response to the call for centering critical consciousness as a foundational goal in dual language bilingual education (DLBE), this article explores secondary Chinese teachers' instructional practices in Utah Mandarin Chinese DLBE programs and how their instructional practices reflect the missed opportunities and implementational spaces for developing critical consciousness in the backdrop of anti-Asian sentiment. Drawing on theoretical constructs of critical consciousness and using a narrative inquiry approach with ethnographic methods, this study focused on three secondary Chinese DLBE teachers' reported and observed classroom practices concerning the development of critical consciousness. Findings reveal the different ways in which three Chinese DLBE teachers addressed critical topics in classrooms shaped by their attitudes toward the importance of promoting critical consciousness. Their classroom practices demonstrate the missed opportunities as well as implementational spaces to cultivate critical consciousness within the Mandarin Chinese DLBE curriculum. This study provides examples for DLBE teachers to implement critical pedagogies toward the critical consciousness goal and has implications for teachers, educators, families, and communities to support critical consciousness actions in and out of the classroom.

Drawing on a raciolinguistic and AsianCrit lens, we analyze the voices of first-generation Chinese immigrant parents regarding their decisions on whether to enroll their children in Mandarin Chinese dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs. Our findings reveal Chinese immigrant parents' lack of confidence in DLBE programs as a space created for them or a program that can effectively serve their children's English learning and academic needs. Also evident was Chinese immigrant parents' agency in promoting Chinese as a heritage language outside DLBE spaces for their children. This study highlights the marginalization of heritage language-speaking children's interests in DLBE programs and the need to incorporate language-minoritized families' needs and voices in DLBE spaces.

Objective: Previous research suggests that both adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), positive childhood experiences (PCEs), and current life experiences are associated with emotional wellbeing and mental health. The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of these life experience and coping processes on college student emotional and mental health. Participants: College students (N = 555) were recruited from a large western university. Methods: Participants completed an online cross-sectional survey measuring early and current life experiences, cognitive and emotional coping efforts, and emotional and mental health outcomes. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results: There was an indirect effect of PCEs on emotional and mental health through cognitive and emotional coping efforts. No association was observed between ACEs and mental health. Conclusions: Increases in PCEs are protective, enhance coping efforts, and strengthen emotional and mental health outcomes among college students.

The amount of language input bilingual children receive influences their language acquisition. This three-year quasi-longitudinal study determined the extent home language input influences measures of expressive and receptive English vocabulary among Spanish-English school-age bilingual children. The study also determined whether a relationship exists between school of attendance and measures of expressive and receptive English vocabulary among the same group of children. One Spanish-English dual-immersion school and one English-only school in Utah participated in the study. Participants were administered two formal measures of receptive and expressive English once a year for three consecutive years. Results indicate that regardless of their home language, all children demonstrated improvements in receptive and expressive English language skills after three years. Between year one and three, the increase in English receptive language measures were statistically significant among the children who primarily heard Spanish at home. Results revealed that all children made advancements in expressive and receptive vocabulary skills, regardless of their home language and the type of school they attended. Findings suggest that exposure to a language other than English at home is not a detriment to English language development. Additionally, bilingual education is as effective as English-only education in fostering children's vocabulary skills in English.

Dating and sexual violence (DSV) impact significant numbers of students on college and university campuses across the US (Cantor et al., 2019). Unfortunately, college students may not identify their experiences with DSV as such because the language they use to describe their experiences may differ from that used by university administrators in educational and policy materials. Utilizing case study methodology, we conducted 21 focus groups with 53 students and learned that students tend to describe their experiences through specific behaviors (e.g., manipulation and control) rather than terminology encompassing those behaviors (e.g., domestic violence). We provide an overview of the language students use to describe DSV and recommendations for improving policy and education as it relates to addressing DSV among college students.

