VTechWorks
VTechWorks provides global access to Virginia Tech scholarship, including journal articles, books, theses, dissertations, conference papers, slide presentations, technical reports, working papers, administrative documents, videos, images, and more by faculty, students, and staff. Faculty can deposit items to VTechWorks from Elements, including journal articles covered by the University open access policy. Email vtechworks@vt.edu for help.
Open Access Policy
Virginia Tech's open access policy enables researchers to deposit the accepted version of scholarly articles with no embargo.
Theses and Dissertations
Virginia Tech was first in the world to require ETDs in 1997, and continues to add scans of older theses and dissertations.
Open Textbooks
More than 50 freely available and openly licensed textbooks are among our most downloaded items.
Communities in VTechWorks
Select a community to browse its collections.
Recent Submissions
Buried Histories: Systemic Motivations for Omitting and Distorting Racial Trauma in U.S. History Education
Johnson, Marcus L. (American Educational Research Association, 2026-04)
Why are histories of racial trauma so often omitted or distorted in U.S. history education? This study investigates the systemic motivations behind curricular erasure by drawing from interviews with historians, cultural studies scholars, and educators. Participants reflected on suppressed or distorted accounts of events such as the Sand Creek Massacre, the Tulsa Race Massacre, anti-Asian violence, and the lynching of Italian immigrants. Findings identify converging ideological pressures, such as nationalism, denialism, and efforts to preserve favorable portrayals of the U.S. government, as key drivers of curricular distortion. This research contributes to critical curriculum studies and the teaching of difficult, violent, and intergenerational traumatizing racial histories by examining how racial violence is remembered, reframed, or buried in public education.
Framing Violent Histories for Reconciliation: A Conceptual Change Perspective on Refutational Teaching in Peace Education
Johnson, Marcus L. (American Psychological Association, 2026-05-14)
This brief report examines how educators frame violent, racialized histories and why those choices matter for reconciliation. Interviews with eight U.S. educators (secondary teachers, university faculty, and public history practitioners) identified five flexible framings: somber, positive, neutral or expository, refutational, and student directed. Grounded in peace psychology, these framings map onto reconciliation-relevant mechanisms, including acknowledgment of harm, humanization, reduced defensiveness, and civic trust. The report highlights refutational teaching from conceptual change research: activating a common misconception, refuting it with evidence, and offering a plausible alternative while preserving student agency. Participants described clearer student understanding and lower defensiveness when lessons began with carefully designed refutations, especially where misinformation was common. Practical guidance is offered for matching frames to context. Limitations include a small, purposive sample and interview data; classroom studies should test these framings for conceptual change and reconciliation-relevant outcomes.
Validation of Candidate Nutrient Screening Thresholds for Freshwater Wadeable Streams in Virginia
Husic, Admin (Virginia Water Resources Research Center, 2026-06)
This report details the activities and findings of Task 2 of the Academic Research Group (ARG) to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for fiscal year (FY) 2026. The goal of this activity was to test how well nutrient candidate thresholds proposed by the Academic Advisory Committee (AAC) in 2016 for wadeable freshwater streams of Virginia's Mountain and Piedmont ecoregions predict the impairment status of streams when using monitoring data collected since 2014. Using data collected since 2014 yielded in the following results: 1) The no-observed effect thresholds are largely reproducible and differ between ecoregions; and 2) The observed-effect concentrations are almost never exceeded and are thus operationally limited.
Determine if Nutrient Criteria for Virginia Section 187 Lakes/Reservoirs Are Protective of Recreational Uses (Microcystin Project – Phase 3)
Bukaveckas, Paul; Walker, Jane L. (Virginia Water Resources Research Center, 2025-06)
This report details the activities and findings of the Academic Advisory Committee (ACC) to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for fiscal year (FY) 2025. This project is part of a study that began in fiscal year (FY) 2023 and is Phase 3 of the study. The overall goal of the project is to determine if Virginia’s current nutrient criteria for Section 187 lakes, which are based on supporting a productive fishery, are adequately protective of recreation, as defined through microcystin concentrations. Microcystin is a toxin that may be released by blooms of cyanobacteria. This project was established to gather concurrent nutrient, chlorophyll, and microcystin data in Virginia reservoirs in 2023 and 2024. During Phase 3, water samples collected by DEQ personnel from lakes/reservoirs in summer 2024 were analyzed for microcystin. The survey results from Section 187 lakes/reservoirs in 2023 and 2024 showed widespread occurrence of microcystin but at low concentrations (<1 μg/L). Nutrient and chlorophyll concentrations were not predictive of microcystin concentrations.
Determine if Nutrient Criteria for Virginia Section 187 Lakes/Reservoirs Are Protective of Recreational Uses (Microcystin Project – Phase 2)
Bukaveckas, Paul; Walker, Jane L. (Virginia Water Resources Research Center, 2024-06)
This report details the activities and findings of the Academic Advisory Committee (ACC) to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for fiscal year (FY) 2024. This project is part of a study that began in fiscal year (FY) 2023 and is Phase 2 of the project. The overall goal of the project is to determine if Virginia’s current nutrient criteria for Section 187 lakes, which are based on supporting a productive fishery, are adequately protective of recreation, as defined through microcystin concentrations. Microcystin is a toxin that may be released by blooms of cyanobacteria. During Phase 2, scientists from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) identified candidate sampling sites from among Virginia’s Section 187 lakes/reservoirs and made recommendations for monitoring in summer 2024 for microcystin. Additionally, water samples collected from reservoirs identified during Phase 1 of the project were analyzed for microcystin concentration.