- Associate Professor, Educational Psychology, School of Education and Human Development
I specialize in bilingual education (2-language instruction) and biliteracy development, particularly for Hispanic, English learners (ELs)/emergent bilinguals (EBs). My research focuses on three areas: biliteracy (STEM) discourse development in adults (teachers) and children, professional identity formation in pre-service bilingual education teachers (teacher candidates), and mentor/instructional coaching for early career teachers. Methodological articles that I have published include: (1) primers for health professionals--practitioner research (action research) and collaborative, analytical autoethnography (CAAE); (2) and a methodological quality scale (the Methodological Quality Questionnaire [MQQ]) for systematic reviews published in Sage Open, an open access journal.
Additionally, I have worked on transdisciplinary teams as an expert in issues related to second language acquisition, bilingualism, biliteracy, and teacher professional development. My ongoing collaborations with social work and health promotion researchers have produced several publications, such as evaluations of health literacy assessment instruments translated for limited English proficient (LEP) adults and comparisons of machine versus human translations. As a result, I am now looking at natural language processing (machine language) as a tool to increase content area literacy for ELs/EBs.
Currently, I am completing a research study, funded by Texas A&M Presidential Transformational Learning Grant ("Health Literacy Page-by-Page: Incorporating Graphic Novelettes into Stem Inquiry Lessons"), on the use of graphic novelettes by pre-service teachers as a STEM curricular resource.
- M.Ed. in Public School Administration, St. Thomas University - (Miami Gardens, Florida, United States)
- Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, Texas A&M University - (College Station, Texas, United States)
- B.A. in Spanish (Literature), The University of Texas at Austin - (Austin, Texas, United States)
- M.A. in Spanish (Philology), University of Wisconsin - Madison - (Madison, Wisconsin, United States)
Academic Articles20
- Chen, X., Goodson, P., Acosta, S., Barry, A. E., & McKyer, L. E. (2018). Assessing Health Literacy Among Chinese Speakers in the U.S. with Limited English Proficiency.. HLRP Health Literacy Research and Practice. 2(2), e94-e106.
- Chen, X., Acosta, S., & Barry, A. E. (2017). Machine or Human? Evaluating the Quality of a Language Translation Mobile App for Diabetes Education Material.. JMIR Diabetes. 2(1), e13-e13.
- Gonzalez, J. E., Acosta, S., Davis, H., Pollard-Durodola, S., Saenz, L., Soares, D., Resendez, N., & Zhu, L. (2017). Latino Maternal Literacy Beliefs and Practices Mediating Socioeconomic Status and Maternal Education Effects in Predicting Child Receptive Vocabulary. Early Education and Development. 28(1), 78-95.
- Hsu, H., Lin, J., Kwok, O., Acosta, S., & Willson, V. (2017). The Impact of Intraclass Correlation on the Effectiveness of Level-Specific Fit Indices in Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling: A Monte Carlo Study.. Educational and Psychological Measurement. 77(1), 5-31.
- Chen, X., Acosta, S., & Barry, A. E. (2016). Evaluating the Accuracy of Google Translate for Diabetes Education Material.. JMIR Diabetes. 1(1), e3-e3.
- BEFB425 Student Teaching Besl Instructor
- BEFB470 Biling Assess & Monitoring Instructor
- BEFB472 Biling&dual Lang Method Instructor
- BEFB474 Biliteracy Biling&dual Instructor
- BEFB476 Content Area Instruction Instructor
- BESL613 Span/eng Biliteracy Instructor
- BESL618 Early Lang And Literacy Instructor
- BESL619 Second Lang Acqusition Instructor
- BESL621 Methods For Bied Research Instructor
- BESL683 Field Practicum In Instructor
