Fall 2025 - Summer 2026
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Jacinta Olson
Friday, November 7, 2025; 1:00 PM; Zoom
Title: INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO ANALYZING MULTIPLE CHOICE DISTRACTORS: EXPLORING PATTERNS AND RELATIONSHIPS IN EDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT
Committee Chair: Jonathan Templin
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Abigail Van Patten-Freeman
Tuesday, November 18, 2025; 1:00 PM; S350 LC
Title: The Effects of Executive Function and Organizational Support on Perceived and Aspirational Wellness in Counseling Professionals with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Committee Co-Chairs: Susannah Wood; Randall Boen
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Mark Valencia
Friday, November 21, 2025; 2:15 PM; Zoom
Title: Hispanic Student Engagement at Hispanic Serving Institutions and Predominantly White Institutions
Committee Chair: Cassie Barnhardt
MA Thesis Defense: Erica Dorman
Monday, December 1, 2025; 10:00 AM; Zoom
Title: Interactions Between Level 1 Predictors in Multilevel Models
Committee Chair: Lesa Hoffman
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Guangyun Liu
Thursday, December 17, 2025; 2:00 PM, Zoom
Title: Exploring Simultaneous Linking in Vertical Scaling
Committee Chair: Ariel Aloe
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Christopher Like
Thursday, December 18, 2025; 9:00 AM; 459 LC
Title: OPENSCIED IN PRACTICE: MEASURING EFFECTIVENESS ACROSS IOWA’S EDUCATIONAL LANDSCAPE
Committee Chair: Jeffrey Nordine; Co-Chair: Lesa Hoffman
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Tingting Chen
Monday, January 26, 2026; 2:00 PM; Zoom
Title: The Development and Use of Adapted Criterion-Referenced Reliability Indices for Composite Measures with Subscale-Level Cut Scores
Committee Chair: Walter Vispoel; Co-chair: Won-Chan Lee
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Benjamin Smith
Wednesday, February 4, 2026; 9:30 AM; Zoom
Title: Improving Academic Outcomes through SEL in Special Education: A Multiple Baseline Study
Committee Chair: Miranda Zahn
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Bianca Schamberger
Thursday, February 19, 2026; 10:00 AM; Zoom
Title: Social studies teachers’ collaborative negotiation and principled adaptation of student-driven inquiry into complex social issues: Iterative design of a teacher professional learning workshop
Committee Co-Chairs: Pam Wesely; Eric Freedman
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Kayleigh Koester
Wednesday, March 25, 2026; 9:00 AM; Zoom
Title: Spotlight on School Board Goals: Evaluating Validity Evidence for an Operationalized Board Goal Monitoring System
Committee Chair: Lesa Hoffman
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Junhee Park
Friday, February 27, 2026; 1:00 PM; S340B LC
Title: Impact of Integrating Response Time into Item Response Theory on Educational Assessment.
Committee Chair: Stephen Dunbar
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Xiaoyu Tang
Monday, March 30, 2026; 11:00 AM; S204 LC
Title: Integrating Translanguaging Pedagogy with Multimodal Embodied Technologies to Afford Sense-Making in Science Learning
Committee Chair: Matthew Lira
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Logan Drake
Wednesday, April 1, 2026; 9:00 AM; N434 LC
Title: Anti-DEI Laws in Iowa: Understanding High School Social Studies Teachers' Decision-Making Around Controversial Topics
Committee Chair: Brian An
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: I-Chun Hsiao
Thursday, April 2, 2026; 9:00 AM; Zoom
Title: Fairness, validity, and impact of a standardized English proficiency test in EMI contexts and beyond: A mixed-methods study of test takers’ perceptions
Committee Chair: Lia Plakans
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Kayla Kemp
Friday, April 3, 2026; 12:00 PM; N340 LC
Title: The Experience of Leadership: A Phenomenological Analysis on the Leadership Experiences of Masters-level Counseling Students
Committee Chair: Laura Gallo
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Cheryl Ferguson
Monday, April 6, 2026; 11:00 AM; S204 LC
Title: What’s for Lunch? Visual Prompts as Distributed Cognition Systems for Individuals with Dementia
Committee Co-Chairs: Kathy Schuh; Kay Ramey
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Michael Thornburg-Suresh
Tuesday, April 7, 2026; 12:00 PM; Zoom
Title: Humbling supervision: How supervisees’ insights of supervisors’ relational humility applies to the supervisory working alliance and counseling self-efficacy.
