College persistence and completion rates for students from families earning low incomes are consistently lower than for students from wealthy families. Some of these inequitable gaps may be associated with students' perceptions of fit and belonging at higher education institutions dominated by upper-middle-class systems and norms. This…

Researchers, institutional leaders, government policy makers, and leading foundations note the significant role an educated Latina/o population plays in the nation, future workforce, and democracy. This longitudinal study examines the experiences in U.S. colleges and universities that prepare Latina/o students for participation in American…

The purpose of this study was to use the National Survey of Student Engagement's (NSSE) measures of student engagement to determine whether there were different levels of student self-reported engagement scores when comparing freshman and senior level students who attend work colleges (WC) with public, four-year, small, highly residential…

Students' motivational and affective responses to mathematics are related to their academic performance. This mixed methods study involved survey results from 394 middle and high school high ability students. Data revealed that students believed success was possible, and that the usefulness and enjoyment of mathematics precipitated high…

Due to the complexity of the counseling process, counselors-in-training often experience performance anxiety when entering the counseling profession. Research shows that higher counseling self-efficacy (the belief in oneself to perform counseling skills successfully) helps decrease performance anxiety. Further, a strong supervisory working…

Since the turn of the century, higher education organizations and educational policy makers have urged U.S. colleges and universities to internationalize due to globalization pressures of the twenty-first century. The desired outcome of these internationalization efforts is intercultural competence. Decades of literature have provided a number of…

Obtaining a degree from a community college could be the opportunity for students to advance their education or career. Nevertheless, nearly two-thirds of first-time community college students in the U.S. were required to take developmental mathematics courses. The problem was that approximately three-fourth of those students did not successfully…

This dissertation presents multiple studies with the purpose of understanding the connections between undergraduate engineering students' motivations, specifically students' Future Time Perspectives (FTPs) and Self-Regulated Learning (SRL). FTP refers to the views students hold about the future and how their perceptions of current tasks are…

Colleges and universities commonly implement first-year seminars to support new students during the challenging and formative first semester. These programs are widely regarded as highly effective in promoting student persistence through the first year and beyond. However, attention on the indirect outcome of persistence as the primary measure of…

A recurring theme in the literature is that simulation is a positive teaching strategy when compared to other methods of instruction and produces positive student outcomes (Jefferies, 2016). Simulation provides educators a way to reproduce a clinical teaching experience in a safe, supportive learning environment. The purpose of this quantitative…

Graduate students enrolled in clinical, counseling, and school psychology doctoral programs are required to complete a one-year internship prior to graduating and earning their degree. Recently, an imbalance has grown between the number of internship positions and the number of applicants, with more applicants than available internship positions.…

This mixed-methods study with a narrative component explored the effect athletic participation played on the academic achievement of senior student-athletes and non-athlete in a public school in Northern New Jersey. The motivation for the study was the conflicting perceptions and research as related to the impact athletic participation had on…

Mindfulness-based practices are associated with increased attentional qualities, improved self-focus styles, enhanced empathic understanding, and strengthened self-compassion, making these practices a viable addition to counselor training programs. However, current mindfulness training models are primarily designed for relief of psychological…

In response to the main federal K-12 law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the teacher education program standards, teacher education programs have tried to address social and emotional learning (SEL) content in their curricula. Adding information on SEL alone may not be enough to overcome the shortenings of many existing early childhood…

Engagement and motivation for participants in online learning have been studied extensively in business courses and in postsecondary courses. These studies have provided evidence of the difficulty for students to learn from and even complete online courses. Now that online learning is being promoted in high schools to cut costs and provide more…