Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented number of higher education institutions adopted test-optional admissions policies. The proliferation of these policies and the criticism of standardized admissions tests as unreliable predictors of applicants' postsecondary educational promise have prompted the reimagining of evaluative methodologies in…

Objective: To examine what factors impact college students in the United States who are deciding to initiate or continue mental health services. Participants: Spring 2021 undergraduate students (N = 453) at a large urban university. Methods: Online, cross-sectional survey with mental health service experience as the independent variable and social…

Existing research demonstrates gender- and race/ethnicity-based inequities in college outcomes. Separately, recent research suggests a relationship between time poverty and college outcomes for student parents and online students. However, to date, no studies have empirically explored whether differential access to time as a resource for college…

Collaborative drawing is a multimodal approach to examining problems within small groups of individuals when the perspectives of multiple stakeholders should be considered. Collaborative drawing can be useful for helping students visualize and analyze a challenging problem from different world views and provide opportunities to confront, discuss,…

This study investigates the attitudes of educators of different race, class, linguistic, political, and disciplinary backgrounds at a large, urban, public university to code-meshed Black English in academic texts. This research draws on surveys as well as interviews gauging how educators responded to the idea of code-meshing not only in principle…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore advisor accessibility and its connection to academic achievement using technology as a means of communication with African American males at a four-year urban university. Qualitative data was collected through the interviews of five advisor participants and ten student participants. The study…

This qualitative study examined the experiences of nonbinary students in higher education at an urban, public, research institution in the Midwest. Purposeful sampling was used to find interested participants. Interviews from eight currently enrolled students who are nonbinary were transcribed. Numerous codes were developed from the interviews…

Trauma-informed frameworks are needed in metropolitan and urban university settings because many who enter higher education have experienced trauma or will experience trauma while at the university. This paper addresses the neurobiological and psychological underpinnings of trauma and addresses how these experiences can pose academic challenges,…

A method called multi-attribute utility analysis (MAUA) provides a decision-making framework that facilitates comparative analysis of multiple real-world decision alternatives with unique complex attributes. Utility analysis as a measure of effectiveness has been minimally used by educational researchers to date, despite clear relevance in complex…

A growing number of colleges and universities have come to recognize the role and responsibilities they have in the economic and social fabric of their surrounding communities and regions as anchor institutions. Yet, the conditions of urban communities surrounding even the most engaged universities--including under-resourced public schools,…

Purpose: Readers can draw on their knowledge of sound-to-letter mappings to form expectations about the spellings of known spoken words prior to seeing them in written sentences. The current study asked whether such orthographic expectancies are observed in the absence of contextual support at the point of reading. Method: Seventy-eight adults…

This dissertation explores the experiences of first-generation, Black male college students in a predominantly white, urban commuter institution in the United States. It focuses on understanding their challenges and developing strategies to enhance their connection to the educational environment of a university. The central research question…

The purpose of this empirical investigation is to examine the predictability of selected demographic factors on the job satisfaction among faculty and staff employed at an urban university. Specifically, this study examined the predictability of the demographic factors (gender, ethnicity, age, and years of experience) on the general, extrinsic,…

Drawing on critical literacy as a theoretical framework, this paper explores how a children's book writing assignment designed to center the experiences of underrepresented communities in children's literature contributed to shifts in awareness among predominantly White teacher candidates. The study occurred at a large urban university in…

Objective: To examine health behaviors associated with overweight/obesity by race/ethnicity at a diverse urban college. Participants: 270 undergraduates (77.0% female; 26.7% non-Hispanic white) and median body mass index (BMI) of 23.1 kg/m2. Methods: A questionnaire about health-related behaviors as part of the "Get Fruved" project was…