Background and Context: While biology has strong female representation, computer science is the least gender equitable of the STEM fields. A better understanding of the barriers that keep women out of computational fields will help overcome those barriers to create a more diverse workforce. Objective: We investigated the complexities that influence students' major choice and their sense of belonging. We were particularly interested in students adjacent to computer science and differences by gender. Method: We conducted semi-structured interviews of nineteen students from computer science or bioinformatics courses. We used inductive thematic analysis that included iterative readings of interview transcripts, line-by-line coding, and final theme selection. Findings: Most students described pressures stemming from traditional gender roles as they chose their major, but specific pressures differed by gender. Men were more likely to report early exposure to their major field, and women noted feeling behind without those early experiences. This hurt the women's sense of belonging, as did having few female peers. Implications: Increasing early exposure to coding may increase women's representation and sense of belonging in computational fields. Women from contexts with emphasis on traditional gender roles may be drawn to computational fields if they see opportunities for flexible positions.

This study leverages a policy change in the missionary program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that exogenously influenced the likelihood that a woman took gap time during college to understand how gap time influences women's subsequent choice of major and academic outcomes. If structured gap time shapes educational outcomes, increasing the uptake of gap time by women may be a mechanism to ameliorate later wage gaps. Using administrative data from Brigham Young University (N = 17,402) and an instrumental variables estimation strategy, we find that women who take gap time for missionary service shift into majors with higher expected salaries and are more likely to be in limited-enrollment majors and majors with a higher concentration of men. However, gap time decreases the likelihood of graduating within eight years of entering college, creating tension between the costs and benefits. On average, net benefits of expected wages are close to zero. Gap time most clearly benefits women with relatively low ACT scores who are more likely to be accepted into limited enrollment programs following gap time. This research informs university administrators and students alike seeking to understand the academic implications of taking planned time off during postsecondary education.

Background: The National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs reduce food insecurity and improve dietary intake. During the COVID-19 pandemic, school meals were provided to all children at no cost, regardless of income. This policy is known as Healthy School Meals For All (HSMFA). The purpose of the study was to examine the feasibility of a HSMFA policy in Utah. Methods: A mixed-methods approach was used, including qualitative interviews for policymakers, surveys for school foodservice directors, and financial modeling of Utah Child Nutrition Programs data. Analysis included a phenomenological analytic approach for qualitative data, descriptive statistics for surveys, and development of a cost model with 6 scenarios. Results: Qualitative data revealed themes of (1) awareness; (2) responsibility; (3) perspectives on school meals; and (4) new opportunities. Most (81%) foodservice directors believed HSMFA should continue post-pandemic. HSMFA would cost $51,341,436 to $82,358,375 per year. Implications for School Health Policy, Practice, and Equity: HSMFA would result in the equitable treatment of all children regarding access to healthy school meals. Conclusions: Given the support of foodservice directors but the lack of political consensus, considering stepwise implementation and providing cost estimates may increase feasibility of a HSMFA policy in Utah.

Learning to read is an essential skill for later academic success, positive self-esteem, and gainful employment. Students who display reading difficulties/disabilities at the end of third grade are less likely to succeed in content areas and graduate from high school. Recent data suggests that many students in today's schools do not become skilled readers, and the reading loss widens during summer months due to skill regression. Regression of reading skills is greater for students from low Socioeconomic status (SES) families and for students with disabilities. This study examined the effects of two computer-assisted reading programs on the reading skills of 21 students at-risk for reading failure during a summer break. All students were pre- and post-tested after 8 weeks of intervention. Furthermore, tutors' and students' perceptions regarding the effectiveness and desirability of the programs were measured. A description of the computer programs, results, implications, and limitations of the study are discussed.

Ballet dancers are exposed to the high likelihood of lower extremity injury due to repeated high-impact jumps under stringent ballet rules. The injury incidences occurring in dancers during jump landings are highly associated with excessive vertical ground reaction forces (vGRF) and the sharp loading rate (LR). The aim of this study was to compare vGRF and LR during ballet "sauté" jump landings in dancers with two different skill levels. Impact peak force (F1) and active peak force (F2) were both significantly varied between novice and experienced dancers. The LR was also significantly different between the two groups but no significant differences were found in peak take-off force and jump height. The difference of vGRF during jump landings in different skill levels can be considered as an influential factor for dance instructors, educators, physicians, and dancers themselves in order to support a better jump performance and reduce the likelihood of potential injury.

