Engineering education researchers are increasingly integrating qualitative and quantitative research methods to study learning and retention in engineering. While quantitative methods can provide generalisable results, qualitative methods generate rich, descriptive understanding of the investigated phenomenon. On the other hand, a mixed methods…

This article describes how different literatures have suggested the positive role of educational games in students' learning, but it can be hard to find an existing game for student learning. Some lecturers may try to develop a game for their courses, but there were not many effective models for educational board game development. The authors have…

This exploratory mixed methods case study examines the life goals of Finnish social services students (N = 151) and whether they justify their goals with self- or other-focused reasoning. Purpose is understood as reflecting the students' life goals that benefit not only oneself but also others. On the basis of this study, close relationships,…

There are arguably many factors that affect the way a student learns. A recent report by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA) on student academic experience in the UK states that class size is an important factor in the quality of the student experience and that smaller class sizes provide greater…

Directors of entry-level occupational therapy (OT) programs were surveyed regarding how their programs prepare students to become mental health practitioners in schools. Analysis of quantitative data included descriptive statistics to examine participants' ratings of their program's ability to prepare students for mental health practice. We found…

The nearly ubiquitous access to technology and the diversity of social media sites has provided students with easy access to a wide range of information and opportunities for interaction with other individuals. The nature of social media creates a context in which students can determine when they view information, the duration of the viewing,…

Environmental education scholars have argued for the need to focus on identity as a more predictive factor than attitude of individuals' environmental behavior. We examine individuals' decision-making as a mediating process between identity and behavior. University undergraduates (N = 299) were surveyed, with a select sub-sample interviewed. As…

Improving a required course in our curriculum that has proven to be a challenge for our students was the focus of this study. Surveys of both students and instructors attempted to identify specific problem areas. Using the information from these surveys, the researchers developed a series of videos to explain vital course concepts and deployed…

Social presence is a popular construct used to describe how people socially interact in online courses. Online educators continue to try different ways to establish and maintain social presence in online courses. However, research to date has not identified which strategies, or types of strategies, are best for establishing social presence. We…

Ragging has claimed hundreds of innocent lives and has ruined the careers of thousands of students. A total of 717 cases of ragging were reported in the English print media alone across the country from January 2007 to September 2013. However, the media reports tend to focus on extreme cases and do not reveal the true extent of ragging. Moreover,…

Deciding what degree to study and where are very important decisions to make for a range of practical and economic reasons, and much research has been undertaken in this area. What has not been considered previously is the decision-making processes of students who have completed an associate degree, such as a Higher National Diploma or Foundation…

It may be thought that gaining a place at university confers self-belief on students with dyslexia; after all, they have succeeded in their academic studies. Our research explored self-efficacy beliefs in university students with and without dyslexia. An Academic Self-Efficacy Scale and a Sources of Academic Self-Efficacy Scale were completed by…

The purpose of this explanatory mixed methods study was to examine the perceived value of mixed methods research for graduate students. The quantitative phase was an experiment examining the effect of a passage's methodology on students' perceived value. Results indicated students scored the mixed methods passage as more valuable than those who…

Research frequently uses the quantitative approach to explore undergraduate students' anxiety regarding statistics. However, few studies of adults' statistics anxiety use the qualitative method, or a sole focus on graduate students. Moreover, even fewer studies focus on a comparison of adults' anxiety levels before and after an introductory…

The prevalence of industry-sponsored research has led to significant concerns about financial conflicts of interest and the impact on research findings. This case study sought to examine how students considered conflict of interest when establishing the cognitive authority of a journal article. The case study used a mixed methods pretest and…