Given the importance of academic motivation for student retention and persistence and that most undergraduate students participate in paid employment, this study investigated first-year undergraduate student employment and its relationship with academic motivation. Specifically, this study used the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education…

This paper examines the communication patterns of an academic program and the power dynamics between faculty, staff, and student workers. This study utilized participatory action research and consisted of two cycles of data collection. Additionally, this study relied heavily on current research and findings for nonacademic programs like libraries…

Recent reports show that low-income students make up a significant share of those participating in higher education, and their well-being constitutes a key factor that influences their college success. This mixed-methods study examined first-year, low-income students' time use and its relationship to well-being framed by an equity-oriented lens…

The Mystery Room is an educational escape room based on information literacy and applied to multiple audiences, including first-year students and library student employees. In this article, we explain how we developed the game, its theoretical underpinnings, and why it's a flexible workshop for a variety of audiences.

This dissertation uses a cross sectional quantitative design to investigate the relationship between first-year college students' social class and their pre-college interest in engaging in co-curricular experiences during college, their motivations for engaging in co-curricular experiences, and their perceptions of whether co-curricular activities…

With the rise of big data, artificial intelligence, and other emerging information technologies, an increasing number of students without computer science (CS) backgrounds have begun to learn programming. Programming is considered a complex task for beginners, and instructors find it difficult to quickly address all the problems that students…

Retention of 1st-year students is a challenge facing higher education and remains relevant for all stakeholders. Low persistence negatively affects individual students, institutions, and society as a whole. Nationally, a significant number of students have reported working while in college, particularly 1st-generation, low socioeconomic status…

Students may have experiences that relate to long-term retention and success during the summer after completing their first year in college. Research shows that college students' engagement and success varies based on their cultural and social capital. However, there is a dearth of research on how their cultural and social capital is associated…

The majority of community college students work while attending college, and many work because their financial situations dictate that they do so. In fact, 29% (N=341,825) of 2019 Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) cohort respondents report working for pay more than 30 hours per week. Yet, working and attending college…

Once students get to university attendance is no longer mandatory as it was in their secondary classrooms. This leads to students being able to make their own decisions regarding attendance and it is important, as instructors, to understand the reasoning behind their decisions to attend or not attend their classes. In an informal survey of 33…

This paper examines the role of sociodemographic characteristics on non-traditional mature freshmen higher education dropout rates. One of Chile's largest higher education institutions, which has an important number of mature students from more deprived social sectors, was used as a case study. A quantitative methodology was applied, based on the…

This paper reports on a participatory action research study that investigated the life circumstance associated with first-year education students who displayed limited participation with their study activities within a regional university. The life circumstance presented in this paper include first in family, age, socio-economic status, living…

Higher education programs for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) offer opportunities to engage in college experiences including access to typical college courses. The purpose of the present study was to examine data from federally funded programs in order to describe and identify predictors of inclusive course…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between when in the fall semester a first year experience (FYE) course was taken to fall-to-spring retention of first time students at a large, Chicago suburban community college. Since most of the students' attrition has been in the first year in college, FYE programs have been designed to…

The purpose of this study was to use the National Survey of Student Engagement's (NSSE) measures of student engagement to determine whether there were different levels of student self-reported engagement scores when comparing freshman and senior level students who attend work colleges (WC) with public, four-year, small, highly residential…