Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been integrated into higher education systems as an option for delivering online professional degree and certificate programs; however, concerns about whether employed professionals actively participate in MOOCs remain unresolved. Some researchers have described learners' employment as the major cause of…

This paper explores the relationship between the social context of schools, measured in terms of perceptions of teacher support and students' openness to diversity, and the academic persistence of immigrant and refugee newcomer students. It investigates whether newcomer adolescents' academic persistence varies by the perceived supportiveness of…

Student persistence in the first year of studies is a crucial concern in online higher education. Recent accelerated growth in online programs due to the COVID pandemic has increased concerns over higher dropout rates, which are often connected to students' time challenges--time poverty, juggling multiple commitments, and fitting studies into busy…

The purpose of this review was to synthesize the literature on attrition and retention in instrumental music and to identify strategies to encourage students' continued participation in school bands and orchestras. Retaining members from 1 year to the next is a key factor in building ensembles and helping individual musicians reach their full…

Diversity and inclusion in the field of physics has been an important area of research in the last two decades. However, such work has scarcely looked at the concerns and barriers faced by LGBT+ physicists, despite numerous indications they face discrimination in wider society. This article presents the first study looking at the climate…

Based on the life history perspective, this study tested a serial mediation model in which family socioeconomic status (SES) related to person-job fit via resource scarcity, career exploration, and goal persistence. We expected that when seeking employment, higher SES students would perceive lower resource scarcity, and, in turn, adopt more…

We pilot tested an identity-based relevance-writing intervention designed to support developmental community college students' (N = 54) educational commitment, value, and persistence. The intervention was embedded within regular journal assignments in two study skills courses with a third section serving as a comparison group. The intervention…

Physical education teachers with a strong sense of purpose are more resilient and maintain high-level performance over time. Therefore, this longitudinal, mixed-methods exploratory case study describes how two teachers' (Gary and Wayne) sense of purpose in life and well-being has influenced their intent to remain teaching in high-poverty schools.…

This research investigates whether teachers' unions influence student academic achievement in Southern states that prohibit collective bargaining. Our data are from the School and Staffing Survey and the Stanford Education Data Archive. We measure the strength of teachers' unions by union membership rate and meet-and-confer status of a district…

The role of the Adventure Sports Coach (ASC) has recently become the focus of academic interest. Although research emerging from the field is beginning to diversify, the majority is limited in terms of sampling and methodology. The current study broadened the participant base by providing a demographic analysis of ASCs. An online survey of 504…

Background: Grades in college and university STEM courses are an important determinant of student persistence in STEM fields. Recent studies have used the grade offset/grade penalty method to explore why students have lower grades in STEM courses than their GPAs would predict. The results of these studies are in doubt; however, as they use GPA as…

Prior studies have suggested that grit and resilience predict both academic and career success. However, these qualities have not been examined in children with reading disorder (RD). We therefore investigated whether grit and resilience were associated with anxiety, depression, academic performance, and quality of life (QOL) in these students.…

Lower division chemistry and chemical engineering courses commonly emphasize efficient acquisition of core content. While experts perceive the organization of the discipline, students perceive their courses as fragmented. This has a more severe impact on students from groups historically excluded from STEM fields, who may not have a deep…

Most community college students are required to take developmental math; however, many do not complete their required math sequence. Supporting students through this coursework is an ongoing challenge for institutions of higher learning, especially those with open access missions. Although community colleges offer various support services to…

Retaining new teachers has long been an issue that has plagued K-12 education (Garcia & Weiss, 2019; Ingersoll, 2001; Kelchtermans, 2017). While there is significant literature on general K-12 teacher retention (Borman & Dowling, 2008; Chapman & Hutcheson, 1982; Hanushek et al., 2004; Whipp & Geronime, 2015), there has been little…