As employers struggle to fill 9.5 million vacant positions with only 6.5 million workers available across the United States, the role of community colleges becomes critical in educating workers. Open-door access and lower-tuition costs make community college an essential resource for people to access higher education; however, research shows the…

Utilizing interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA), this study describes how the phenomenon of hope is experienced by six first-generation college students at South Texas Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), how student affairs contributed to that hope, and how these students understood the spaces on a college campus relative to their…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive design study was to explore the perceptions of faculty, staff, and students regarding how academic and social integration affected student retention. The theoretical framework used for this study was Tinto's theory of student integration. The two research questions focused on how faculty, staff, and…

The purpose of this study was to examine graduate students' perceptions regarding student-led discussion forums in online classes. Qualitative data were collected from 2014 to 2021 from 65 doctoral students enrolled in a cohort model, fully online doctoral program focused on administration and leadership in education at a doctoral research…

This mixed method study assessed the perceptions of health professional graduate students on a sense of belonging and evaluated the engagement experiences valued most in a graduate program across three domains of belonging, academics and diversity, equity and inclusion. Hispanic students valued building professional relationships with faculty and…

This article presents an experience in teaching mathematical thinking through games in a math course for non-science majors. The course described here has run twice on the campus of Sam Houston State University and is a combination of escape room pedagogy and game-based pedagogy. From these courses, I note an increased engagement of students with…

Afterschool and summer programs offer a multitude of benefits for students and families across the nation, from providing tangible resources like wraparound services to connecting students with supportive adults and peers. These programs not only deliver immediate benefits, but research also shows they bear long-term positive effects on students'…

Assessing the degree to which students engage and learn from their online courses will be important as online courses are becoming more ubiquitous. This study sought to capture student perceptions of their independence as learners, their level of engagement, their effort exerted, and the amount of information they learned in online courses. The…

Although there is high enrollment in online college courses, there are concerns about student engagement (Martin & Bolliger, 2018; Dumford & Miller, 2018). Gamification has been shown to have the potential to improve student engagement. The purpose of the study was to describe how academic student engagement is impacted by Nicholson's…

The concept of 'flexible seating' has emerged as a possibility to meeting the goals of an active learning classroom. Recent scholarship has suggested that numerous student learning predictors are enhanced when interacting with flexible seating. This study aims to fill a gap in the literature by investigating the effects of flexible seating from a…

For many Black boys, poor academic performance and high rates of school discipline are often related to biases in how they are perceived and treated at school. These biases oftentimes misalign with how Black boys view themselves and how family members perceive them at home. Few studies examine how different stakeholders' perceptions of Black boys…

The COVID-19 pandemic has substantially impacted higher education. The unexpected move to online learning and support services has created many challenges. International students, who often are unfamiliar with the culture and norms of American higher education, have been particularly disadvantaged. Analyzing data received through an online survey,…

In envisioning the future of literacy, students' voices are paramount. Students' engagement in classroom talk increases their learning and communication skills, but without intentional implementation, classroom talk can perpetuate hegemony in contemporary classrooms. To better explore this phenomenon, we developed a study in a southeast Texas high…

Schools across Texas are tasked with detailing action plans in support of students identified as at-risk of dropping out (TEA, 2020b). The intent of this study was to learn the perspective of students, identified as at-risk of dropping out, in terms of whether there is a relationship between campus retention/recovery intervention efforts and their…

Computational thinking is acknowledged as an essential competency for everyone to learn. However, teachers find it challenging to implement the existing learning approaches in K-12 settings because the existing approaches often focus on teaching computing concepts and skills (i.e., programming skills) rather than on helping students develop their…