In this article, we--three Asian MotherScholars in the field of language and literacy education--conducted a collaborative self-study to examine how our individual and shared experiences as transnational mothers of emergent bilinguals have shaped our ways of promoting bilingualism and biliteracy. Our study drew on transnational feminist perspectives and used multimodal data and narratives shared in an online inquiry group. We highlighted ways we leverage our strengths and make conscious efforts to navigate burdens rooted in monolingual ideologies and linguistic hegemony as we raise our bilingual children. We also found how inquiring collectively into our experiences has helped us cultivate critical consciousness and build transnational solidarity. Through our stories, we emphasized the urgency of challenging inequities and pervasive monolingual ideologies within U.S. schools, as well as the necessity of creating a space for immigrant mothers to inquire into their experiences and to support each other.

Most biology undergraduates learn about mutations in multiple classrooms throughout their college career. Understanding personalised genome test results, genome editing controversies, and the appearance of new variants of viruses or antibiotic resistant bacteria all require foundational knowledge about mutations. However, the abstract nature of molecular processes surrounding mutations makes them one of the more difficult topics for students to understand and apply. Instructors need valid assessment tools to document student understanding and tailor their instructional methods to address student knowledge gaps. We describe here the development and validation of the Mutations Criterion Referenced Assessment (MuCRA). This formative assessment was developed through an iterative process involving expert feedback and student responses to both open-ended and multiple-choice questions. The final MuCRA is composed of 10 multiple-choice questions aligned with three learning objectives. The item difficulty for each question was between 0.32-0.65, while the discrimination index ranged from 0.31-0.75 and the reliability (KR20) for the MuCRA was 0.69. The congruence analyses demonstrated distractors are capturing student misconceptions in 9/10 questions. These data indicate that the MuCRA can be used to reliably assess student learning and common misconceptions about mutations.

Agricultural educators can have a profound impact on student's lives and are often aware of their students' life experiences outside of the classroom. Students often treat their agricultural educator as a mentor, which increases their likeliness of confiding in them when facing hardships, such as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). An ACE is defined as a traumatic experience or set of experiences that occur during childhood (ages 0-17). This study aimed to evaluate agricultural educators' personal experiences with ACEs and gauge their confidence levels when emotionally supporting students struggling with ACEs. Using a descriptive, correlational research design, we surveyed 1,075 agricultural educators in four states--Tennessee, Utah, North Dakota, and Illinois--and achieved an 11.91% response rate. The first research objective suggested that agricultural educators had the most experience with physical abuse (Question #1) and parental mental illness (Question #9). Furthermore, nearly half (50.2%) of respondents had at least one ACE, and 10.2% had at least four. The second research objective found that agricultural educators were the least confident in emotionally supporting students with issues related to physical or sexual abuse. In addition, they reported the most confidence in supporting students struggling with mental health or parental divorce. This study reinforces the drastic need for agricultural education to increase programmatic development to support students facing emotional trauma and ACEs. Based on the findings of this study, we recommend investigating the benefits of career and technical education, both academically and emotionally, for students with high ACE scores.

The study described in this paper investigated a unique collaboration among a special education and two general educators that sought to prepare students for success in the general education mathematics curriculum and that consisted of coordinated, reform-based instructional design across classroom and pull-out services provided by the special educator including preteaching. During preteaching, the special educator delivered instruction on key mathematics and collaboration skills that special education students would need a few days before they would receive instruction on the same content in their general education classrooms. Their collaboration produced high levels of teacher satisfaction, substantive teacher change, and increases in student engagement, self-efficacy, and achievement.