Committee Chair: Stacy McElroy-Heltzel
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: LaShelle Morrison
Wednesday, April 8, 2026; 12:00 PM; S104 LC
Title: Experiential Learning Theory and Co-Curricular Involvement
Committee Chair: Kathy Schuh
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Stephnie Erps
Friday, April 10, 2026; 12:30 PM; N461 LC
Title: Grading Science for Mastery: How Teachers Navigate NGSS Assessment within a Standards-Based Grading Framework
Committee Chair: Jeff Nordine
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Michala Cox
Monday, April 13, 2026; 10:00 AM; 348 LC
Title: How Exhibit Design Facilitates Patterns of Parent-Child Causal Reasoning
Committee Chair: Matthew Lira
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Tevin Middleton
Monday, April 13, 2026; 1:00 PM; N111 Lindquist Center
Title: Examining the Role of Organizational and Contextual Factors on School Counselors' Perceived Social Determinants of Health Competency
Committee Chair: Gerta Bardhoshi
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Jason Wang
Tuesday, April 14, 2026; 9:00 AM; S104 LC
Title: Understanding the Sex Education of Gay Men of Color: A Consensual Qualitative Research Study
Committee Chair: Julie Koch
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Lorry Wilson
Tuesday, April 14, 2026; 9:00 AM; Zoom
Title: FROM LEADERSHIP TO CLASSROOM PRACTICE: SCHOOL LEADERS’ INFLUENCE ON SOCIAL SKILL INSTRUCTION FOR SECONDARY STUDENTS WITH BEHAVIORAL DISORDERS
Committee Chair: Liz Hollingworth
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Hong Chen
Tuesday, April 14, 2026; 10:00 AM; S340B Lindquist Center
Title: mstATA: An R Package for IRT-based Multistage Test Assembly
Committee Chair: Catherine Welch; Co-Chair: Stephen Dunbar
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Amira Nash
Tuesday, April 14, 2026; 2:00 PM; N262 Lindquist Center
Title: A Transraciolinguistic Approach: Experiences of African-born Immigrant College Students through Storytelling
Committee Chair: Saba Vlach
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Sora Kim
Wednesday, April 15, 2026; 8:00 AM; Zoom
Title: (im)Politeness Negotiated Between Teachers and Students in Korean as a Foreign Language Classrooms in the United States
Committee Chair: Pam Wesely; Co-chair: Sam Tanner
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Mubarak Mojoyinola
Thursday, April 16, 2026; 10:00 AM; S340B LC
Title: Applications of Item Difficulty Modeling in Statewide Assessment
Committee Chair: Catherine Welch
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Nathan DePuy
Friday, April 17, 2026; 1:30 PM; S340B LC
Title: On the Feasibility of applying the No U-Turn Sampler to Small-Sample Item Parameter Estimation in Two-Parameter Logistic Item Response Theory Models
Committee Chair: Stephen Dunbar; Co-Chair: Catherine Welch
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Joshua D'Amico
Friday, April 17, 2026; 3:30 PM; N434 LC
Title: Fourth and Goal: Examining the Addition of a Football Program as an Enrollment Management Strategy at NAIA Colleges and Universities
Committee Chair: Cassie Rader
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Aubrey McEnroe
Wednesday, April 29, 2026; 9:00 AM; S104 Lindquist Center
Title: Farm Stress, Discrimination, and Mental Health Outcomes: A Moderation Analysis of Women in Agriculture
Committee Chair: Martin Kivlighan
Ph.D. Thesis Defense: Anqi Yu
Friday, May 1, 2026; 12:00 PM; N340 LC
Title: Explore the relationship among perceived parental conditional regard, self-criticism, differentiation of self, and emotion regulation in counselors-in-training
Committee Chair: Susannah Wood; Co-Chair: Yung-Wei Lin