Loneliness is often seen in college students as they leave established support networks and family. Loneliness is also associated with negative mental health outcomes, including depression and decreased life satisfaction. The authors explored relationships between trauma, dissociation, and loneliness, and assessed the predictive ability of trauma…

Connected learning is "an emerging, synthetic model of learning whose principles are consistent with those of positive youth development, sociocultural learning theory, and findings from ethnographic studies of young people's interest-related interactions with digital media" (Maul et al., 2017, p. 2). It seeks to harness new media…

This chapter describes the ways that the trauma of childhood frames the academic, social, and personal lives of many foster youth as they navigate higher education. In particular, we focus on the role of homelessness, social network fragmentation, and abuse and neglect.

Academic librarians have embraced tools such as e-mail or chat that allow them to deliver reference services virtually, but not many studies have advocated for using social networking sites (SNS) as a medium for answering user questions. Even as reference departments field fewer questions requiring in-depth resources or responses, librarians have…

This study seeks to understand instructors' perceptions of social network analysis (SNA) and network visualizations as learning analytics (LA) tools for generating useful insights about student online interactions in their class. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from three graduate courses taught at a Canadian university at the end…

The present study investigates the self-reported frequency of watching authentic English videos by university EFL students with the intent of practicing listening comprehension skills. The subjects, 37 Slovak university students, were divided into two groups: 17 first-year B.A. students and 20 first-year M.A. students with the same major Teaching…

In this paper, we present findings on social media use by students at two institutions in three levels of postsecondary programs. We find that students are almost universally using at least one social network, with Facebook as the most popular, and Instagram second. Many respondents are simultaneously active on several social networks. However,…

This article shows the result of an international project from the European Commission, and it aimed to analyse 30 cases of effective European entities in the field of adult education, from Poland, Spain, Finland and Italy. The objective was to collect the best strategies that generate good employment and social inclusion results. The research…

This article aimed to identify the usefulness of using social networking sites (SNSs) in an English as a foreign language class. One hundred sixteen undergraduate students of diverse degrees from a polytechnic state-owned university in Ecuador participated in the study, which followed a quantitative design. A descriptive analysis and a linear…

Chapter 1 investigates asks the question how do financial frictions affect the type of human capital investments that students make in college? To study this question, I build a novel dataset covering more than 700,000 U.S. students, merging commencement records with address histories, credit bureau records, and professional resumes. I document…

Lower-level processes have long been overlooked in EFL listening pedagogy. To address this pervasive problem, in this study, a program was designed that integrated WeChat, the most popular mobile instant messaging app in China, into dictation practice. Students in two classes studying a compulsory university EFL course were selected as…

This article contributes to the literature on the value of Virtual Exchanges (VEs) in the field of technology-mediated language learning. Specifically, we report on a pilot program for high school English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in Slovakia and English as a Second Language (ESL) learners in Michigan, USA who engaged in a 10-week,…

As we move forward in the era of globalization where linguistic diversity is greater than ever, the standard language cultures we live in continue to shape our thoughts about language. One common space dominated by the standard language mindset is the higher education where linguistically diverse faculty are stigmatized by their language,…

This action research project examined a rural band director's attrition/retention and possible reasons for staying or leaving a position. The purpose of this case study was to describe a rural band director's experience with content-related professional development and support networks, providing access to and a process for collaboration in…

The 2022 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages was held March 3-5, 2022, in a virtual format. The theme, "Maximizing the Power of Proficiency," is an homage to the important work that world language educators do every day. While each educator brings their own unique strengths and insights to the classroom, they…