The coronavirus has caused major disruptions in the lives of people around the world in 2020. The academic world is no exception. The spread and severity of the virus has resulted in major academic changes in university class availability and content delivery; the use of technology for administrative, faculty and student meetings; how clubs and organizations conduct their affairs; student housing and dining; attendance at athletic, theater and other events; and many other areas. These changes have resulted in a great deal of stress and uncertainty among this demographic group. A 56 question survey was created to measure the perceptions of college students about the impact of COVID-19 on various aspects of their lives, including academic, financial, social, emotional and physical impacts. It was also designed to assess the impact of the pandemic on their attitudes about the future of their studies, careers and personal lives. 823 students completed the anonymous survey during Summer and Fall Semesters of 2020. This paper addresses the impact of the virus on the academic and social lives of college students, including coursework, study habits, communication with other students and faculty members, campus life, social interactions and how the virus has affected their perceptions about their future plans after graduation. It also provides some guidelines on how college teachers and administrators should consider these changes when making decisions that affect them.

The purpose of this quantitative, causal-comparative research study was to determine if and to what extent there were differences in chemistry end-of-course (EOC) examination scores between high school chemistry students taught using POGIL pedagogy and non-POGIL pedagogy in the state of Utah. Piaget's cognitive development theory and Johnstone's cognitive load theory served as the theoretical foundations. A large, public school district in the state of Utah provided the deidentified, archival data for this study, which consisted of students that took a chemistry course and chemistry EOC examination in 2015-2016 or 2016-2017. The research question sought to find whether there was a statistically significant difference in chemistry EOC examination scores for high school students in both groups. A one-way ANOVA demonstrated a statistically significant difference between the POGIL and non-POGIL student groups on the dependent variable of chemistry EOC examination scores, F(1, 314) = 29.91, p < 0.001, partial [eta][superscript 2] = 0.087, (p < 0.05). This study supported POGIL pedagogy as an effective instructional strategy for improving student chemistry EOC examination scores.

Annually, 13% of special educators leave teaching, twice that of general educators (Wong et al., 2017). In June 2017, the U.S. Department of Education and Office of Postsecondary Education announced that 46 states were drastically short of special education teachers (Robinson et al., 2019). This study explores how university special education (SPED) teacher preparation program descriptions entice students to enroll in university SPED program. Results indicate disconnects between university SPED descriptions and the realities of SPED teachers will face in special education classrooms.

In Utah, deaf and hard of hearing elementary school students can access their education--in American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken and written English--from their devices at home. Many secondary students can access online coursework as well. This is thanks to a four-year project undertaken by the Utah School for the Deaf (USD). The goal was to provide online services--even an online school--for deaf and hard of hearing students, for both those in deaf schools and those in mainstream programs. Today, any deaf or hard of hearing student in Utah can take advantage of the USD Online School. Deaf and hard of hearing students can elect to work entirely from home or make up a single high school course for credit. Students in the mainstream can sign onto courses in ASL and see other courses in written and spoken English. A shift in thinking has occurred. Many teachers have re-evaluated traditional notions of what school means and looks like.

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated teachers and students to adopt and adapt to online learning (OL) in a matter of days. The unfortunate school closure situation placed researchers in a remarkable position. This survey-based descriptive study investigated the experiences of teachers in the United States, including an analysis that factors in teachers' existing knowledge of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Specifically, this study focused on student and teachers (dis-)engagement in learning during the pandemic teaching by examining teachers' instructional challenges and teachers' observations of student barriers to learning, and changes that occurred within these areas between spring 2020 and fall 2020. The findings, combining descriptive quantitative and qualitative data, present similarities and differences in teachers' and students' observed experiences depending on the level of training in Universal Design for Learning prior to the pandemic. The discussion offers implications for future areas of research in engaging OL.

