The purpose of this qualitative case study is an exploratory study to examine what contributes to the failure of the persistence of non-residential single-parents pursuing a college degree. The participants of this study included ten non-residential single-parent students between the ages of 21 and 50. The site of the interviews was in the…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the experience of "discontinued enrollment" for military veteran students at western Virginia community colleges. The theory guiding this study was Schlossberg's (1981) transition theory, as the military veteran students were in transition from the military to the community…

The 2012/17 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:12/17), conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) at the U.S. Department of Education, is the second follow-up of students who began postsecondary education in the 2011-12 academic year. BPS:12/17 draws from the 2011-12 National Postsecondary Student Aid…

This article describes original research to determine reasons graduate students do not complete requirements for a Master's (M.Ed.) in Middle Level Education degree at the Southeastern University. Since the program's initial cohort the graduation rate has decreased. Program faculty was concerned about the increasing difference between the number…

This article analyses the university experiences of 44 students with disabilities. The voices of Spanish students describe the reasons that lead them to choose a given university degree, their transition in the university, the perception they have of themselves as students and how they evaluate their academic results. This study was done with the…

The number of nontraditional students enrolled in higher education is rising, but retention of these students is a challenge. This study used a qualitative framework to examine the experiences of nontraditional undergraduate students in a university setting. Nine participants completed open-ended questionnaires, and we transcribed and coded the…

Acting as the lead agency for the "National STEM Consortium" (NSC), Anne Arundel Community College (AACC) engaged Hezel Associates to provide an independent program and impact evaluation of the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL)-funded STEM certificate initiative. This report is comprehensive and covers the findings from all 4 years of the…

The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of mainland college students, graduates of a unique Hawai'i high school, to identify factors that influenced higher education persistence. Students not persisting at college, a problem for students and higher education institutions is defined for this study as a student that did not return…

This article reflects on evidence drawn from an evaluation of the impact of a scholarship programme for students from disadvantaged backgrounds at Macquarie University, Sydney. In addition to evidence of improved retention rates, the article suggests that qualitative data derived from a number of interviews with scholarship recipients highlight…

Journey to College and Career (JTCC) is a PreK-12 program implemented at the research site to help students graduate from high school and plan for their future. JTCC had not been evaluated for its effectiveness at the research site regarding high school retention by determining (a) whether the goals and objectives of JTCC were being met and (b)…

Student veterans face many challenges when transitioning to college. This two-phase study first examined their retention and persistence through the use of archival data at one Midwestern public university. Results indicated a 50% graduation rate, comparable to the national average and above that for nonveterans at the same university. The second,…

This study captured the experience and perceptions of faculty members who have implemented Universal Design (UD) in their courses, to understand the implementation process and outcomes UD had on their students and themselves; as the current research on UD has been long on best practices, and short on empirical evidence. A thorough review of…

One of the driving forces behind the design of the Pathways to Results (PTR) initiative is to dismantle and redesign systems to produce equitable outcomes. This notion of systems producing the exact outcomes for which they were designed can also be applied to the Pathways to Results methodology itself. After five years of leading PTR initiatives…

Using data in a professional learning community is a promising form of professional development. In this study, we followed a data team of teacher educators, who systematically tried to improve the education of student teachers (by decreasing first year drop-out). By conducting a single case study, we investigated the data team participants'…

Strategies for understanding the effect of negative life events on the psychosocial development of youth have focused on the aggregate association between risk factors and poor developmental outcomes. However, there is a strand of research in developmental psychology that has pushed for understanding the contextual nature of negative life events;…