Purpose: This exploratory qualitative case study investigated one school district's use of peer mentors during the traditional school day to help freshmen excel. It explored teachers' perceptions of how peer mentors use the lenses of belonging and mattering to impact freshmen success. Theoretical Framework: The theoretical framework for this study…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a pre-college summer program at Missouri University of Science and Technology known as Hit the Ground Running (HGR). It used a convergent mixed-methods research design, combining data from semi-structured interviews with HGR participants and institutional data on previous HGR participants…

The University Center Model was designed to serve as an option for attainment of baccalaureate and master's degrees by making 4-year institutions accessible through partnerships with a community college. This model has been prevalent on select community college campus for almost 20 years, with little research to substantiate the effectiveness of…

School leadership is complex and challenging. Given a school leader's link to school improvement and student achievement, their struggle can ultimately become the school's struggle. Coupled with the fast evolving racial demographic changes that are happening in the United States, the work of the school leader acquires another layer of complexity.…

This research brief provides insights on first-generation candidates in graduate management education including data on their motivations, financial plans, and barriers to pursuing higher education. These findings can help business school professionals to better understand and support this population of business school students. The brief draws…

The purpose of this paper is to better understand how emerging artists use information to navigate the transition out of university, using their changing ideas of failure, success, information literacy (IL), and transition to frame the qualitative data. A literature review is used to frame the current understanding of emerging artists and feed…

In 2015, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) announced the AACC Pathways Project, a national initiative designed to support a cohort of community colleges to implement and scale whole-college guided pathways reforms. Thirty community colleges from 17 states were selected for the project and embraced the challenge of redesigning…

Systemic racism in the United States has a far-reaching impact, including on generational wealth and access to education. Extensive research reveals that Black Americans encounter significant barriers in building generational wealth due to a history of discrimination, including redlining and exclusion from government programs. The absence of…

First-generation community college students face barriers and challenges when they transfer to four-year institutions that can impact bachelor-degree completion. This action research study aimed to investigate ways to improve academic success and persistence of first-generation community college transfer students at a four-year college. Data…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how teachers describe their knowledge and experiences with the transition protocols in their building, including measurable IEP goals, goal setting, and the activities associated with their goals as they work with students with high incidence disabilities on their post-secondary…

Background: The motivational climate within a course has been shown to be an important predictor of students' engagement and course ratings. Because little is known about how students' perceptions of the motivational climate in a computer science (CS) course vary by sex, race/ethnicity, and academic major, we investigated these questions: (1) To…

Many students in postsecondary education programs face challenges navigating pathways to good jobs. In particular, students who face barriers to success need accessible pathways to economic mobility, but low income and low tolerance for debt present challenges. These students stand to benefit from strategies at all levels of education (and after…

African American male enrollment in higher education has been declining for decades and African American male completion rates in higher education continue to demonstrate wide disparities. Explanations for these statistics are too often framed through deficit lenses that reinforce negative stereotypes about the motivations and capabilities of…

The findings reported in this paper are based on surveys of U.S. high school students who registered and managed their science and engineering fair (SEF) projects through the online Scienteer website over the three years 2019/20, 2020/21, and 2021/22. Almost 2500 students completed surveys after finishing all their SEF competitions. We added a new…

Several factors, such as declining birth rates, and the COVID-19 pandemic, have contributed to the current downward trend in college enrollments in the United States (Marcus, 2021, May 22). Declining enrollments create a greater focus on retention of students. Retention, however, is complicated by factors such as rising tuition costs, an uncertain…