We share school leaders' perspectives on Zoom videos concerning the needs of immigrant and refugee families in Title I schools. In these videos, participants crafted and shared personal narratives about their leadership experiences during the COVID-19 era of education. Rooted in participatory design research methods, the process of designing these videos were both a research project and an intervention to assist families and school leaders to better understand each other. We present a close analysis of administrators' perspectives and describe how our codesigned video methodology enabled participants to coconstruct new meanings of school-community relationships during the pandemic through a radical care framework. We conceptualize these reimaginings as aperturas--cracks in the dominant family engagement paradigm that allow us to collectively work towards transformative ends which we term community-centered school leadership. We conclude the article with recommendations for how both school leadership and research can approach and reimagine family engagement post-pandemic.

Compared to urban counties, Utah's rural counties experienced high levels of unemployment. Informed by a statewide needs assessment, Utah State University Extension developed a remote work leadership course to equip business leaders with knowledge and skills to create remote jobs as a solution to rural unemployment. This descriptive evaluation study collected data from course participants (N = 62). Findings showed short-term outcomes were achieved; participants experienced increases in knowledge and skills and had more positive intentions toward creating remote jobs and hiring employees from rural counties. Extension professionals can design and evaluate their programs using the framework in this study.

In this manuscript, we use Reason and Kimball's (2012) Theory to Practice Model to illustrate our experience building a Center dedicated to addressing dating and sexual violence among college students. We provide details of the context in which we work, highlight the processes we engaged in to recruit a broad swath of campus community members to engage in our collective work, and describe some initial outcomes of our work. We conclude with recommendations for campus leaders wishing to explore theory to practice in the context of addressing dating and sexual violence among college students.

Professional development (PD) programs do not always reach the teacher or allow for sustained usage of technology. However, recent studies show that teachers are more open to use technology after increased technology dependence during the COVID-19 pandemic. Motivated by that new openness to technology integration, we used interview and survey data to examine teachers' current practices for learning technology, features of PD that they consider effective and technologies that they want to learn in the future. We found that teachers learn technology in both formal and informal ways, through district-organized PD, independent learning and or by asking for help from peers. We also learned what kinds of technologies teachers want to learn more about, and that active learning and lack of cognitive overload are two of the most important features of PD for teachers in our study. Based on those findings, we offer three concrete recommendations for PD program designers.

This article discusses the lexical and semantic representation through the collocation that appeared in the Coronavirus Corpus. This research investigates the frequent collocates that appeared together with the node word Corona and find out how those collocates construct the meaning through the linguistic system and conceptual system as they are involved in lexical representation. This research offers a new insight into teaching language using Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models (Evans, 2009). The data collected are from the Coronavirus corpus by using the corpus-based method. The strength of the keywords and collocate is measured by using Mutual Information (MI). The MI was set in 5; therefore, three lexemes resulted, i.e., cases, patients, and outbreak. The data were analyzed using the lexical concept and cognitive model proposed by Evans (2009). The research results, in general, reveal that the information is coming from the "authorized institution" and "government's representative"; it needs "the official approval or agreement" before publishing to the media, and in the passive form, it describes the foregrounded information and agentless informational assertion. Therefore, the information should be accurate and firm. However, another lexical concept reveals that the information is terrorizing and terrifying; the educated and trained person should also conduct the treatment.

An emerging research base has highlighted various roles and responsibilities that parents of students with disabilities accept when they enroll their children in online schools. Since finding and using online texts and using various programs and applications that require search and evaluation skills to do work are typical for online learning, it follows that part of parent responsibilities in many families might involve using basic technological literacies or even more advanced digital ones. To focus on the range of technological literacies that parents employ, researchers gathered self-report data from parents about how they engage with online education technologies while working with their children with disabilities. Interviews with (n = 32) parents across six states in the West, Midwest, and Southern United States revealed that parents employ various skills with a specific set of purposes in mind. Literacies were used to (a) perform basic technological computing tasks, (b) evaluate information to supplement existing instructional materials, and (c) communicate with the school about children's needs. Reported purposes for using these skills emerged as (a) instructing, (b) monitoring, (c) advocating, and (d) learning school expectations. Implications of this study include the potential for literacy-based approaches to parent preparation for supporting vulnerable children in online settings.